Sunday, November 1, 2009
Goldie
7:15 PM | 
Posted by
Cheryl |
After Toby, it was about 8 years before we brought home another dog. Meanwhile, though, we decided to take the leap and become parents. Of a child. Or so we thought. By the time Amy was one year old, she was obsessed with doggies. At two she drew doggies all the time and was fearless with dogs she met at the beach or playground. At four she turned every preschool art project into a dog. When they were supposed to make a pizza, she made dog's face on hers. When they drew the nativity, all the characters were dogs. At five she argued with the children's choir director during practice about whether or not Amy really was a dog. She would not back down. She had fur on her arms, she said, and she walked on all fours and barked instead of singing. When I picked her up that day from choir she told me none of this, but when I asked her how choir was, she told me, "they're letting me come back."
We decided it was time to have a real dog in the family, so that Amy could go back to being a girl (a strategy that didn't really work). Amy prayed each night for the right dog: "A dog the needs us as much as we need it." We wanted a Golden Retreiver mix, since purebred Goldens were very expensive, but even the mixes cost more money than we had to spend. Finally, a friend told us of someone who had a litter of puppies from a Golden Retreiver/Brittany Spaniel litter, and best of all, they were free. We arranged to meet them in the parking lot of a Burger King halfway between our houses. They had five three-month old puppies with them, and all seemed quite lethargic and disinterested except one light gold skinny pup, who sniffed us and wagged a little. Amy decided she was the one.
It turned out that the puppies had been neglected, born out in the woods. The owners threw leftovers out for them, but didn't really buy proper dog food. Those dogs were hungry and not in the best of health. On the way home, our new puppy laid on Amy's lap, trembling. Halfway home she threw up a combination of sticks, bark, and baloney and brave Amy handled it well. I began to worry, though, that I was bringing home a sick puppy. She had never been in a house or had a collar or leash on. She was frightened of everything. Fortunately, a few visits to the vet, some medicine, good food, and attention, and "Goldie" perked right up. She quickly became Amy's playmate, and giggling ensued.
I love this picture. It was taken during the first week we had Goldie, taken at Meadow Wood Park in Speedway. Amy was so proud of her dog, and Goldie's favorite thing in the world was Amy - especially when Amy was running. Anything that ran deserved to be chased, after all, and the holes in the bottoms of Amy's pants attested to the fact that Amy got caught quite a bit of the time.
In the video above, Amy is doing a "gardening show," but Goldie doesn't really understand why Amy is allowed to dig in the dirt and she is not! Amy included Goldie in all of her favorite things - she created obstacle courses for Goldie to navigate, wrote many stories with Goldie as the main character, and even tried to teach Goldie to read.
When just the right dog comes into your life at just the right time, it's magic.
Goldie added fun, laughter, and quite a few mini-disasters to our days. She played ball incessantly, sometimes catching up to 50 throws in a row without a miss. She was curious about everything, so she was always in the middle of whatever we were doing. And like us, she was a little neurotic. If Goldie had one ball, she wanted to play. If she had two or more balls, she retreated to her bed with them, convinced they were babies that needed protecting. If you threw them, the poor thing really did act like her babies were in danger and retreived them frantically. It was funny to us at first, but Goldie took it all so seriously that we began to make sure she never had more than one ball at a time. After all, when you love someone, you help them with their neurotic bits!
Goldie smiles. Yes, smiles.
Goldie's puppyhood left its mark on our lives. We still own chess sets with half chewed pawns. One nativity set now includes a three legged donkey. Various stuffed animals show evidence of having visited mom's infirmary. One day we came home to find that Goldie had chewed up a blue ink pen and before we could contain her, we had blue ink on our clothes, on my new tennies, and all over the white linoleum floors. But no matter what the casualty of the week was, we loved her and knew she'd grow out of it. And she did.
Goldie was always Amy's study partner. In all those years, she must have learned something! If Amy could have taken her to college with her, she would have. We looked it up in the student handbook online. The rule for the dorms said: No pets, living or dead. One has to wonder why they felt the need to add that last part.
Goldie the confidant is always happy to listen after a tough day at school (or work!). Any time we hug, she is always right there, wanting in on the action. If we are snuggled on the couch, she has to be there, too. If Amy and I began playing, Goldie would run off to get her ball in case we wanted to play with her toys, too. She considers herself one of the family, and she is. I've never had a dog as good at understanding language or at making herself understood. My father in law always says "You can see that dog think!" And you can. She'd always go nuts if we mentioned the word "walk, so at first we spelled it. Then she figured that out, so we started using using other euphemisms: "Go for a stroll" "Go down the street" "Out on our paws" Staying one step ahead of her was not easy!
Goldie used to like to go sledding with us, and would get all excited when snowpants and boots were put on. She doesn't like the cold nearly so much now and in the picture above she is desperately racing back to the house after a necessary trip outside. Last year when the snow was deep we actually had to shovel an area for her, or she wouldn't have gone out at all.
Tricks are Goldie's speciality. Of course she doesn't think of them as tricks, but more as annoying things she must do to get treats. She readily conquered rolling over, playing dead, begging, speaking, and shaking hands, but she got really annoyed when we came up with the "four growl trick." I'd hold a treat in my closed fist, and she had to growl one time for each finger. With each growl, I opened my fist one finger at a time, revealing the treat. She learned to express her contempt for this trick by glaring at me and shaking her head when we did it. Sometimes she'd add a small sneeze to the head shake, for emphasis.
Goldie LOVES Christmas. She'll lay for hours with her nose under the tree, waiting for us all to open presents. She rips open her own presents and if she gets a stuffed toy, it is disemboweled within minutes. Oh, the joy!
Nobody knows how to make Goldie happy like Amy.
College girl Amy home for a visit.
When we come downstairs, Goldie is thumping her tail to welcome us before we reach the last step. At the end of each and every work day, we receive a wiggling, whining welcome. When I used to pick Amy up from school, we'd walk in the door and the greeting would be so boisterous we'd dump the books and lay on the floor petting Goldie and talking over the day. Goldie makes it very clear that she loves us and misses us when we're gone.
Goldie is 13 now, and has some serious health problems. She's fine for now, but some time in the next few years we will have to say goodbye. What a privilege God has given us to be in relationship with our pets - to remember that we are as dependant on Him as they are on us. To experience the unconditional love they offer us, and to be humbled that we're not as good at it as they are. To be given the chance to be patient with them in their wild youth and again in their infirm old age. To know that our lives are also short, and also beautiful. Maybe the right dog at the right time isn't magic, but it is absolutely a blessing. A blessing that we don't get to have very many times in a lifetime.
Postscript: I wrote this a year and a half ago when Goldie was diagnosed with cancer. We thought then that the end was near, but she lived on with a very good quality of life until today. Today we had to put her to sleep, and we let her go with wrenching sadness, but also with a sense of peace. A combination of congestive heart failure, bad joints, and a severely torn ligament made it an obvious, if not easy choice. Coming home to an empty house is awful right now, and it will take a while until that is easier, but we also have photos, videos, and memories to share of a dog that for almost 15 years enriched our lives. In spite of the current sadness, we learned so much from her and we have been so blessed. We would do it all over again if we could.
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2 comments:
Thanks for sharing Goldie with us. What a wonderful tribute to a spectacular family love story!! Hugs to you and your family Cheryl xoxo
Thank you for sharing Goldie with us Cheryl! What a wonderful family love story. Hugs to you and your family. I know how heart breaking it is to have to let them go. You are in my thoughts and prayers.
~ Kathy Shaffer Dowell