What dogs do for us in These titles mean nothing.

Writers Group - July 2024 - My Favorite Pet

Zelpha told me that my favorite pet is my current pet. So sorry, Gracie, it’s Lib. Gracie was the yellow lab - Samoyed cross who came from the neighbor’s farm when she fit in my son’s hand - the same size as a can of pop. She grew up to be beautiful and smart and strong and active and she lived a long life. Gracie swam in the pond at the end of the culvert. She climbed on the hay bales.
She loved empty milk cartons - wrestling them to submission. She was a much loved dog - she was forgiven for eating my grandson’s unattended ice cream cone, and not complying when he told her to ‘spit it out’. She taught my granddaughter not to be afraid of dogs.

Gracie was my favorite pet for a lot of years but now she’s been replaced by Lib. Lib is a big Siberian husky who came from the Humane Society. She was four years old and she had been living with another dog - perhaps a German shepherd - with an older woman who had to give up her pets when she went to assisted living. I wonder what happened to the other dog - I asked but wasn’t told exactly.

Lib showed up on the Humane Society’s Face Book page with an engaging, grinning photo that captivated my son. He made the arrangements and we went to see her. She came right up to my son and loved him, as if she knew he was the decision maker. He says after that day she has paid him no attention at all. That’s not true. She does seem to like ladies though - my granddaughter and daughter in law are her favorites and she just likes new people.

Talking new people, the Speedee delivery woman - a lovely person herself - was taken by Lib ambling across the grass to her and her truck. ‘Oh, look, she’s so round.’, the Speedee lady said. ‘She’s a burrito!.’

Lib is round. The Humane Society had taken off twenty pounds of her 100 plus weight from living with the old lady. We were sternly warned that we had to continue her on he weight loss journey. We solumnly agreed. It’s not easy controlling the intake of a dog whose love language is food, but we have made a serious attempt. We don’t know how much she weighs. She’s too big to lift on the scale - using the tried and true method of weighing human and dog, then weighing human, and then subtract human weight from dog and human weight. She won’t get in the car to go to the vet to use their walk on dog scale. So we just have to use the feed her a cup of Sweeney’s dog food in the morning and a cup in the evening and hope for the best.

We go for walks - not as far as we should or as often as we should - but still we go out the driveway and down the gravel road a ways most days One morning this spring we stopped and talked to the Hmong people who come each year ago harvest wild Solomon’s Seal from the roadside ditches. It’s an herbal remedy - sometimes for stomach problems, sometimes for high blood pressure. They make tea. This year the man at the wheel of the white van was taken by Lib. He offered to name her. ‘Lily,’ he said would be a good name for her. Lily is almost Libby.

Dogs are gifts from God. They serve as buffers in human relationships. They love us as we are.

Last updated July 12, 2024