So I got a dog. Did I really want a dog? Was I ready to have a dog? I can’t say that I was 100% sure. Let me back up a bit. I’ve got an 8 year old son, turning 9 in a month. For years now, he’s been begging for a dog, but few children know the tremendouse responsibility of owning a pet. So I placated him with a cat, and frequent visits with my sister, who has 3 dogs. Recently, though, my son’s want for a dog has become an illness, an obsessive, urgent need. So like any mother, I felt my resolve start to crack. My sister and 2 of her brother-in-laws own German Shorthair Pointers. They’re a beautiful dog, used for hunting birds, and smart as can be. A tad hyper as pups, but most dogs are. My son is in love with these dogs. I was more interested in getting a shelter mutt and saving a life, so we decide to compromise and put in an application with a local GSP rescue group.
4 weeks ago, I got THE CALL. The rescue group had a dog for me, but there was a catch - he was injured badly, and stuck in an animal shelter 75 miles away. Some ahole had shot him while hunting, and instead of taking care of him, left him to die out in a field. His right front leg was laid open to the bone, his hide was full of buckshot, and they were going to amputate his leg because treating the injury would be too costly and there was no guarantee it would save the leg anyway. I discussed it with my son, and we agreed that we were okay with having a 3-legged dog, so we visit the pooch.
If I live to be 100, I hope I never again see something as awful as this poor dog. The shelter had done nothing to treat his injuries, and he was basically just lying in his cage in pain. They were calling him Trigger, since they didn’t know his name. A bit demented, I thought, since the dog had been shot, but hey - whatever. He was less than a year old, but looked and moved like he was 15. Even with that horrible leg wound, he struggled to stand and came over and licked my hand, and that’s all it took - I was in love.
This is turning into a long story, so for the sake of brevity, I’ll skip over some things. We found a vet willing to operate on the leg and try to save it. Lots of surgeries and recuperation time… but he finally came home Saturday. We named him Monday. My family members are Jimmy Buffett fans, and we name all pets after Buffett songs (my sister has dogs named Tin Cup Chalice and Coral Reefer), so Monday fits the pattern. There’s a Buffett song, titled Come Monday. How do you call a dog named Monday? “Come, Monday”… haha, we’re so clever. 
This is where the Best Dog in the World[sup]TM[/sup] title comes in. This dog sits, he shakes, he fetches, he knows tricks. When he has to pee, he will find his leash and bring it to me. He sleeps on my bed at night, and doesn’t chew on things he shouldn’t. Monday is field trained, which means he tracks birds, flushes them out, then retrieves them once they’ve been shot. When we go for walks, he will do exactly that. Whenever he sees a bird, he will point, which is hilariously cute. Even cuter is his look of expectation, then disappointment when I don’t shoot the bird. Except for his extreme interest in the cat, he’s perfect. I love this dog.
There are so many pit threads I could start about this animal - the hunter who shot him and left him, the animal shelter that let him lay in pain… but since we’ve got a happy ending, I won’t do that. Anyway, as I’m typing, Monday is laying happily at my feet and gnawing a rawhide. If there is a point to this story, I don’t really know what it is. I’m sure that a lot of you are dog owners, and I’m sure you all thing you have the Best Dog in the World[sup]TM[/sup], but I promise you that you don’t. The Best Dog in the World[sup]TM[/sup] is named Monday, and he’s all mine.
