I put my dog down in May. She was 16 and I posted about her here. Since then, I’ve been in sort of a funk. You see, Jezebel was my shadow. For 16 years I’ve been a doggie momma. Our house is for sale and the market here sucks. We have only had one call on the house and every time we turn around, something else breaks. Hell, the DAY the sign was put in the yard, we had a swarm of termites. Yesterday, we had the AC repaired. And so it goes.
We want to move to the country with at least an acre of land. I want to be able to live how I want to live with the animals I want to live with. So I told myself I should wait. Wait for the new house. Be a dogless person. Just wait. The house will sell. I’ll be fine.
Except I haven’t been. Turns out, the reason I have always had a dog, is that I suck without one.
I’ve been thinking about what kind of dog I want to get eventually. Been perusing craigslist and petfinder and petharbor. Investigating other types of pets, what would be appropriate for a child, etc. I look, and get sad. And wait. One day.
I come home from work Sunday night. I hop over to craigslist and see a listing for a puppy. I click the link. I start crying. She looks so much like Jezbel it hurts. She even had a purple collar on. I show her to my husband, not as an “I WANT HER!” but a “Look, one day I could get a puppy like her.” I get bummed out and put it out of my mind. Over the next couple of days, I pull up her ad. What a cute puppy. It’s too bad I have to wait.
Wednesday, I’m cleaning my house like a fiend. My husband calls, he’s got coupons for a free dinner somewhere, blah blah. I’m hot, I’m sweaty, I got stuff to do. The AC is broken, I have a huge pile of stuff in the middle of the floor I’m sweeping up. I’ve given up on the yard today because it is 1000 degrees. Now he wants me to get dressed for dinner? Oh screw that. I’m TIRED. He insists. Fine, I’ll get me and the baby ready to go out in public in an hour.
He comes home, we load into the car. Diaper bag, sippy cup, shoes…crank up the AC, I’m hot and my make up is melting. We have to stop on the way and take a look at a side job he is doing. I don’t care, I’m in the AC. We arrive, he tells me to wait, it will only take a second. He calls me in, great, I unload the baby, we walk to the gate, it opens and there is the cutest, happiest puppy. I’m more focused on keeping my daughter safe, than on the dog, but ya know, that’s what Dad’s are for. I had Katie to my husband. I drop to the ground and marvel at this cute little puppy. It’s like Jezzie reincarnated.
“There is no dinner honey.” reaches my ears
“That is her honey, she’s your dog.” what? wait!
I bust out crying. My husband laughs and says to the guy “I told you she’d cry.” I hold the puppy. “Really?” I ask. “I can keep her?”
I’m done. I’m sobbing. My husband asks me to watch Katie and the puppy while he goes through the formalities. We take her home. She rides in the front seat with me, on my lap.
I’ve had her since Wednesday night. She’s wonderful. She’s almost house trained. (Has just had accidents at night when we are asleep) She knows sit, lay down and shake. I’ve been working on her leash training and she’s a quick learner. She puts up with my toddler very well, takes food gently from your hands, doesn’t mind you messing with her mouth, plays fetch. And she follows me around. She will lay her head on my feet. She sleeps next to my chair. She barks when people come to the door. I have my shadow/door bell back.
I thought it would be weird to get a dog like Jezebel. That it would be too weird. It is startling in a way, but in a good way. You see, Jezzie had been abused and was forever scarred by it. I had often wondered what kind of dog she would have been if she hadn’t been abused. If there was ever an animal I would have liked to clone, it would have been her. She was an amazingly good dog. She was just painfully shy with other people. She carried the emotional scars for her entire life.
I now get to find out what a dog like her would be like if they weren’t abused. Now I get to know. And I get to learn with lots and lots of puppy kisses. And I don’t have to wait. And I don’t have to be dogless.
I am looking over her paperwork today, getting the microchip modified and I see something. Wait, no way. You gotta be kidding me.
She was born on my birthday. March 23rd. No one is ever born on the 23rd. The 15th? Yes, the 21st? Yes. I’ve only met a few people in my life born on my birthday. Even at my company, which has hundreds of employees and posts the monthly birthdays, I’m the only one on the 23rd. And yet this puppy was.
Yep, she’s mine all right.
My husband surprised the hell out of me. He’s not one to do stuff like this at all. He did it perfectly. I had no idea. Not a clue. John, the guy we got her from, said that he had lots of responses on her, but that my husbands email touched him so much, he wanted us to have her.
I asked my husband for the copy of the email. I could read the desperation in it. He wanted me to get that puppy. He wanted the guy to know how lost I’ve been, how much I would love her, how important it would be to me.
And he was right.
My realtor is pissed “You never get a dog when you house is listed!” but I don’t care. She’ll get over it. I might have, but now I don’t have to. I’m a dog person again. And I have the cutest puppy ever!
Now, for a name…I was thinking of Biscuits…but today, she’s striking me as a Matilda.
I came home tonight (our first night apart) and got greeted the RIGHT way. With an excited puppy! Whee! (btw, when my husband came home from work, she barked, he walked in and said "we got our doorbell back.)
