For now she was just "the puppy". She was about six months old, we later found out. Someone had dumped her somewhere, along the road, along the highway, in the driveway, who knows? She had made it to the house and it seemed like she thought she'd found home.
I already had a dog, my Blue Heeler/Rottweiller mix, my Lucy. Lucy had cancer, she'd had two surgeries but it was back again, and I wasn't going to put her through any more. She was dying slowly, getting more and more tired, and the puppy didn't sit well with her. My husband said "No more dogs!".
I called the local humane society. They said they had a waiting list, and I told them we would go ahead and hang onto her until they found space. I fed the pup, and kept an emotional distance. But, one day, my husband called me out in the yard and said "Watch this!". He had one of Lucy's old tennis balls and was throwing it for the puppy, who scampered after it and pranced back to him with it. I guess I knew then that she was going to be ours.
She basically house trained herself, only squatting once in the house to pee. I grabbed her and ran outside yelling "Noooo!", and she never did it again. Except for the time we took her to visit friends and she decided to pee on their couch. Her biggest fault was a love of chewing holes in my clothes, and only my clothes, but she grew out of that fairly quickly (if not inexpensively).
She made friends with the neighbor's big, black Newfoundland and horse mix, Buddy. They loved to go wading in the little wet-weather creek between our places. She traveled with us when we went on the road to do telecommunications work, inadvertently scaring hotel maids throughout Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska.
She enjoyed her final nap in the sun this afternoon. She was 16 years old. If she'd made it to March, she would have been 17. She'd had some problems a couple of months ago, and prednisone and Tramadol had given her a little more time, but she stopped eating yesterday and started to make little cries and I knew it was time. I carried Ratdog to the vet who's been her doctor ever since she came to us, and she helped Rat over the Bridge.
RIP, Ratdog. You were the best girl in the whole world. We'll see you on the other side, sweetie.
