The Dog's Version Of The Story

 I need a home.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Heather. When I was adopted my new lady was asked if she wanted to change it. She's a Heather too. The vet she took me to changed mine for us to Heather Too.  It really doesn't matter. I also answer to Girl, Pretty Girl, Good Girl, Good Dog, Sweetie, the sound of my food bag, and kissing noises. I'm easy.

My exact origins are unclear, but at least one of my ancestors was a chihuahua. I’m told I look like one, mostly black with some white here and there. The white around my nose is getting bigger, and I’m starting to get what my lady calls white “chihuahua spectacles” around my eyes. Somebody else claims there’s schipperke in that proverbial woodpile, because there’s a bit of a ruff at the back of my neck and I’m just a little larger than my snooty “pure” peers. I’m not sure what they’re talking about, as I’m generally only 16 pounds when I check in at the vet. The vet says that I’m perfectly sized because I have a nice waistline. And while I’m eleven, whatever that is - 77 in my years? - I’m supposed to have some good ones left.

By the way, what’s a waistline? My lady and the vet just laughed when my lady said she wished she had a nice one too.

My current owners don’t care about my parents, just refer to my breed as a “rescue-huahua”. It’s always said with a smile, so it must be a good thing, right? They found me at the county shelter during the start of the covid outbreak. I’d been having a tough life for a while, but somebody found me running around in Phoenix, hunting for what food I could find, drinking what I could find on the ground or where trees were getting irrigated, grateful to have that much, though I was down to a very svelte 14 pounds when I was adopted, after they’d fed me for a while at the shelter. I was also happy to have so little fur that the hot summer wasn’t totally awful. They put me in isolation for a while and tried to find my former owner. They had a metal thing they held over my neck and said they knew who I belonged to. I don’t know what happened to her but she never answered the phone. I don’t really know what happened to me either to make me lost. But I was truly alone.

Then a new lady walked in, and my keepers took me to a room where we could get acquainted. She smelled like she needed a dog like me, so I went over and offered my ears to get scratched. I can tell a lot about people that way. Soon I was in her lap, then in a portable kennel for a ride across the city to my new home.

There are three welcoming laps in this home, all on people who know where I like to be scratched and where I just want to be rubbed. Everyone knows how much I love laps. When somebody with a new lap comes in the room, my tail starts wagging really hard. Maybe I can get an invitation to that lap as well! 

My new lady takes me to the groomer, which I don’t like, but my toenails are much more comfortable when it’s time to leave and she’s always there after with a treat. (Shhh, don’t tell those other dogs. They’ll get jealous. They even have to get baths and haircuts!)

It took me about two weeks to learn there would be water in a nice clean bowl inside and I didn’t have to hunt for where people water trees. There’s a nice fenced yard to explore, which had plenty of shade and several rabbits which seemed to know from the day I arrived that they could ignore me, at least until I get within two feet of them. That’s closer than the birds let me get, but I don’t really care. People are the best friends anyway. I always keep an eye on whichever of my people is out there with me.  They say they’re keeping me safe from coyotes. Silly people, there’s a big tall fence out there! I know they’re just keeping me from being lonely and remembering the bad times. For some reason they always tell me I’m a good girl for doing what I went out there to do anyway. Sometimes I can’t figure them out. But I’m just pleased they’re happy.

On the couch with my minty dental bone

My lady takes care of feeding me. I get breakfast and supper when she does, just different food. She calls it kibble. Funny name! But breakfast is served with a couple little pieces of freeze dried liver on top, once she learned it made toenails stop splitting like mine did when we met, and grow in strong. Supper has a minty dental chew on top, and I love that so much I grab it and go run to the corner of the couch where I gobble it up. No mess left, I promise! I eat every single crumb. After that the handful of  kibble isn’t such a treat, but I faithfully come back and thank my lady by eating every crumb of that too. Just as soon as she tells me to go eat it. I try to be polite, though it’s hard to wait with the treats. She has learned to put shoes on before feeding me because sometimes I get so excited I accidentally jump on her feet. I know the sound of those containers opening from all across the room!

I do have a carry kennel with a soft fuzzy blanket inside and a door to keep me safe, but I seldom use it. Laps are so much nicer! Even bedtime means I get to sleep with my lady in her big bed. She makes sure I hear the word “bedtime” before she heads down the hall so I know it’s not just to that other place she calls a bathroom. (She thinks she doesn’t need me there, but I usually check it out anyway.) Sometimes she forgets to lift up the blankets from the bed for me but I know where to squeeze between them and the sheet to wiggle into the place  where she bends her knees. But I know my duty once I snuggle her to sleep, and make sure when she wakes in the morning that I’m perched down at the corner of the bed, guarding the door to the hall, making sure nobody sneaks in without permission. I’d never bite them of course, but I’d make sure my lady is awake if somebody strange comes. I do that at the front door too, when some person we don’t know comes. If it’s somebody with a bunch of tools, I usually get to go sleep in my kennel then, but - shhhh, don’t tell - I don’t sleep until they’ve gone. After that I get a spot in my favorite lap anyway.

I used to be pretty scared when I first got here and my lady had to leave. I knew what it meant when she told me to be good, but it took a while to learn what “I’ll be back” meant. The couch is right next to the big front window and I could watch her leave. I could also hear her car and watch her return. Eventually I quit watching for her, especially when anybody else’s lap beckoned. I still remember those bad days, though, and if she’s been gone for a day or too, usually returning smelling of medicines and other stinky things, I am sure to let her know I missed her because I cry when she comes back in the door. Again, I do my best to be polite, and wait until she is back in her chair and invites me up into her lap before I jump up. If I’m really not sure, it takes her patting her lap and making kissy sounds, saying “up” a couple times, before I jump. The second her laptop comes out, though, I know there’s no room for both of us and jump down again. There’s usually another warm blanket sitting somewhere for me. It might even be on somebody else’s lap, the best of all combinations.

Sometimes I’m the one who gets to leave for a ride in the car. I love the back seat. It always has a very old blanket on it with interesting smells, one of which smells a lot like one of my people, only like a kid instead of a grown-up. It’s a very old smell now but my nose is very good. When we go on long trips to a place that’s colder, I get to get out on a leash and smell lots of other dogs who like to get out and do exactly what I like to get out and do. I don’t get to meet them too often because our people have leashes to keep us apart. I could tell them the other dogs mostly are friendly, but I don’t think it would matter. Anyway, I’m mostly glad since there was one dog that really scared me. When I told my lady she picked me up and we went away from him.

Me outside a doggie door in that cold place

Sometimes that colder place we visit in summer scares me too. They have noisy thunderstorms there which I almost never hear here. They also have a thing my lady calls “Fourth of July”. Everybody makes lots of loud booming noises for long times. My lady says it’s supposed to last only one night, but everybody seems to make them boom for weeks. They also have something called grass with something else called dew on it. It’s really cold, and tickles. I hate it on my bare tummy. They make me go outside on a leash when it’s dew or rain, but they have to catch me first! It would be a fun game but they always win. When is it my turn?

My lady has been sad lately. I can’t figure out why, but there’s a new word I’m hearing. “Allergies.” It’s something about how they’re kicking up again after many long years. I don’t know what they are, and I never see anything kick her or I’d be sure to protect her. I’m still getting lap time and pets and scratches in all the right places, even sleeping in her bed, but she’s sadder. And she’s started scratching herself, even though she won’t let me do it for her the way she does it for me. I think she’s caught a cold too, because her nose has been running a lot. At least she calls it “running”, though again, I never see that happening. Where would it run to without her? Mine never leaves. How can hers? She says it’s different, and worse than before, and she looks sadly at me when she says that. Is there something wrong with me? Am I sick? Do I have to go to the vet?

Uh-oh. I was listening to a phone call about me. I hoped I’d find out something wonderful, because usually when my name gets mentioned it’s with lots of love and praise. I pretend I’m asleep so nobody knows what I hear. This time it wasn’t good. They have to get rid of me! Why? I’ve been good. Apparently it’s something about this thing called allergies. My lady is getting sicker, and taking more of the medicine for “allergies” than this doctor thinks she should.  She wanted to send me back to where she got me but they won’t even let her talk to them until next year, whenever that happens. Other places she looked up only seem to want to give away dogs, not take any more in. I think that’s good because I can stay longer, but if that means she gets sicker because I’m here, isn’t that bad? I don’t want to go and I know she doesn’t really want me to go, so what do we do? So I thought I’d send this out to you. Maybe you can help us both? I know she loves to drive and she’d be happy to bring me some place I’ll find the same kind of laps and scratches as she knows how to give.