The Rescue Dog Who Rescued Me

**It’s National Rescue Day and I couldn’t miss a chance to talk about the rescue that rescued me

I grew up with dogs always around. My first memories of a dog named Penny are pretty blurry. Then there was Whiskey, kinda like a Lassie with much more girth.

Then came the day I got a dog of my own.

We were at the Strike ‘N Spare bowling alley in Creve Coeur, a suburb of St. Louis. It was the Saturday morning ritual. My dad picked up my sister and I, and said we had to go get my mom. We didn’t think anything of it, until we drove into this industrial area. Why was mom there?

As we got closer we saw her standing there holding a newspaper. Even closer and the newspaper was moving. Up close, it was a puppy. A white, fluffy, puppy. She got in the car as we all scrambled to pet the dog, and she said “This is Jennifer’s dog!”. She handed her to me. My older sister took her from me, and the dog promptly peed on her. Yep, she was my dog. She handed her back. I had a dog of my own.

I wanted to name her Snowball. She was my dog to name, right? Nope. When she sat down she crossed her paws “like a little lady”, my mom said. So her name was Lady. A grievance I never got over and never stopped reminding my entire family.

Turns out, Lady had heartworms. She had to stay still and in a kennel under our kitchen table. I couldn’t play with her, but I could sit by her and talk. So that I did.

As time went on, Whiskey and Penny passed away, and Lady grew older. She might have been “my” dog, but heart ended up with my mother. I was at school all day, and Lady got to watch “General Hospital” from the comfort of my mom’s lap for hours on end.

When I was 15, I was already plotting my plan to drive, and I wanted a Toyota Celica. My dad said “No daughter of mine is getting a Celica. You are getting an American car!”.

I was babysitting one night and I had to walk home. Our homes were three houses down but in a neighborhood of custom-built homes acres apart. It was below freezing and it was so cold! This home had a dog who got knocked up and had puppies, and I babysat the kids as much as the puppies. On this particular night, I saw something moving in the front yard of the grass, about half an acre from warmth. It was a puppy. I petted her and said, “you gotta go home, puppy!”. As I walked away, she followed. I swear, I tried to tell her to “go home”, but she was enamored by this person who gave her a little bit of kindness. She followed me all the way to my own driveway, where I finally picked her up.

I walked up the long driveway and as I came around the corner to the garage, my mom was in the kitchen window doing dishes. I heard her before I saw her “NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!”. She threw open the garage door “TAKE THAT DAMN THING HOME. I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DO THIS.” With tears that almost instantly froze as I cried out “I didn’t bring her home. SHE FOLLOWED ME!”

I walked into the “mud room”, as it was oddly named, and my mom said, “She’s not coming past this point.” I don’t know what I said next, but it was a series of run-on sentences through tears “But mom.. cold outside.. alone in the yard.. would have died.. followed me.. I just picked her up at the driveway.. just give her some water..”

My mom relented as she cursed and said “It’s going back tomorrow with you.” I said “Fine, just let her be inside. It’s too cold out there.”

I sat at the kitchen table, my mom stormed off into the bedroom, and my quiet-natured father was reading the paper and said “You know that dog isn’t going anywhere, right?”

“Of course”, I answered back.

Once it was settled that the puppy was staying, and my mom called the family to tell them (they certainly didn’t care), we had to decide a name.

“Celica”, I said. “Because you told me I’d never own a Celica, and now I do” I sneered at my father. They already took away my ability to name my own dog once, they weren’t going to do it again.

A picture with me, Celica (black dog), Freebie (little brown dog) and Lady ("my" dog) in the mid 90's.

Then came my sister’s dog, Freebie. She got it for “free” outside a grocery store, hence the name. (I know, Celica was a MUCH better name for a dog).

We had Cane for a short time, and then there was Keana, a side effect of a failed relationship I had. I named her after my crush on Keanu Reeves.

Celica lived a long life at our house. She was most definitely MY dog, even when I was at school. When I went to college, my mom wrote about how she waited at the bedroom door for me. It broke my heart, and the homecomings would have been viral if YouTube had been around then.

Then I graduated college and it was time to move away. I couldn’t take Celica, we discussed it at length and how hard it would be for me to take care of a dog all the way across the country. I knew it was best for her, but dammit I cried. Ugly cry.

I spent two years in Reno, two in Tucson, two in Memphis, and a time in Tulsa without a dog. I would pet every dog I could. I always said I wanted to get a dog, but I didn’t make the money to care for one.

Finally, in Tulsa, I had developed a terrible habit of working way too much. When I wasn’t working, I was going out on the town. My life was three steps. Shower, work, party, Repeat.

In Tulsa, those closest to me all had dogs of their own. I was genuinely craving companionship from a canine. I searched and searched all the shelters waiting for the perfect dog. Then I found Dozer. He looked like a yellow lab and was sweet as could be. We played in the yard. I had to sign up to adopt him, and there were two other people on the list. I was SURE he was mine, and the woman winked at me suggesting I would be the chosen one.

The next day a call came, and she probably said a bunch of really sensitive things, but all I heard was “You should not have even been able to see Dozer. He had already been adopted when you met him.”

Oh Lord did I cry. I cried for a dog I never really knew and was never coming home. I gave up. My mom said, “that just wasn’t your dog, you’ll find the right one.”

You see, at this point, I didn’t want a dog. I needed a dog. I worked too much. I needed to know something was going to die or tear the place apart if I didn’t go home. It wasn’t healthy how much I worked.

I also wondered how I would take care of a dog. What if there was a long work day, as was common? What if I needed to travel? What if I was only good for dogs when my parents were around to help?

On one random Saturday, I went through the Tulsa Animal Shelter yet again and was about as disinterested as I could get in dogs (which isn’t much, granted). I walked by cage after cage, feeling bad for the dogs I didn’t want, and wishing I could save them all. In the last row, I came across a litter of all black puppies, very furry, and sweet. Then I saw a glimpse of dark brown. She was getting walked all over, she was the runt of the litter. I said, “Can I see the brown one?” As soon as I held her, I knew she was mine. I asked about 20 times if she had already been adopted and “Can you please double-check”?

Less than a week later, she came home. I named her Sierra, after the beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains.

She looked like a little fox. She slept on the bed with me. Correction: She slept on the pillows with me.

That dog and I went from Tulsa, to Las Vegas, to Spokane, back to Las Vegas, to Reno, to Huntsville, and to Sarasota. She was my travel buddy. She sat in the front seat of the car like Magellan guiding me to the next location.

She loved every dog she met. She was a star at the dog park, running in circles, rolling around, making friends with everyone and when she couldn’t help herself she would hump other dogs and stare at me like I should have been proud and not mortified.

When Sierra was 10, I knew my time with her was getting close to “borrowed time”, and I was at a place in life I wanted another dog too. That way when her time came, I would never feel like I was replacing her.

Donner arrived that Easter weekend from a Golden Retriever breeder I had researched. It was love at first sniff…. for Donner. For Sierra, it was the end of her reign. She wanted nothing to do with him, aside from the occasional barking him into a corner. He still approached with love no matter how much she snarled.

Eventually, we were able to co-exist, as I’m sure in her mind that’s all she did. This bossy puppy turned into a dog almost three times her size and took up WAY too much bed space.

He never tried to stop loving her, and she never tried to stop being indifferent.

I got a glimpse of her love once when a dog was bullying Donner at the dog park. She came like a bat out of hell and barked that dog right off my submissive and loving golden. I said “YOU DO LOVE HIM?” and she looked disgusted as she walked away.

Another glimpse came when Donner got sick after swimming in the Gulf (it’s a real danger, dog lovers). He had aspirated saltwater and they didn’t know if he could make it. I wasn’t allowed to stay overnight at the dog emergency hospital, so I had to go home. Sierra nonchalantly walked around looking for him in all his typical spots. She snuggled me when she realized he wasn’t there.

By this time, she was 15. Arthritis had set in her legs and spine, and she was slow to move, couldn’t walk far, and needed a chair to jump on the bed. She could barely hear and cataracts were forming clouds in her eyes. No matter how much it hurt, the princess still got on the bed each night.

The next day Donner came home, very sick but on the road to recovery. When he walked in she jumped for joy, barking in circles and snuggling up to him. It had to hurt her body to do that. I guess she loved him in her own weird way, but she no longer wanted a life without him.

As Thanksgiving weekend approached that year, something in my beautiful brown 16-year-old dog shifted. I could sense it. I would sit with my dogs on the ground and say “Sierra, you gotta let me know when it’s time. I need you to tell me.”

A few days later, she did. She was distant, didn’t want to be touched but still wanted to be close. We went to the vet “just to see” what was going on.

She had tumors on her back legs. Arthritis was everywhere. She was miserable. The vet said “You can take her home, but you’ll be back in a few weeks at best. It will be an emergency. She barely has any back leg left between the tumor and arthritis.”

I made the tough decision, and I said, “I’ll be back first thing tomorrow, but I need one more night with her.” I paid for the worst moment of my life that day, so I didn’t have to do anything but go home the next.

We ordered three pizzas and ate them on the bed. I gave them all the soft dog food they could handle. I told her how much I loved her and how good of a dog she had been. It broke my heart I couldn’t snuggle her because it just hurt her too much. The next morning, it’s like Donner knew. He sat close, but not too close, and I was even able to see he kept putting his paw right next to hers.

We did the final “bye bye” to the vet. I sat in the car in the parking lot. I said my private goodbye to her.

We walked in and went into the room waiting for us. The vet explained what was going to happen. She said “are you ready?” and I said “yes”. She noted that I was very calm about what was about to happen (and a far cry from the mess I was the day before).

I told her “Nothing that happens in this room changes the nearly 17 years we spent together. She is going to know as her final memory, in whatever capacity she can sense it right now, that she was loved. I can cry for the rest of my life. But not now. This moment was always inevitable. She gave me more in love than I can feel in grief.”

Moments later, she was gone. I snuggled her, saying “You are so mad I’m snuggling you right now.”

As I drove home in a daze, I was flooded with memories of her. The walks, dog parks, mountain hikes, barbecues, breakups she helped me through, the depressing aftermath of losing my mom, and I knew this dog saved me more than I ever could have saved her. She was happy when I was sad, and I returned the favor on that terrible December day.

My pictures of Sierra were everywhere. Thank goodness for a close co-worker who, at my request, moved all the pictures of Sierra out of my office that day, and I said, “Don’t give them back to me until I ask for them.”

I came home and the vet told me to leave her collar around to help Donner understand she was gone. Her food bowl sat in the kitchen another year before I could move it. I just couldn’t get rid of it. One day I accidentally kicked it and it shattered. You’d think it would have broken my heart, and maybe a little it did, but I laughed thinking my mom was in heaven and she made that happen. “You’ve got a dead dog’s bowl in your kitchen. People will think you are crazy”, I could hear her possibly say.

Now, Donner is almost at that “borrowed time” age. He’s 10 and he’s a 100-pound dog. He’s a healthy old man, and still jumps on the bed and chases balls, but he gets tired much more easily. He’s already had one cancer scare (it wasn’t cancer thank goodness).

This pandemic year has given me more time with my Bubba D, as I nicknamed him. We’ve hung out more, snuggled more, walked more, and spent hours of time alone. It’s almost a gift to have this time with him, and I know when the worst day comes and I’m doing that drive home I’ll remember the gift to cushion the loss.

Regrets? I have none.

I hear people all the time say “I work too much to have a dog” and “It’s not fair to him/her staying alone all day.” I always smile when they say this and retort “My dog is upside down on the bed right now surrounded by bones and toys, he’s perfectly happy and we go for walks or have throw-the-ball dates daily."

You make the time when you love dogs. They forgive you after a long day alone. They sit by you when you work from home.

I have loved every single dog I’ve had with all my heart, and Sierra was my first adult dog I had to say goodbye to alone. Even with that grief, that still haunts me, it’s quickly overpowered by love. The time Sierra ate Chinese food off the counter and left all the vegetables behind. The day I came home from the airport after my mom’s funeral and she just sat with me while I cried. The times she came to work with me and sat at the assignment desk, cocked head listening to the scanners. The dog park date I had and Sierra started humping his dog and he said to me “Like mother, like dog?” and I thanked her on the way home for inadvertently helping me weed out a weirdo.

I know I don’t want a life without dogs in it. I know they will save me more than I’ll ever be able to save them.

On this National Rescue Day, just know the salvation you are searching for could be as close as the animal shelter.