Must Love Dogs

Lucy came to live with us in 2003. I’ve got dozens if not hundreds of pictures of this dog, any number of which probably don’t have a blurry strap falling across the lens. But this is one of my favorites, because everything you’d ever need to know about this dog, you can see in her eyes here.

A dog is a man’s best friend. In our house, Lucy is friend to:

a man
a woman
several sons and daughters
a granddaughter
a couple cats (though the cats will never admit it)
anyone delivering pizza, Chinese, or Jimmy John’s (freaky fast!)
neighbors
complete strangers
various rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, and birds (though these tend to be very one-sided friendships)

Dogs are loyal, forgiving, protective, courageous, authentic, hard working, intelligent, playful, aware, and joyful companions. Always.

All of which makes them better people than most people. To be fair, I know several folks who have perhaps most of these traits…at some time or another. Dogs—and particularly our Lucy dog—have these traits all day, every day.

Last month an ubertoolcomic.com from 2014 starting making the rounds again pretty heavily on Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook. It’s one of the sweetest things I’ve seen…it’s also one of the saddest, and hardest to think about. Go ahead and click. I’ll wait here. You won’t thank me later.

I can’t even really read it now without thinking about our Lucy.

Lucy is a boxer/shepherd mix. Both breeds have a lifespan ranging between 9-13 years. When Lucy came to live with us, she was about 5 months old. With that math, that means Lucy is about to celebrate her 14th birthday.

When we get home from work, Lucy just about turns herself inside out with joy to see us. Open the patio door, she practically levitates off the deck into the grass to tear circles around the yard. Hold a treat six feet off the ground, she leaps up like a breaching great white to grab it from your hand. And oh boy…pull out the laser pointer…you just better steer clear.

But sometimes….she’s a little slower to get up. Harder to convince it’s time to come downstairs in the morning for the trip outside and for breakfast. A little more cautious and lingering on the leaps for treats.

We’ve been thinking about that math more and more.

She has big, beautiful eyes of a puppy—and the spreading gray beard of a dog that’s been around quite a while.

She loves to toss her treats around the room and play keep away—and we boil chicken and rice for her meals every day because she can’t handle much of anything else.

One day…we’re going to wake up one morning, and Lucy won’t wake up with us. I hope I hope I hope that is how it happens. Peacefully, while she sleeps beside us. I’m going to hope, so maybe in the great cosmic karma of what’s fair and just and kind, that’s the way it will be.