Lucy {Tails}

She was only five weeks old and she had severe separation anxiety.

A tiny, little black and white thing with paws several sizes too big for her and ginormous, floppy ears.  It looked as if someone with a paw-print stamp had stamped her directly on the white fur atop her muzzle.

She was the cutest thing that ever walked the planet.

 

A week into living with Lucy found us out in the yard one day.  She came barreling around the corner, tripping over her too-big feet, ears flying in every direction possible and a toy locked tight between her jaws.  She skidded to a stop in front of me, but refused to let go of the toy to allow me to throw it for her.  {This would turn out to be a preview of all future play times- always chase, never fetch.}  After a few moments of tug-of-war with the toy she turned and ran away with anticipation that I would chase after her, but before taking a step to do so, a strange combination of gasp, groan and giggle emerged from me.  Lucy had found and eaten an 8 inch piece of cotton rope.

I knew this because 3 inches of it was hanging out of her backend.

And that was the beginning of life with Lucy.

 

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The first house that Lucy lived in with us only had one door leading outside- the front door.  This door had a lever style door handle.  Once big enough to reach it, Lucy quickly learned how to let herself into the house, which would have been really great had she also learned to wipe her feet and close the door after her.  Though she was very skilled at getting in, there were only a handful of times she was able to let herself out... but not for a lack of trying.

 

Early one morning I stepped outside for a minute, closing the door behind me and Lucy's separation anxiety hit her full force.  Before I ever made it off the front porch I heard the whining start, followed by paws on the inner door knob.  I turned back around to let her out, but I was too late.  In her frantic attempt to open the door she had inadvertently locked the dead bolt.

It was 6AM.  My keys were inside.  Nobody else was home.  I was in my pajamas.

As I sat there and pondered what to do, Lucy, her eyes fixed on me through the locked front window, was howling in agony over the piece of glass that separated us.  After 30 minutes of this, and trying every window on the house, I finally decided to buck up and walk down the road to the gas station and beg use of their phone {this was pre-cell phones} to call my {then} husband.  As I opened the front gate she let out the shrillest cry yet.  I turned back to find that the tormented animal inside had managed to unlock the window during this last assault upon it.

 

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Lucy's favorite foods....

tuna fish, french fries, tomatoes {of which she preferred to eat from a fork- quite daintily I might add} and anything made of plastic that belonged to her Boy.  This included, but was not limited to, Legos, cars and action figures.

 

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After Trick or Treating every Halloween evening Lucy's Boy and I would sit down at the table and sort through his candy.  One particular Halloween we sorted out all of the chocolate and placed it in its own bowl which we then set on the kitchen counter.  The next afternoon when I came home from work Lucy was not at the door waiting to greet me with her usual bear hug.  As I walked in her head slowly came up over the back of the couch.  She blinked at me with her crazy googly-eyed gaze {she had one black inner eyelid and one white inner eyelid which often made her look somewhat kooky}, ears straight as arrows coming off each side of her head and then slowly lowered herself back down.

I immediately went in search of the disaster.

I found it in the kitchen- a broken glass bowl.  There were pieces of glass all over the floor and not a single piece of chocolate {or a wrapper} was to be found.

 

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We had a nightly ritual and Lucy played a big part in it.  Every night after bath and teeth brushing the three of us {Lucy, Lucy's Boy and I} would dance on the bed to Mickey and the gang to get the last of the wiggles out, then the two of them would snuggle down, Lucy at the foot of the bed and her Boy tucked under the covers, for a story.  Once the story was over and kisses given I would leave the room, closing the door behind me.  Every single night Lucy would put her Boy to bed.  She would lay there until he was a sleep, no matter how long it took.  Once he was fast asleep she would quietly paw at his door so she could then come out and spend time with me.

 

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I had been single for about 9 months.  Lucy's Boy was spending the weekend with his father and a friend decided I needed a night out.  Because we were going to be out late it was decided that she would spend the night at my house.  My friend was on a diet and taking Metabolife.  Turned out she had left the bottle on the counter.

As we dragged ourselves through the front door at 3AM we came upon Lucy literally running circles around the living room like a greyhound on the track with hare in its sights.

We found the bottle of Metablolife.

The lid had been chewed off and a quarter of it ingested, along with half of the bottle's contents.

 

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In her older years Lucy became over protective.  There were times when she would come face to face with a stranger and suddenly turn into Cujo.  She strongly felt it was her duty to protect her people.

Unless, that is, we needed protecting from a cat.

I have never heard a noise come out of an animal like that.  A cat only had to take one step towards her and Lucy would shriek like a teenage girl being murdered in a low budget horror movie and hide behind us, shaking so hard her canines would rattle in her head.

 

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One day, after work, I entered the front door to find Lucy sitting proud and pretty in the center of a sea of oats... not a thread of the living room carpet to be seen.

Seemed I had left a brand new container of oatmeal out on the counter.

 

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Every year on Christmas morning, Lucy would be the first into the living room.  We would find her sniffing through all of the stockings looking for hers, knowing that Santa would have left a stuffed rabbit for her.

It was the one time out of the year that we didn't worry she would get into something she shouldn't.

All Lucy cared about on Christmas morning was finding her new rabbit.

 

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Lucy was a wonderful companion.

She was a happy constant in our lives and very loyal {sometimes to a fault}.

We could always count on her to make us laugh, to console us when we were sad and to provide us with a mess to clean up.  But all of those messes were worth the love that she brought into our lives.

Especially mine.

 

 

I love you, Lucy.

RIP

January 1998 - October 2012