Pets - July 28, 2007

Pets are such an important part of our lives. They have therapy dogs that help children with disabilities - such as the two dogs they used to bring in to my sons' primary school. All the kids (750+) loved them - and they really helped the kids with ADD and similar issues (my oldest amongst that number).

There are service dogs, like dogs for the visually impaired, that improve independence and quality of life. There are police dogs, who help sniff out dogs and have been known to sacrifice themselves to protect their human partners.

Here's an animal who was a part of my life.

It took until the 8th grade before I wore my parents down with a request for a dog. The jr high school I attended decorated classroom doors every Christmas season. The drama teacher's dog had puppies around that time and he decorated the door with several boxes that had puppies in them. (The puppies were well taken care of.) But by the time my parents acquiesced, the puppies were gone. I was crushed. One of my classmates, whose father owned the largest local bank, also was looking to adopt out some puppies. On December 23rd we picked out "Sneakers", so named because she had four little white feet. She was a lovable mutt.

My father got mad at me one night because I put a travel alarm clock in her box in the garage (their idea, not mine), because I had read that it comforted puppies who were not with their mother, reminding them of mom's heart beat.

Being wintertime in Salt Lake City, we usually had quite a lot of snow. Sneakers loved it. We used to see her little tail running around in the yard. No, I'm not being crude, but the snow was so high that only the tip of her tail was visible.

My mother would feed Sneakers left-overs some time. Once, and I've no idea why, she fed Sneakers Jell-O on a paper plate. Sneakers's nose got stuck against the plate, and she ran around wildly, unable to see around the plate. It was too funny.

I remember once Sneakers came in dragging. Then I found out why, there was a big gash in her side. I was really worried about her. She lay under a china cabinet for days, hardly moving. A vet just wasn't an option in my parents' opinion. I put food right up under her nose ... nothing ... not a budge ... until I put a couple slices of pepperoni (just the meat, not pizza) nearby. She licked at them a couple of times, then took one slice at a time into her mouth. She made a full recovery.

After I had moved out of my mother's home, I went back to visit all the time (of course). One fall, I was sitting at the dining room table and my brother came in from the back yard with a shovel. I asked him what he was doing. He told me that Mom had told him to dig a hole in the back yard in case Sneakers died that winter (she was about 15 years old by then) and the ground would be too hard to dig. I was REALLY ANGRY about that for a while. I suppose it was practical, but I was not practical where Sneakers was concerned.

Sneakers lived 17 years.