A tail of two puppies

Today, Maggie is six. You know, probably.

So in honor of same, she got a Jumbone, and her very own blog post. Here's the story of how I got Mags (with a lot of gratuitous pictures).

Once upon a time, I moved into a big house all by myself. Well, okay, that's not true. I moved in and my sorority sister from college moved in for the first semester. But then, she finished her internship at the engineering firm she was working at and went back to college. And I was a first year medical student, single, alone, in a big empty house that backed up to a trailer park.

So I got onto the Internet and started looking for a dog. And I found Wolfie.

Wolf was a Husky/Akita mix who was supposed to be 4. Well, they said later, maybe 6. The vet thinks he was somewhere closer to twice that old. He was a good, good boy, though. Oh, gosh, such a good dog. 90 lbs of snuggly, devoted, good, good dog. But what he wasn't was a well dog. The vet and I theorized later that he probably had metastatic cancer when I got him. I drove almost to Iowa and picked him up two days after Christmas, and he started having seizures about two days after that. He lasted almost a year, and it was a rough year. Once, when having a seizure, he bit me and I ended up in the hospital for three days. We had to clean his ears out twice a day because he had this horrible chronic infection. He had to take pills every day. Ultimately his liver failed and he got so sick he couldn't stand up and I had to euthanize him probably hours to days before he died a worse death. Aw, but he was just the best dog.

By then I was a second year medical student and was like, wow, this would be stupid for me to get another dog.

But then, my third year, my third roommate moved in, and he brought his dog, Kedzie.



Kedz? Also a good boy. Now such an old man. And I'd been longing for another pooch, so I thought, okay, this is good. I can get a vicarious puppy fix. And Kedz spent a lot of time down in my part of the house. But, although he liked me a lot, he was clearly Jeremy's dog.

I held out all the way to September of my fourth year. I started looking around and toying with the idea and even "interviewed" at this shelter in Naperville, who decided I was an unfit parent because I worked too much and denied me. And then one day, this woman my dad worked with said, hey, you know anyone who's looking for a dog? We've got a good one down at the shelter.

Well, that did it. I went down to see her. And I actually walked past her cage, because she was so timid and quiet, and all the other dogs were barking and making themselves known. But I stopped, and I said, oh. She's smaller than I was expecting. I want a big dog. And I was kind of thinking I wanted a male. But....she's awfully cute. And her tail started to wag.



And I said, well, is there a place I can take her for a walk or something? And the volunteer said, sure, and she picked up a leash. And wow, all the dogs went nuts. Barking, jumping...there was this big St. Bernard in the next cage who was banging on the cage door and just slobbering everywhere.

Maggie wagged her tail harder.



So we went outside. And she was so shy, and so timid, and so beaten down. And I scratched her head and played with her big velvety ears and she wouldn't look me in the eye. And Mags is part Greyhound, right, so she's a skinny gal as it is, but she was so thin you could see her ribs through her full fluffy Husky winter coat. She was clearly a damaged little soul. I rubbed her back, crouched down to pet her. And she leaned. You know how they do that. Knocked me over, actually. I laughed really hard. She hid behind my dad. And I was in love. This little girl? Was my dog.



So she couldn't come home with me that day because she wasn't done healing from her TAH/BSO (sometimes known in the non-former-OB/GYN community as being spayed). And it turned out that they adopted on a first come, first served basis. Which was a PROBLEM. Because she needed to be my dog, and I? Was taking step 2 of my medical boards on the day she was available for adoption. Crap.



So I gave my dad a letter, saying how much I wanted this dog, and that I had a nice house, with a big yard, and a dog run (that both my Husky Houdinis have had no problems getting out of, so it wasn't very useful, but I didn't mention that), and wow, I really wanted this dog. But you know, first come, first served. And when they opened the doors, three people were waiting for MY dog.

They ended up disqualifying one lady because she didn't have a fenced in yard or something. She had a little girl with her. So they put the other two names in a bowl and let the little girl pick. And because God, Allah, Vishnu, the Fates, and all the other ethereal powers knew that this was MY DOG, my name was on the paper she pulled out. I left the test, and there was a puppy waiting for me at home.



Oh, and ew, did I mention her name was Sweet Pea? Now, my girl, even before she recovered from her past life, even before she was the smart, funny, happy dog she is today, was so very not a Sweet Pea. So for the first three days of her new life she was named "Dog." And then one day, we were out in the back yard with Kedzie (whom she initially wounded but grew to love with reckless abandon), and I looked at her and I said, "Your name is Margaret, isn't it?" And she licked my face. And so it was. From then on she was Margaret Mae (like Maggie May, the Rod Stewart song).



They figured she was about eighteen months old when I got her. So I designated her birthday as six months for the day she came to live with me. Which is today. I've had Maggie for four and half years, and she really is the best puppy ever. We still don't really know what she is (except for the best puppy ever). She definitely has some Husky. She probably has some Greyhound. She may have some Shepherd. And the more I find out about them, she really seems to have a lot of Coyote (and they're rampant in the suburbs of Chicago). So my working theory right now is that her mom was probably something of a Husky/Greyhound mutt, and I'm guessing Dad was a Coyote who was passing by. I base this parental designation on, she had some training when I got her, so she was probably born to a domestic dog. Who was less likely to be a Coyote, because people generally don't have those at home bellying up to the water dish. Although I did try to pick one up on the side of the road once and take it to a vet. Because it looked like my dog, so it took me a second to realize, um, no, not somebody's errant pet.

But regardless of her roots, or whomever treated her poorly in the past, Maggie's been the best pal a girl could want. She went to New Hampshire with me. She came back to Chicago. She went on vacation to Florida. She went on interview trips with me. She even went to work at the yarn store with me and became our shop dog.



And now we're here. People criticize me often for being a "single mom" who works so much, and I'm not going to pretend that Mags wouldn't prefer I gave up my job and stayed home all day (actually, I think her Nirvana would be us both moving in to Daycare). But she's a very happy little pup, and she knows she's loved, and I like to think she wouldn't ask for a different life (with the exception of the afore mentioned Daycare clause). And I couldn't ask for a better companion through these last crazy years. To anyone who says money can't buy love, I would say, go down to your local shelter with $75. You'll get devotion, adoration, dedication, plus a leash and probably a bag of food. Spring the extra $3.50 on a Jumbone, add a little walk and a belly rub and you're guaranteed a friend for life. Shelter dogs are the BEST EVER. I have yet to meet a purebred who was as good a dog as my Wolfie and my Mags.


Love you baby. Happy 6th birthday.