Dog love

They say that a dog loves its owner unconditionally, and that is true, there is no love as special as the love between a dog and their owner. But it works both ways. The owner also loves their dog. They are a special friend, always there to greet you, always wants to hang out with you, listens to you, protects you, cares about you.

I never grew up with a dog of my own, and so one day, when I was older, an adult, Samie came into my life, and I fell in love. I was married, but it wasn’t that kind of love to compete with my wife, it was different. Samie was an older yellow Labrador Retreiver who just wandered onto my property one morning while I was working in the warehouse and plopped down by me and hung out. I petted her and said hello and she just contentedly lay there and kept me company. When I walked to the house, she accompanied me, and waited outside until I came out and followed me back to the warehouse, staying with me all day. When it got late, and in consultation with my wife, I walked down the road with Samie to see if she recognized any of the houses as hers, but she didn’t. I knew she was named Samie by her dog collor, and also that she came from Indiana, with a phone number stamped on the tags.so we went back to my house and I made a bed for her in the garage, gave her a bowl of food and a bowl of water. Then after petting for a while, I left her to sleep.

In the morning she greeted me and licked my hand. I let her out to relieve herself, and she came back ready to help me in the warehouse. While I worked and she lay next to me, my wife called the phone number on the tags, which was a vets office in Indianapolis. The owners of Sammie had moved to California, but no forwarding address or phone number.Ok, so we were still nowhere near finding her owners. Next step, advertise a lost and found dog. In the mean time, Sammie was my shadow, and I didn’t mind at all. We had no fences on our property, which was rural mountains and isolated, but she never wandered off. She was a very nice dog. Polite, sweet, oh and did I mention she was beautiful. I was falling in love. My wife didn’t want her in the house, so she stayed in the garage. I filled a wading pool with water and gave her a bath. And then I let her in the house “by accident”. She sniffed around and then settled down by my feet. I had never had a dog before, and was I hooked!

A week later we received a phone call from Sammie’s owner. They had gone on vacation, and just got back. They had seen our advertisement before they left, and didn’t try and get her until they got back. I was not happy about this. I really didn’t want to give her up but what could I do? So we made a date for the next day.when the car pulled up, 2 kids got out and were all over Sammie, and she was all over them. So they loved her, and she loved them. I relented. I said goodbye to Sammie, and never saw her again. That was 20 years ago, and I think about her all the time. My first love.

The next dog that came into our life was a rescue dog that my son got, because it was going to be put down. It was a Chinese Crested hairless dog, but the breeder gave her to the pound because she had hair, not hairless like they wanted. She was 5 months old, and I thought she was ugly, and weird, not the kind of dog I wanted. My son ended up leaving her with us, and so it became our family dog. I put up with her, but didn’t love her. I never gave any of my time. My wife loved her, my son loved her, my grandson loved her, but not me. She was cute, and lovable, everyone she met liked her, but she really wasn’t my kind of dog.

Then one day I had a series of acute strokes that put me in the hospital, and when I was released and came home I was bedridden and couldn’t walk, talk, eat, take care of myself, or anything. The ugly dog Prezley jumped up on the bed and lay by my side, against me, and never left my side for 6 months, until I started physical therapy and learnt to walk again, and then she stuck to me like glue. She was obviously worried about me, and wanted to protect me. So obviously she knew we had saved her and was giving back to us her love and empathy. I realized that she was such a loving and caring dog And so I began to care for her as well. She touched my heart. Now she is old and losing all her teeth, can’t climb the steps easily, and more than ever needs our love and care. Definitely a special kind of love.