Rosie

The beat up silver Pontiac was left running outside the pizza shop. I shot a look of desperation at my husband. I whipped my head back in the direction of the car. We were going to steal it. As I turned back to him to confirm he had already gone. I looked at the Pontiac, this time assuming I would see my husband hopping into the driver’s seat, but he wasn’t there. I heard him yell, “Whose car is that outside? We’ll pay $200 to anyone who can give us a ride right now!” I watched from the sidewalk through the corner store window. I realized he recognized the high school kid working the checkout counter. “He must be one of his students,” I thought out-loud. He jumped the counter and the boy led him back into the kitchen. He disappeared. I looked down in my arms. My girl was barely breathing. Her body was frail and lifeless. Her tongue which was usually pink and giving out endless kisses was ashen and hanging from her mouth. She was only a puppy, we only had her a year. She had already brought us a lifetime of joy but this couldn’t be it. We needed her.

The Summer evening air was still heavy with the afternoon’s heat. We had just spent the last few hours at the nearby park trying to escape the sizzle of the city sidewalks. There we hid under the shade of an oak and watched our Rosie as she chased, rolled and bounced around in the grass. Rosie stands on about three inches of leg and has a back that stretches almost two feet. She is red and gold and funny all over. Her ears are too big for her extra small head and her eyes make her look like a cartoon. She is perfect.

We were getting ready to leave the park and I noticed her jump back and shake her paw. I picked her up and saw a bee in the grass. I kissed her paw and put on her leash. “Let’s go home girl.” We started our short journey home. Instead of walking Rosie kept sitting down. It was not unlike Rosie to prefer to be carried. She is a dachshund, and she is spoiled, so at first we didn’t worry. Then she lay down and closed her eyes. I could see her struggling to breathe. I picked her up and she relieved herself in my arms. “She’s having anaphylaxis, we need to get to the vet right now.”

“What, how do you know?”

“I saw a bee earlier, I didn’t think she’d be allergic but I guess she is, we need to get her to the vet now.”

My husband took out his phone to call for a car. The closest car was 40 minutes from us. I knew If we waited that long she would die.

—

I looked up from Rosie and my husband burst out of the kitchen with the checkout boy and the pizza delivery driver. “Let’s go man, we gotta save this little puppy!” the driver shouted in his thick Jamaican accent. He motioned for us to get into his car. The delivery man was at least six feet tall and had another foot of dreadlocks in a beehive formation on the top of his head. He tilted his head at an impressive angle in order to get into the driver’s seat. The smell of pizza singed my nostrils as we got in and closed the door. “Ok these pizzas gunna have to wait, let’s get this doggy to the hospital brotha! Which way we goin’?” We directed him where to go, he knew exactly where it was. He hit the gas, he blew red lights, drove over curbs and cut through a gas station parking lot.

I looked at my husband, “I was definitely going to just steal the car, good call asking.”

“I figured a dead dog and a felony charge in one day would have been a real bummer,” he half smiled as he placed his big hand on Rosie’s tiny head. My eyes welled and tears rolled stinging my cheeks on the way down.

“Hey no crying my girl, we’re here!” the driver said, looking at me through the rearview mirror.

We had arrived in record time.

My husband opened his wallet and gave the driver everything we had and thanked him profusely. I shouted thank you as I ran Rosie to the front desk of the vet clinic. It was mostly a blur from there. I handed Rosie over to a soft spoken woman who said they would do everything they could to take care of her. I signed a few papers and we sat down to wait. I have no idea how long we waited, it felt like eternity but it could have been twenty minutes. They told us she did experience anaphylaxis and needed to be kept overnight and monitored. They told us to go home and that they would call us in the morning.

The morning finally came and we got the call that she was going to be ok and we could come get her at lunchtime. The vet told us Rosie is allergic to bees and we should always carry antihistamine in case of a sting.

We got to the vet office early. Finally, our girl burst through the double doors of the clinic out into the lobby. My husband and I both hit the ground as all eleven pounds of her barreled toward us and slathered us with kisses. Rosie was fine, life was good.

Don’t take your dog for granted and always tip your pizza delivery driver.