Let's Talk About the Dog Part 1

 I spent a large part of my life telling people that I was afraid of dogs.  If I was being truthful, I was more afraid of what would happen if I loved a dog.  This was due to something that happened when I was in elementary school.

Our collie had an unplanned litter of puppies, and one puppy was extremely shy and wouldn't allow anyone to approach her but me.  I LOVED that little dog and spent hours with her.  I felt so special because she only wanted to be with me.  The puppies grew quickly and my parents started giving them away.  I came home from school one day to find that it was my puppy's day, and she was gone.  I remember sitting on the front steps and crying my eyes out, and I decided then that there would be no more dogs.

Fast forward about 25 years, and I was driving with a colleague to get our taxes done. As we neared the home, my friend looked at me and told me that the tax person had an "ugly little dog" but if I just ignored it, it wouldn't hurt me.  I was immediately on edge and dreaded what I was going to find.

We arrived at the house and rang the doorbell, and I heard the beast come rushing down the stairs.  The door opened, and I was face to face with a pug.  I worked so hard to ignore that dog, but it was having nothing of it.  It circled me like a shark in the water, bringing me toys and begging me to play.  The pug (named Snookie, by the way) twirled on her rear legs and begged for pieces of watermelon licorice.  By the end of the evening I couldn't take it anymore, and I sat down on the floor.  In just a few seconds Snookie crawled onto my lap, and looked at me with those big brown eyes, and I was in love.

So I quickly sat about on a search for my own pug.  After a couple of dead ends, I ended up at a place that had two.  Having seen pictures of both pugs, I went in expecting to come home with one in particular.  She, however, was a wild child and we just didn't seem to bond.  The other pug strolled into the room, curled up onto a pillow beside me, and seemed to be waiting for me to take her home.  And that is what I did.

This pug's name was Catriona (Cat-tree-own-ah), but she answered to the name, "Cat."  She turned out to be stubborn, a drama queen, and extremely set in her ways - but I couldn't have loved her any more.  

                                           Catriona, aka "Cat," taken shortly before her death.