How One Became Three

When I was a child, too young to remember much, my mom put my older brother and I in the car and took us to a stranger's house. We went to the back porch and I sat on cool, smooth concrete. Then, puppies came out. We left that stranger's house with one of those puppies. He sat in a box in the backseat, belted in, as we talked about names.

I remember suggesting Angel, but my mom pointed out that it was a boy dog. I don't know how we arrived at the name, but the dog came to be known as Sam. Sam the dog was a quarter Boxer, quarter Pit Bull, and half Golden Retriever. The story goes that someone was breeding their dog and someone else's dog got out. Together those dogs made a litter of mutts that were given away.

My mom says we got Sam to help my brother's fear of dogs. I don't remember my brother, who is two years older than me, being afraid of dogs. I also don't remember Sam being a puppy. I just remember growing up with him. He was golden brown in color and energetic. Our backyard was well guarded from squirrels and neighborhood cats. Rats from the waterway at the back of the neighborhood were fought off by him. He was sweet, greedy, and had incredibly soft ears. My mom called him the velveteen puppy. Every birthday when we gathered around the table and sang happy birthday, he barked along.

Even now, the front door's threshold is damaged from his chewing and clawing. But, as life goes on, a puppy becomes a dog, and then that dog becomes a senior. The turning point of his life happened when the neighbor's twelve year old daughter left their backdoor open on accident.

Their inside-only cat got out, jumped on the fence that separates the yards, and, as bad luck had it, she fell into our yard. After years of being teased by fence-sitting cats, Sam had a hate in his heart for the creatures. They fought and both lived. (He never 'got' a cat). The cat's claw had punctured the joint of one of his front paws. The resulting injury gave him a limp paw, and it was downhill from there.

In his last years of life, he slept on a foam mattress on the living room floor with my brother. Once his fur started falling out and his joints popped when he struggled to stand, we said good-bye. After fourteen and a half years, we no longer had a dog.

At this time in my life, I had just graduated high school. It was May, actually. Life was changing fast. I spent the summer working my first job at the hospital, helping co-workers old enough to be my parent. Every time I came home, from work, the gas station, anywhere, and I opened the front door, the stark contrast cut my heart. For almost fifteen years, I had come home to a dog beside himself in excitement. He jumped, though he was not supposed to, and, if excited enough, kissed our ears. It was like having a fan club.

To go from being celebrated for walking through a door to nothing was too much for me. July 31st I was driving my mom home from my grandparents' house. My eyes puffed up and my throat tightened. Before I had completed the not-even two minute drive, I had to pull over right before we hit the driveway. My tears blinded me.

My mom tried to comfort me about my grandfather's failing health, but I had already accepted that. I was crying about walking through the front door. When we said good-bye to Sam, I had planned to not get another dog until I had moved out, but life was unbearable without one. She told me that the next day we could go to the shelter, but that didn't mean we were getting one.

So, on August first we went to our local dog shelter. I wanted a dog that wasn't a puppy (I could not afford one and they need a lot of training) but wasn't a senior. Some people have golden hearts for senior dogs, but I wanted a dog I could love for the next ten years. My mom and I also agreed to get a dog on the smaller side. Sam was about fifty-five pounds as an adult and as strong as a bull. We wanted one we could pick up and walk with ease.

There was a puppy my mom liked. So, we took her out to the yard and tried to learn her name. But, her name (something akin to apricot but not quite) did not stick well in my head. The little dog also did not respond to her name when we called her. It wasn't that she did not know her name, but that she did not care that we called for her. When the shelter worker came to see how we were, the puppy ran up to her when she called.

I asked the worker if we could see a little black and brown dog named Maggie. She was two years old and about 38 pounds. They had put her in an 'adopt me' bandana that I really liked. Happy to help, they brought her out to the yard for us to see. This little Rottweiler-look-alike not only came when we called her, but she sat when we asked. My mom and I talked, she ran out to the yard and rolled around. We called for her, and she came back. She picked us, and we took her home that day.

Over time, she fell in love with our 'pack' and proved herself to be a sweet, loyal, intelligent little lady.

Then my aunt decided to breed dogs. What was the perfect starting breed but Great Danes? My brother, who went through a solid Shaggy Rogers phase, said he would buy one. My aunt said that if the litter was big enough, he could have one. Pepper, the mother of the litter, delivered 13 viable puppies. Sadly, the fourteenth was not for this world. My mom and brother drove the six or seven hours to my aunt's house and picked out the puppy with the most black fur. (Pepper was completely black, while the male dog looked like an Oreo milkshake). He named her Emily and they brought her home. Emily has a white chest and white toes while the rest of her coat is solid black.

My brother raised Emily through puppyhood, cleaning up her midnight messes and walking her out into the yard when she needed to use the bathroom. But as life would have it, my brother got busy with work. The time he spent out of the house grew longer and longer until a lot of Emily's care was left to our grandmother. (He had been living with her for some time while caring for our grandfather). Though Great Danes are known as gentle giants, and Emily fits the bill most days, we did not feel safe knowing Grandma was the one walking her out to the yard for potty breaks.

If Emily got spooked or felt threatened or just wanted to run, she could run. The risk of Grandma falling over due to pulling was too great to ignore. After a little extra socialization with Maggie, Emily moved into our (my parents) home. The girls got along aside from Emily trying to sit on Maggie and baby her. Maggie, being two years older than Emily and possibly never before living with another dog, was not up for being babied by Emily. Or sat on.

Six months passed. For her job, my mom drove to people's homes. One of her co-workers told her about this house out in the country. If she stayed at that house a little longer, a dog would come out from the woods. So, one day when she had the time, my mom lingered in her car. A small brown dog with a perfect black nose and a white-tipped tail came out from the woods. My mom said hi to him, offering her hand to test his temperament. He licked her hand and gazed up at her with darling brown eyes. He was the sweetest dog in the world.

Knowing that the homeowners knew about the dog and were planning on 'releasing' him from his starvation, my mom went to a gas station. She got a cardboard box and some dog food and picked up the dog. On the drive home, she called him 'Buddy.' Just as she brought home Sam, she brought home Buddy, even naming him on the way.

Once cleared for heartworms (a death sentence for him), we took him home. For about a month, he lived in Maggie's old crate on the back porch as he gained weight for his shots. Through the crate, the girls got used to him. We decided to not take him to a pound or the shelter, and instead, we kept him.

He's Emily's baby and Maggie's playmate. He has taken over Sam's position as resident backyard protector. He even has a similar coat color.

It's been years since. Maggie and Emily turned seven and five, respectively. Only the Good Lord knows how old Buddy is. They chase each other around the house. Life is completely different, but the same. I'm happy to come home. I'm happy to have scratches down my arms from Maggie reaching for my face.

I'm happy to have the house feel like home again.