Jodie

Jodie wasn’t your typical dog. She had to have been one of the unique dogs I’ve had to have owned that has ever lived. When I was around seven, my family and I went to the pound to find a forever friend after one that recently passed. We looked around, dog after dog in kennels until a small black Labrador puppy was yipping loudly, trying to get our attention. She had this look on her face saying, ‘I need you, I’ll be a good girl to my mother. My mother looked in her eyes, in love, at her and then at my dad, saying, ‘ Jim, I need her .’He had a look in his eyes, saying that he was instantly was attracted to this curious little dog too. My dad then replied, ‘Yes, Joyce. She needs us’.

We all agreed as a family that this happy little dog needed us as we needed her too. It had turned out that the employees at the pound notified us that this little black puppy had a rough beginning. A young couple had found her in a trash can at their apartment building and brought her into the pound a few hours before, hopefully, that she’d have a forever family. My parents had gotten her records, and she was on the way to our house. My mom brought her to the vet to get her first check-up, as she was a very sick little dog. The vet diagnosed her Bronchitis, and it wasn’t looking good for her at times. She was strong and had gotten better. Deciding on names, my mom chose the name Jodie for her since it was something unique and not a ridiculous name for a dog like Bingo. We all liked the name and thought it suited her and her personality.

During Jodie‘s younger years, she got into everything puppies tend to do. One morning we went out a short while, as we arrived home, we returned to a mess in the kitchen with candy wrappers scattered around the floor from Whitman’s sampler she had found. Every candy was eaten except for one….the maple walnut. This includes when Jodie ate a small portion of Tootsie Pops and candy sticks scattered over the living room floor. My mom called the vet immediately to get Jodie’s stomach pumped because of the chocolate. Luckily, she survived the chocolate incident. When it came to meat, she would get sick and turn it up. Jodie was a self-proclaimed vegetarian. She was a canine who loved to eat, especially when it came to bananas. You couldn’t even say the name or open it because she would know the sound and come running from the other side of the house, begging for a taste of the banana. If you ate one in front of her, you made perfectly sure to give her some of yours. You name it, Jodie ate it: lettuce, watermelon, popcorn, blueberries, any vegetables or other fruits ( including grapes!!.) This dog only wanted the salad bar when it came to food.

She loved to swim with my sister and me. Before she got in the pool, she’d test the water out with her paw and then proceeded to go in. We’d race with her, as we’d swam ahead, Jodie would take her time, swimming gracefully as Esther Williams if she saw you get ahead of her, turning right back around in the middle of swimming, seeing that you were cheating and she wanted to win. Jodie would get out of the pool, shake off and then dry off where the towels were hung on the back of the chair and then bark or eat watermelon.

Jodie would love to play games with my older sister and stalk her from the other side of the hallway when we get ready for bed. As picking her favorite person, that would be my mom. My mom would talk to her as if she was a natural person as she understood what my mother was saying to her. This was the same dog we took to take a picture with Santa and smile. As time progressed, Jodie got older; she was diagnosed with arthritis and hip dysplasia. She was in a lot of pain, where we put a heating pad on her hip, and she almost had a smile as you could see the gratefulness on her face.

It was a rainy June morning; we had a hard decision to make the night before that it was time to bring Jodie in to be put down. One of the hardest things to do as a pet owner. You want your pet to live forever, but you know that it’s not possible, and you don’t want them to succumb to pain anymore. It’s inhumane. We had the same vet that took care of Jodie when she was a sick puppy at the beginning of her journey. He briefly told us what would happen step-by-step when Jodie was administered the euthanasia medication. In less than five minutes, we saw her bright eyes begin to close slowly as she was going into a deep sleep to be brought to the rainbow bridge greeted by other dogs who passed before her. After she had passed, the vet gave us time alone; you could see him get a little emotional since he loved Jodie too.

Jodie lived a wonderful, loving life for eleven years. She was a constant happy dog who brought in the sunshine when you had a rough day from work or school. She was there to greet you with love and kisses as soon as you opened the garage door. We have her ashes scattered in some rose bushes underneath a big cedar tree in the backyard with two previous dogs that had also passed, as their spirits can play together forever on five and a half acres in the country.