Trixie, The Abandoned Dog Who Found Us in the Woods

We didn't plan for Trixie. We didn't plan for a dog at all. We planned for a cat, and we only planned for a cat, because we had good friends who couldn't keep him, because they had a few too many. A stray cat they were helping had had a litter of kittens.

I hear stories from friends who have adopted either dogs or cats from shelters, and they will often say that their pet finds them rather than the other way around. Something about that encounter at the shelter will let you know for sure which pet is for you, the one who seeks you out. Though we didn't go to a shelter, it worked that way for us. Trixie found us.

Shortly, after we took our cat home (or attempted to,) Trixie came into our lives. First, let me tell you about the cat. The cat's first owners named him Baby, but we changed the name to Frisky. The trip home with Frisky did not go well. Mom did not have a cat carrier, and, simply put him into the car and traveled home with him. Spooked by the novelty of a car ride, strange people and a strange new place, Frisky shot off to nowhere land like a stone from David's sling, as soon as the car door opened again. My family ended up posting a missing cat sign at the local deli about a block away from us.

Around this time, while Frisky was still missing, two of my older brothers, Bruce and Dan, went on a hike with my cousin, Kevin, at the Eagle Rock Reservation in West Orange, New Jersey. It was here that Trixie, this black and white mutt dog with no collar, found the boys and began to follow them around. She continued to hang around them when my mother went to pick them up.

Mom looked at the boys and looked at the dog and thought maybe my brothers were asking to keep her. Looking back on it, Mom thinks she was the one that wanted her. Trixie was looking so puppyish and cute and acted so friendly, she could not resist her. Seeing her made Mom's thoughts flit back to her childhood on a farm in Nebraska and a little black and white wire-haired terrier they had ... who eventually contracted rabies. That evoked a sad memory of watching from a window of that farmhouse while my grandfather put down the rabid dog that was foaming from the mouth. That wire-haired terrier was named Trixie, which is exactly how our Trixie got her name.

Mom said to the boys, "I suppose you want to keep this dog." They explained that she'd been following them around the park all day. When Mom asked, "Do you want to keep her?" they shrugged their shoulders. Mom looked at sweet Trixie again and said, "Just put her in the car."

Shortly afterwards, she took the boys and the dog to a little strip mall with a K-Mart across from the park and bought a collar, leash and dog bed. Trixie came home to our family and became our dog.

We doubt that Trixie was alone at the reservation for more than a few days, but later her poo in the yard showed evidence that she'd been eating acorns. We did what everyone does with a new dog. We got her a license and took her to the vet. There was no DNA testing for dogs at that time, but the vet guessed that Trixie was a combination of cocker spaniel and fox terrier.

She did have the long silky hair of a spaniel, markings similar to a springer spaniel and the pointed ears of a terrier. She looked like a fluffy dog until you wet her down, and then you could see what a lean little thing she was, with a body that seemed to be built for speed. She never learned how to heel or walk in a dignified way beside us. Once she was on a leash, she was off like a racing greyhound, pulling her walker behind her. If she wanted to be let out in the yard, she'd bounce at the back door like she had springs for hindquarters. Boing! Boing! Boing! She'd hit the floor and bounce up again to the level of the window in the door. Her excitement each time was always due to some squirrels in the yard that needed chasing. Trixie maintained this level of energy from her puppyhood into her senior years.

A neighbor did see our sign at the deli and found Frisky, and we had the two animals together for a time. We gave them separate beds, but they insisted on sleeping together. We gave them separate food and water dishes also, but they insisted on eating one another's.

Mom remembers that I would pick up Frisky and kiss him. I was so young at the time that I don't distinctly remember that, but it doesn't surprise me, since that is not too different from what I do now with a dog or cat -- if they are welcoming and tolerant of it.

Unfortunately, Frisky wasn't with us long. I don't remember who gave me the news. I do remember my parents and brothers standing around in the kitchen when one of them told me that Frisky had been hit by a car and killed. I cried at the news in a loud, unrestrained way like a seven-year-old will do, but in a short while, I was very comforted by Trixie and threw all my affection for an animal onto her.

Trixie, thankfully, was with us and in good health for many more years. Unlike her namesake, she never came across a wild animal that made her rabid although she did get skunked a few times. We bathed her in tomato juice until we decided that doggy shampoo was much more effective.

Three incidents stand out in my memory regarding Trixie: one in which she terrorized my fourth grade class gerbils, one in which she was inadvertently (and quite literally) a pain to a member of the family and one where she was heroic.

So, yes, I had the task of caring for the fourth grade class gerbils over one weekend. When I carried the cage into the house, I'm not certain what I expected. I don't know if I had any anxiety over how the animals would behave with one another.

Trixie bounced with excitement the way she did for squirrels at the back door. With one of those bounces, she smacked her noggin on the bottom side of the gerbil cage, and this unleashed a crazy chain reaction of events. The cage door popped open and out popped three gerbils who soon had a nutty black and white dog racing after them. I don't really know how I managed it. Perhaps, a rush of adrenaline drove me to race after the rodents myself, but I caught all three by their tails before Trixie caught them and did, well, whatever she would have done with them.

At another time, during the courtship of my brother Dan with his wife Dorothy, both of them got severely sunburned after a trip to the beach. Dan was crawling around the house afterwards in a kind of adaptive crab walk with straight legs. It's hard to imagine that this would be easier than going about on two feet, but it had something to do with not being able to tolerate bending his knees in a normal way. Shortly after this, while they were both still in pain, our family had a backyard barbecue.

Here, Dan rested on a lounge lawn chair, stretching out his legs that were red and boiled like the crab he'd been imitating. Trixie devotedly hung by him. When Bruce's girlfriend, Melody -- another future sister-in-law -- called Trixie over, she would not come to her, even after Melody called her repeatedly. Finally, Dan took Trixie's head in his hands, pointed her nose in Melody's general direction and said, "Look!" With that, Trixie had a sudden realization and sprung into action, jumping up and taking a shortcut right over Dan's legs, scraping with her little toenails. As Dan gave a look of suppressed agony, it felt like a sitcom moment, though it may not have seemed particularly funny to Dan just then.

As a grade school kid, I had a certain regular route to and from school, but, occasionally, I took a different one to keep company with neighbor kids who lived up the street from me. On their route, my two friends got a little trouble from a bike-riding bully who would chase them and taunt them, and, on one occasion, I experienced it with them. I remember us all running from him, but I honestly don't remember any details of what he said or threatened or what we thought he would do if he caught up with us.

He chased me all the way home until he was on my property, standing in my backyard. Trixie barked at us excitedly from the back door. This is when the bully decided to tell me, rather nervously, "Whatever you do, do not let your dog out on me! Whatever you do, do not let your dog out on me!"

As excited as Trixie was, I didn't have any idea about letting her out until he made the suggestion himself. As soon as he did, I knew that's exactly what I ought to do. She didn't sic' him or attack. It wasn't needed. She came running out, and he ran likewise far away from us. He never gave me any trouble after that day.

At the beginning of everything, when we had both animals, there was the bit of an idea that Frisky was my pet and Trixie was my brother's. Really, I think, of my siblings, I was the one who benefited the most from my relationship to Trixie. When Trixie was found, I was seven and Bruce was 17, just a short ways from leaving the house and going off to college. Dan followed soon behind him.

As a child, I don't know if I really thought much about our family being Trixie's rescuers or what would have happened to her if we had not found her. I was just happy to have a dog to love, though I was sometimes struck with the novelty of how everything came about, the surprise of getting a dog when we were expecting a cat only or going to a park and coming back with a dog. It was almost like having a baby delivered by a stork.

What would have happened if Trixie hadn't found us? Would Animal Control have found her? Was there a possibility she wouldn't have lived the full and spunky life that she did? If another family had found her, could she have had a happy life in an alternative history? Perhaps. But I think this is the way things were meant to unfold. We were the family for her, and she was the dog for us, for me. I can't imagine what growing up would have been without her or with any other dog in her place.

And this is how I remember Trixie: the dog who found us in the woods, loyal friend, spark plug of energy, chaser of squirrels (and sometimes gerbils) and a heroine defender.