Who Saved Who?

Dreams can predict the future. I know it’s true because it happened to me. I dreamed that I had a dog. She was little with black and white hair that stuck up everywhere round her head like she’d been knitted out of left-over wool. I even drew a picture of her, my dream dog.

A year later, to the day, I got in the car to drive to the nearest grocery store. For some strange reason, like on auto pilot, I found myself driving to the Humane Society that had just opened in my little town in Canada’s Badlands. “Do you have any dogs?” I asked.

The lady said they did have a dog, but she was at the car wash. What could this mean? Apparently, she had gone on a car outing with one of the volunteers and would be back soon.

The little dog returned and I instantly knew I would take her home. She was black and white with her hair sticking out all over the place, exactly like my dream dog. I named her Lexi.

She had been surrendered because her family couldn’t look after her any longer. But it didn’t look like her family had looked after in the first place. Every rib in her body stuck out. She weighed less than my cat. As a terrier and Lhaso Apso cross she should have weighed about 18 lbs or so. But it wasn’t just the physical neglect - as I found out when I took her home.

She scampered upstairs and hid under my bed in terror for two weeks, surfacing only for a walk and to eat. When I reached down to stroke her, she yelped in panic. I tried to give her a bath, but she shook so badly and wet herself, I gave up on that idea.

On a walk in the Badlands, always pretty deserted, she would invariably hear a noise coming from somewhere. It would be so faint I couldn’t hear it, but she could. She would stand stock still and shake so badly I had to pick her up and carry her home.

A friend who was a bit of an expert on dogs told me she had never seen an animal so damaged. I wondered if Lexi would ever bond with me.

I had another pet at the time, the Elizabeth Taylor of cats, so beautiful with such a “I’ll please myself” sort of personality. She didn’t care for the new family member, but Lexi just loved her and wanted to touch noses. Cats yes, people no. Maybe there was an opening here. So to bond, I let Lexi sleep down the bed with me and the cat. (Still not bathed but what can you do?) She really liked that almost as much as peanut butter. I tried not to pet her too much as she was afraid of touch. She did not respond to her name. And she didn’t perk up with praise either.

But one day, I petted a friend’s dog and Lexi started to cry with jealousy, and I realized that she recognized me and her as us, ‘a pack’. She started to feel safe with me on a walk, and I no longer had to carry her home. The little red coat I had bought her to keep out the Canadian winter chill was now way too tight. (Thanks to peanut butter and 3 plus meals a day.) She looked like a different dog. Hiding out under the bed became a thing of the past. She was happy to see me when I came in from work and she stayed glued to me. I realised that, after all she had been through, in spite of all the physical and emotional abuse she had endured, she had never lost her capacity to love.

One terrible night in December, the year she came to live with me, my very best friend’s breast cancer had returned and had spread everywhere. That same day, I learnt that my former husband had been diagnosed with a serious cancer.

The agony of these two blasts of the such terrible news literally felt like an animal gnawing at my stomach. I lived alone at that time, except for Lexi. Without her, I don’t know how I would have got through that dark time. She would sit beside me, listen to me and and calm me down. Once she was the one who was so afraid, but now it was my turn. Just like my dream had foretold, I knew she was meant to be with me. It’s as though she had chosen me and not the other way round. We've been together for nine years now! I guess in answer to the question Who saved who? it would be, We saved each other.