By all rights we should not have had a very small puppy in a wire crate next to our bed on the morning of December 19, three years ago. When Tsuga died suddenly on December 5, we vowed we’d live out the pain before we dared open our home and hearts to another darned dog.
You know how such things go–the empty places where their faces always appeared, the missing sounds, the unmet need to love and to be warmed in the guileless fidelity of a familiar friend, now gone. You think you can live without them once that the decision has been thrust by mortality upon you and that is just the way things are.
But this far-flung fenceless playground and Mole Ranch (and its ranchers) could not go on until the pain subsided, and on December 18, we brought home an 8-week rescue pup from a Walmart parking lot in Carroll County. We called her Gandy–my crafted feminine for gander–of Goose Creek.
And on December 19, we began our first full day together. So how could I, this very morning, write about anything else? Herself watches me at the keyboard from her accustomed place on the loveseat–HER loveseat now–where Buster, then Tsuga could nestle briefly and by invitation only. She OTOH is nestled permanently and sometimes grants us permission to share.
So happy three-year homecoming anniversary, mutt. We hope you’ll keep us as we’re paper-trained and don’t jump up on visitors or sniff inappropriately at strangers or delivery persons.
Gandy Has Entered the Building! | Fragments from Floyd
If Life Gives You Gandy… | Fragments from Floyd
Happy Gotcha-Day, Gandy! One of the biggest reasons I have multiple dogs is that I don’t think I could survive being dogless!
Happy Homecoming Day, Gandy!