Puppy Fix

All my life, I’ve grown up with a dog in my family. Our first dog, a cocker spaniel named Jasmine died when I was 8, and I was devastated. Which is strange, considering she was inbred, and therefore a little crazy. The daily chore I shared with my sister was to feed Jasmine every morning. And every morning that it was my turn to feed her, my dad had to go out with me to hold the dog back so she wouldn’t eat me alive when I put the food down.

Yeah, she was a bit nuts.

But despite all her faults, she was the family pet that I was born with, so I cried for a month after she died. Then my family moved from Oregon to Eastern Washington, and that kind of transition was difficult for all of us to deal with. Soon after we moved, my older sister and I started begging for a dog. Like next-level-over-the-top begging. Our mom took the defensive stance when this subject always came up – “Girls, you’ll have to go talk to your father about this.” So of course, we would go to my dad and beg in the way that only Daddy’s little girls can beg. But then after a while without any results, we resorted to playing dirty. Or at least a new tactic that was sure to get his attention. Subtle like a freight-train was our objective.

Our dog breed of choice was a Labrador. As a family, we had decided this, but my parents were very particular about the kind of lab we could get. It had to be the right size, it couldn’t come from a kennel, it had to be purebred, yadda yadda yadda.

So my sister and I wrote out probably 30 notes – things such as “Labs make great family pets,” and “A dog takes away family stress,” and “Your daughters really want a puppy.” We put these notes everywhere. They were wrapped around his toothbrush and razor, they were put inside his boating magazines, in his daily lunch that he would take to work, on his pillow and in his sock drawer.

And you know, after about 2 weeks of this bombardment, he finally got down to finding a dog. We drove out to a house about 45 minutes away, where a young girl had bred her purebred chocolate lab for her 4-H project, which resulted in 9 adorable black lab puppies. We ended up taking home the runt of the litter, a tiny thing that we named Sadie.

For the past 13 years, Sadie has been an integral part of our lives. It’s the family joke that she’s the “third sister,” since she’s the only one still at home with my parents. When I left for college, I went through major puppy withdrawals, since I usually used Sadie as stress-relief. Since my parents were about 300 miles away, it wasn’t exactly easy to get my stress relief.

So, I had to improvise. For the past 3 years, whenever I get really stressed, I go down to the mall and spend some quality time at Scamps, our local pet store. Just holding and playing with a puppy does amazing wonders for my stress level and blood pressure.
Because you were never stressed in college, right?

I mean, how could you NOT be more relaxed after seeing this face?

These puppies don’t do any justice to replacing the feeling I get when I’m with Sadie, but at least it’s a temporary fix. It just makes my time at home with Sadie all the more special.