The first time I met Lacy, it was in a PetSmart downtown. My wife had been looking at dogs online for days, and asked if we could “just meet this one”. I reluctantly agreed, on the understanding that if this dog wasn’t well-behaved, she wouldn’t be coming home with us.
I was a fool.
Lacy lived with a man named Greg (who we had to refer to as “G-Man”. Lacy knew a grand total of 5 words when we adopted her: his name, her own name, food, walk, and wait). Greg was getting deployed, and needed someone to take care of his best friend, whom he’d known since she was a little puppy. We had pictures, they were very cute.
We met Lacy next to a large puddle. Greg insisted it was there when he arrived. Over the next twenty minutes, Lacy produced three more puddles, at which time Greg took her outside, remarking “huh, she just peed before we got here”.
I took Lacy’s leash when she returned, holding it gingerly, looking at Greg for approval. I’d never held a leash before, and unfortunately for me, it was a novel experience for Lacy as well. She TOOK OFF through the store, rampaging around, grabbing treats and toys off low shelves. I flailed behind her, trying to keep up while afraid to discipline her too loudly or too firmly. She wasn’t my dog after all, I was just holding her for this man who would have to find some sucker to offload her on in a day or two.
Silly me.
As she careened around one corner, Lacy got too close to one dog, who showed its displeasure by barking and snarling at her. Lacy didn’t read the cues1. A fight almost broke out, and I didn’t really have the wherewithal to process what had happened or who had started it.
Shaking, I handed the leash back to Greg, who looked at us eagerly. “So, what do you think?” he asked. I told him we needed a minute to talk it over, and he graciously agreed.
At the same time as I said “Clearly no”, my wife was like “Yup, this is our dog.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, bewildered. “She’s peeing all over the floor!” As we chatted, she left another, sixth puddle.
“She’s excited!” Courtney protested. “We’re not seeing her at her best.” We sort of were, but that’s another story.
Lacy came home with us. Greg gave us her belongings: a bed, a ball, and her favorite blanket. He said goodbye, and she jumped up on her hind legs, putting her hands on his shoulders. Greg teared up. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” he said.
We put her in the back seat, rolled the window down, and began the long drive home.
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Lacy was uniquely bad at reading body language. She didn’t respond to barks, snarls, hissing, or anything else, except to continue her default assumptions, which was “this creature wants to be my friend. I suspect, though cannot confirm, that this is a leading factor in her fear of cats2. ↩
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Lacy loved to sniff butts. If a creature had a butt, she’d sniff it. If it didn’t, she’d check to make sure just in case. She wasn’t as big of a fan of being on the sniffee side of things. I suspect, though cannot prove that the following happened at one point before I knew her: Lacy met a cat. Lacy tried to shove her entire snout into the cat’s butt. The cat raised its hackles, hissed, maybe even batted a paw. Lacy, oblivious, tried to go snout-deep. The cat responded by twhacking her with claws. The lesson Lacy learned was that all cats are mean and will attack at any time with no provocation or warning. Lacy was not a smart girl, and I loved her very much. ↩