What can I say about my Lucy girl? Lucy and I found each other at a Cowboy Mounted Shooting competition at the Circle C arena in Iowa Falls over the 4th of July in 2003. She was no bigger than a thermos, but despite that, she was larger than life. I fell in love with her the moment I saw her. She had these little poke legs and a big brain head. She had a perfect polka-dot on her back and a half-mask on her face that told me she would be a handful, and she was!
Lucy was the smartest dog I have ever owned. By the time she was 4 months old, her vocabulary comprehension was huge. She had over a dozen toys and knew every one of their names. One of my favorite stories about Lucy is the time we were playing the "name game". Every night when I went to bed, Lucy and I would play. All of her toys were piled in a corner of the room and I would ask her to bring me a toy from the pile. Whatever name I asked for, she would identify the toy and bring it to me. One night we were playing and I asked her to bring me the "piggy". She ran happily to the pile of toys, started to pick up the piggy, then looked at me and picked up the zebra. I told her, "No, I want the piggy." She put the zebra down, started again to pick up the piggy, then looked at me again and instead picked up the frog. Once again, I told her that no, I want the piggy and if she couldn't bring me the toy I asked for, then we wouldn't play. I got up to go to the bathroom, and when I came back into the bedroom, Lucy was lying on the bed with an ornery expression on her face and wagging her tail. I looked over at the pile of toys in the corner, and piggy was missing! It took me nearly a half hour to find the piggy. I discovered it hidden under a blanket under my bed. For whatever reason, Lucy did not want to bring me the piggy, so she hid it. That was only the beginning of her ability to rationalize.
Lucy had to have a name for everything and everyone, or she wouldn't leave you alone. And she never forgot anyone, no matter how long she went without seeing them.
She is the only dog I have ever known that you could reason with. She used to like to stand on my lap while I was driving and hang her head out the window. I would tell her to sit down and she would ignore me until I would tell her, "Either sit down or get over (in the passenger seat)". She would immediately sit down.
Lucy had three litters of pups. I kept two puppies, which I still have (Neuman from the second litter, and Sweet Pea "Petey", from the third litter). She was a wonderful mama and often appeared to view her pups as "toys". Her favorite thing to do to them was to stick her head underneath their bellies between their back legs and spin them.
She loved tomatoes, especially ketchup and pasta. She could also smell a Burger King a mile away. Her treat for being a good girl when she went to the store with me and sat in the truck was to go through Burger King drive-thru and get a cheeseburger with ketchup only.
As you can tell, Lucy wasn't just my dog, she was my family. I often referred to her as the daughter I never had. :-) From the time she was a pup, anytime I would put on my makeup, she would wait patiently until I picked up my blush brush and then she would come put her paws on my legs and hold her face up until I put blush on her too and told her how beautiful she was. She also had to wear her bandanna. Whenever I washed it she would see me folding it and would come running to have me put it back on her. Seldom did you see me without Lucy as she was my "go girl".
Yes, Lucy was larger than life. She taught me a lot about noticing the small things in life and approaching life head on. She was fearless...
Last Fall, Lucy started having problems with her right eye. I took her to the vet several times to no avail. She went blind in that eye within a couple of months. Then a month ago, the same thing started happening in her left eye. I went to a different vet this time and he told me he thought it might be glaucoma and sent me to a specialist. They confirmed it was glaucoma, but were hopeful that with eye-drops, the glaucoma would be controlled and her sight restored. Her eye got better for almost a week and then started to go blind again. So I took her back to the vet and they discovered that she was in a lot of pain with the first eye that had gone blind. The pressure was so bad in her eye that it had pushed her lens to the front of the eye. The only solution was removal of the eye. So we scheduled surgery for the following week. By the time we went in to have the surgery, the drops had failed to work in her left eye and she had gone completely blind and had stopped eating. She was dropping 1.5 lbs. a week. I was forced to make a very difficult decision.
Heartbroken, I decided to put my Lucy girl down. I couldn't bear the thought of her losing both eyes, and then starving herself to death. Lucy's sight was the core of her very being. She would not have been happy having to live blind, nor would she have ever adjusted to losing her independence.
Last Wednesday, I took my girl to the vet. We went early so I could take her through the Burger King drive-thru one last time and get her a cheeseburger with ketchup. When we arrived at the vet's office she was given a tranquilizer, and then the lethal injection. I made sure she still had her bandanna on as she lay dying in my arms. I thanked her for being my friend and for making me a better person. I told her how much I loved her, and also told her not to wait at the Rainbow Bridge for me, that I wanted her to go explore and have fun. I promised her that someday we would find each other again. So good-bye my dear Lucy girl, until we meet again.
Posted in loving memory of my Lucy girl.
June 2003-August 12, 2009
A special thanks to my dear friend Barb for being by my side through this whole ordeal. She's been my rock and I couldn't have made it through this without her.
The "Tommy Boys" are now four months old without a care in the world. They continue to hang out in the barn and frolic around the farm. Oh, what I would give to have their lives about now.... :-)
