Some dogs have superpowers. Sophie’s was making the people around her feel like they were the most important beings on the planet. She would gaze at whomever she was by with eyes full of love and compassion, and then try to get a little closer.
She didn’t exactly feel that way about squirrels and other backyard interlopers. One sign of a bushy tail and she was on that critter before you could focus. She even got a mouth full of down feathers when a couple of tired geese decided to rest (very briefly, as it turned out) on our lawn.
I lost my lovely girl four weeks ago.
When I thought about drafting a “Lessons From my Dogs” post in her honor, I realized that I had already written the perfect one ten years ago. Here it is, with just a very few tweaks to some verb tenses:
I met Sophie, a Black Australian Shepherd-Golden Retriever mix who until the end managed to look like both a Flat-Coated Retriever and a Newfie puppy, when she was a year old. She raced out to the rocks at the southeast border of my backyard, curled her lip Elvis style, and wagged the lower half of her body so hard she wound up shaped like a U with her tail and her shoulders side by side. It was love at first wag.
As sweet as she was neglected, Sophie would shoot over to the fence as soon as she was let out of her five-foot by ten-foot chain link dog run. That wasn’t often. Every day I would look out my bedroom window and see her sitting in that mega cage up to twelve hours a day or more. I couldn’t bear it. So I made friends with her owners and got them to agree to let me bring her along on dog outings or bring her over to play with my two Cocker Spaniels, Hoover and Dashiell.
One cold, rainy fall night I returned home late. As I was dropping the bedroom window shade, I spotted Sophie still in her dog run. Her owners had draped a tarp over the top, but the water that had pooled in the plastic was now dripping down from all sides. She was soaked. I couldn’t take it. I headed straight for my computer and began to search the local Craigslist to see if anyone was selling a Dog Igloo. Sophie clearly needed shelter and that would keep her warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I found a couple of options and emailed the owners. The next day one of them called me.
“Is there any way you would give me a better price?” I inquired when he asked for $60. “You see, it’s not even for my dogs.”
When I explained the situation, he dropped his price to $40. I picked up Sophie’s “new” dog house that afternoon and snuck it into her dog run. Then I lied, telling my neighbors that I had found it at a yard sale for $5 and couldn’t resist.
That January, temperatures plunged down to single digits as they do every year in Bend, Oregon. I called Sophie’s parents.
“You can’t leave her outside,” I announced firmly. “Bring her to me in the morning before you go to work. You can pick up her when you get home.”
They didn’t argue and Sophie rapidly became a fixture in my house. I dog-sat her when the family went camping, although I have to admit I never understood why you would want to camp without your dog. I took her to dog training classes with my two pups. And I continued to bring her along on dog walks during which all three pups would run free.
“You want my dog,” my neighbor announced when she opened her front door for me one morning.
“Yes I do,” I replied. I had no idea if she was talking about that day or forever. It didn’t matter. The answer applied to both.
A few months later, Sophie’s owner called me. Sophie had turned on the family’s 3-year-old son who tormented Sophie regularly, catching him under the eye to the point where he needed a couple of stitches. Clearly, she’d had enough.
“We can’t keep her,” the mother told me on the phone through her tears. “You have been so involved with her, I wonder if you would want to foster her and help adopt her out.”
“Bring her over right now,” I said.
I had her chipped within the month. So much for fostering.
Sophie fit right in. She had spent so much time with us that Hoover and Dashiell accepted her without question. She was already a part of the family. She already belonged.
My friends loved her and she loved them right back with unparalleled intensity. At least half a dozen of my friends and their kids still believe they were Sophie’s absolute favorite.
How did she do it? Whether she went in for a kiss or pets, or rolls on the lawn with a toy, she played to her audience. Sure, there was an element of neediness in her behavior, a result of her early neglect. But she found a way to win over just about every person she came in contact with. That’s a talent we writers should cultivate when it comes to marketing our work.
My black, furry people-pleaser also had the ability to focus more intently than anyone I know. She would sit by the window with her chin on the ledge and stalk squirrels in the rocks just to the left of her former home. Dashiell would watch with her from a nearby armchair. In the flick of a rodent’s tail, they would dash out the dog door and rocket over to the lava rock embankment. The squirrels were fairly safe with Dashiell. Not so much with Sophie. Luckily, I remembered that we didn’t have any squirrel toys, so I didn’t make the mistake of picking up the stiff carcass on the stair landing.
Sophie merged deadly effectiveness with unbounded love. She was focused, enthusiastic, and dedicated. Exactly what every writer needs. She would have made one hell of an author.
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