Three Pals Of Dogs, One Named After A Dance, One After A Sweet And The Other Named Pal

Your column on doggies was good. I wrote that to my new
friend Susan Writer (yes that is her real last name). I was always afraid of
other people's dogs when I came to visit. My own brother was called before I
started out to visit him and he had to put the doggie in the cellar till I
left. When we bought our first dog, it was from a pet store. We saw her and
petted her on a Saturday, the children and me; husband was working all day at
our pharmacy. On Sunday we went by, the pet store was closed and she saw us
through the window and jumped up. That was it; she became our pet the next day
about 11 AM. When the kids came home from elementary school, there was Lady
Candace of Pickwick (our development's name) and the kids were so surprised. I
had left her in the kitchen, entrance ways and exit ways boxed in with some
barriers. They could not believe their eyes. She was a purebred white Pekingese
and we called her Candy because she looked like a big cotton candy you get at a
fair or carnival She lasted 11 yrs. they have bad legs and small noses. The second
we got from an ad in the paper and we went out to Dundalk where she resided
with her parents and three sibs. When she saw us, the others laid there, she
ran over to us and she was ours for another 11 years. We had her legs operated
on twice at the cost of 1500 dollars and she was feisty, full of personality
and charm. She was named Rhumba because we are ballroom dancers and she moved
her hips like she was doing the dance. Do doggies have real hips? We loved her
so and when she was 11, she had kidney problems and we had to put her to sleep.
The veterinarian kept telling us she was six pounds overweight. What was I to
do, starve her when she looked at me soulfully if I did not give her what she liked?
One day after she kept making on her pillows and we took her to the stupid vet,
who did not pick up on her having kidney problems, the vet weighed her and she
had lost six pounds. She told my husband who had brought her there, “Your wife
is doing good limiting her food.” Dumb vet, she had kidney problems and she did
not pick up on it.

We still miss her so much; it has been about ten years. She
was very special and she and Candy chose us before we chose them. I knitted
both of them little jackets and she was a member of our family and to me who
was scared of doggies, I cannot imagine our lives without the both of them.

Mom had a dog, surprisingly, they were quite poor and my
grandmom was left with seven children after my grandpa died early. She had a
little grocery store and in the back is where they all lived. The dog loved Mom
the best of the six other kids and somehow, this according to Mom and Mom never
lied about anything, every day at 3 PM when the school bus or transit bus
brought her to the bus stop, there was Pal, waiting for her. It seemed he had
an inner clock and he somehow knew Mom was on the way home. He stood at the bus
stop and wagged his tail when he saw her. He was some smart dog. My grandmom
must have left the door open and somehow he was able to scoot out and be there,
in rain or good weather. When there was not a school day and Mom was home, he
knew not to go and get her.

Now my first dog, Lady Candace of Pickwick (our development
is named that) loved to eat lettuce. Whenever, which was about four days a
week, I would make a salad, she stood next to me yearning for a piece of
lettuce. I guess she thought a salad would keep her slim and trim. She could
have been a show dog except her tongue was a bit long and it kind of hung out
some. She had pedigree papers which I purchased and researched because I knew
she had a stuck-up manner about her and therefore she must be a pedigree dog.
We saw on her papers that her grandmom and grandpop were brother and sister. I
guess that is alright in doggie world.

So maybe I killed her with giving her lettuce now and then
and then we sneaked in a tiny square of Hershey’s Chocolate bar. They did not
then have doggie chocolate, so I guess I helped her along to her end. I figured
her name was Candy; she should indulge now and then. Good thing my name is not
Candy or Cookie (I had a girlfriend whose nickname was Cookie) because I sure
like cookies and then I would have to indulge for my name.

My friend has the last name of Writer that suits her and her
husband, he is a writer too. So when I buy my new Hyundai Elantra later on this
year, my vanity plate will be Writer, because I am that. I use to have the word
Dancing on my license plate and since the car lives in another driveway of
another person’s home, I gave up that plate and since I do not dance too much
anymore due to Osteoporosis in the right knee, I shall defer to the new one
Writer.

I shall be proud to use that name on my bright, pretty and
clean plate and when the snow covers it this coming winter (do you think we
will ever have snow again) I shall gently brush it off so everyone can see who
I am and what I do. I figure if at almost age seventy-nine (see I do not hide
my age ever), I only hide my weight when someone for a fill out paper at a new
doctor’s office wants to know. I figure, I can lighten the number up a bit, who
will know, except me?

Sadly, little white doggie Candy who loved candy did not
pass on from eating the candy; it probably was the lettuce, though I washed it
real good and cut it into tiny pieces. I did not ask her if she wanted salad
dressing on it; I was smart enough to not put any on there. Also, to poor
little Rhumba, she did not get bad legs due to dancing like her name implied,
she just was born with bad legs and as her folks, we did spend money to fix
them and she did last eleven good years and she never had a piece of candy
or  lettuce.

She did earn once in a while, a piece of good and expensive
steak all cut up. She sure deserved a bit of happiness, because she was a
wonderful pet, friend and full of fun and happiness.

If I was younger in age, my third one would be a Pekingese.
So to Pal, Candy and Rhumba, you make good friends, you ask nothing other than
to be petted, held, cared for and now and then a snack or two and in return you
love us with all your heart. You never turn on us and we never turn on you. I
have pictures of you Rhumba and Candy, they were painted by my daughter and
they hang in honor of two special pets and my brother would not believe I no
longer was afraid of them. I loved them quite a lot and I remember them with
affection and a smile. As Pal would wait for my Mom to come from school each
day, I cherish the memories of two fine dogs, one bought from a pet store and
one from an ad in the newspaper. Now days, they say you should never purchase
dogs from pet stores, because the care they get there is not too great; and
buying from a stranger who put an ad in the Sunday paper can be tricky.

Well I am here to attest to that they are fine places to
find a lovely, intelligent and caring animal. So Candy and Rhumba became our “Pals”
and Rhumba loved to watch my husband and I practice our dance steps after we
had a dance lesson and  we came
downstairs where she resided. She looked at us quizzically as to “What the heck
are those two elderly people doing?” Also, Candy knew I loved salads and even
without any salad dressing, she was like me, she loved her lettuce. Here is to
two smart dogs we owned and one smart dog that Mom owned. They were our animal
friends and we will never forget them.