WENDY, A DOGS TALE

When we bought a house, as we had some land, I thought we should have a dog to share it with. I was in a department storeone day and they had a pet shop where local people used to bring litters of puppies, which their dogs had given birth to, for adoption. They usually were mutts and the store charged $5.00 each. I saw a litter and they looked adorable. One in particular, seemed to connect with me more than the others. She was the only female out of a litter of six. I went home and asked Eunice if we should get a dog and she sort of said no, but I asked her to come with me to the store and look at them. She agreed and the next day we went. There weren't 6 pups anymore, there was only one. Amazingly, she was the one I wanted. It's almost as if she was waiting for me to come back. The people who brought her for adoption were there also, as they were going to bring her home if no one took her. I picked up the pup and asked Eunice to hold her. She did and it was love at first sight. She wanted this dog so we took her home. I spoke to the former owners and they said she was part terrier and part other parts.

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I used to volunteer to do work at the Guiding Eyes for the Blind and was very friendly with the Head Trainer of the Guide Dogs. He told me Wendy was mostly Border Collie. I was happy because Border Collies are considered the most intelligent breed and as it turned out, she was smarter than me. I didn't mind as most females are more intelligent than me anyway. She was a wonderful dog. She was housebroken in a few days. She loved to run and play and bark and have a good old time. And boy, was she smart. She loved to ride in the car and we had to take her with us whenever we could. She was also very protective. I could leave her in the car with the windows rolled down and if anyone other than we used to go near the car, she would bark, growl and bare her fangs. When we went to the beach in Cape Cod , we would take her with us and she would run all over the place but always made sure she kept us in sight. She loved the water and used to swim with us off the boat and she used to sit on the bow of the boat as we rode. She guarded the boat as she did the car. If we were on the beach we would leave our stuff with her and she would sit there until we came back and guard it. You couldn't get near it.

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The years went by and one day I was relaxing. Wendy kept bringing me her Frisbee and barking to go out and play with it. She was a great Frisbee player. She would leap high in the air, catch it in mid-flight and come down running with it in her mouth. She almost never missed. I didn't want to go out so I took her ball and threw it down the hall. She ran after it, got and brought it back for more. After a while, I had it. I told her to lie down and leave me alone. Finally all was quiet and I was able to relax a little. Then I heard "ka-plop, ka-plop, ka-plop", over and over and I heard Wendy running down the stairs, running up the stairs, down and up, down and up. What the hell is going on? So I slowly walked down the hall to see what she was doing. Much to my amazement, Wendy had figured out a way to play a game with herself. I saw her run up the stairs with the ball in her mouth, fling it with a shake of her head, down the stairs, run down, pick it up and repeat the procedure over and over again. I told you she was intelligent.

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Wendy lived to the ripe old age of 16+ years. We had fun almost the entire time. I really loved that dog.