Chapter One

Lucy, a girl’s true friend

One of the earliest memories I have is of my brother picking my first real pet, Lucy, from the Humane Society. He picked her because according to him she was the ugliest dog in there. Although she wasn’t the prettiest girl (the rest of us wanted a small grey poodle from a nearby cage), she most resembled the dog he had lost, and I believe that this is why he chose her. Lucy was a 30-pound dachshund/terrier mix. She looked like a black-and-tan hound with extra-long legs. She was a stray, and because she was not housebroken then, my parents decided to keep her out back in our washroom/storage area at night, until they could get her trained.

Lucy, named after the Charles Schultz Peanuts character, proved to be quite the digger and chewer. She chewed through her collar and the wall of the washroom to run off with the neighbor dogs—her pack, it seemed. She always returned home come feeding time. In fact, throughout her life, if you let her out too late at night, she would wander off with the local dogs to go explore and would return a few hours later, exhausted and ready to eat.

Lucy was my childhood companion. After school, she would spend hours trailing after me in the empty lot I used to play in, and at night she would listen to me read her stories or lament about my troubles. By her mere presence, Lucy demonstrated that best friends listened without judging and did not necessarily walk upright.

From a young age, Lucy also taught me that a person does not always like certain traits in those he or she loves. She was not a nice dog. She would bite if awakened suddenly or if anyone came too close to her dish at feeding time. She would pant heavily just to get you to turn on the car’s A/C, and then stop panting as soon as she heard the fan kick in, even when the temperature was still in the 90s.

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