This article was first published in the August 2006 issue of Northwest Prime Time
When I was a kid, an old man showed off his new watch to me. It had a flexible steel band and a second hand sweeping its large white face. He had to wind it every morning. The old man explained how it was his third good watch and, calculating about how many years watches seemed to last he wondered if the Lord would grant him a fourth.
Back then, watches were expensive—often engraved as graduation gifts or retirement trophies. Just as car brands carried relative prestige, watches ranked in order something along the lines of Timex, Bulova, and Longines.
These days I sport one of those off-brand black rubber watches that never needs winding and still ticks (well, digitalizes) when I’m 400 feet underwater. Seeing as how I don’t even lap swim, it’s not a feature I worry about. When my watch battery dies, it’ll be just as cheap to buy a new watch.
Dogs are harder to replace than watches. Our new dog, Luke, is a little like my watch: off-brand. He’s mostly Weimaraner with a couple of other breeds thrown in for good measure. He’s not exactly a Longines.
Last year when we bid sad good-bye to our bright—and oh so stubborn—canine pal Trixie, we found our tears no less sincere because she wasn’t exactly a Longines either. It’s hard to get sentimental over a rubber watch. But with constant reminders of Trixie’s absence, we couldn’t even think about another dog at first. No excited barking came from inside the house when we got back from the store. No one let us know that the mail had arrived. No one pretended that she hadn’t curled up on the off-limits sofa despite telltale hairs left behind. Our hearts resisted reaching out to any new dog.
But eventually, we came to recall how, before Trixie, we thought we’d never want another dog, after our previous dog, Buck, died at 17. A cattle dog mix, Buck would sit like a Norman Rockwell dog watching me shave. Like Trixie, he was sharp, what one vet called the “Einstein of dogdom.”
Then we learned of a nearby last-stop shelter that refuses to euthanize unwanted pets, which is how Luke came to our house after spending most of his first year of life cooped up in two different kennels.
He was head-shy and timid. We fretted whether he could bond with people having gone through who-knows-what in his short life.
There’s always a bit of adjustment when you get a new watch. It feels a little different on the wrist. You have to learn how to reset it when we fall back and spring ahead. Likewise, after two smart dogs, we found ourselves adjusting to a dog that seems to have been off chasing sticks when they passed out the puppy brains. But he’s no longer head-shy and rewards patience by trying to please.
Four months have passed. Luke seems to know that he’s found a real home and his floppy ears have captured our hearts. I’m so happy that things are working out for all of us. Luke isn’t going to have to experience a third kennel and, as for myself, I don’t know how many more good dogs the Lord is going to grant me.
Northwest Prime Time would love to post photos of seniors with their pets. To inquire about sending a photo of you with your pet, please email editor@northwestprimetime.com
