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| Power Style Wellness Connections |
Expanding My Heart
By Mary Cartledgehayes
The dog showed up on Amy’s birthday. Amy, my sister, who was 14 months older than I
until 2003 when she died of cancer.I WASN’T THINKING ABOUT HER WHEN I popped
into the leasing office to drop off my rent check, or when Katherine, my favorite agent,
casually inquired, “Do you want a dog?”
Someone had spotted the stray a few hours earlier. She was a sweet little thing
sporting a collar, a leash, and a recent trim of her collie-esque locks. She had a nose
like Nick, the border collie I grew up with. She had eyes like Brandi, the cockapoo my
children and I claimed from the animal shelter years ago. What she didn’t have was a
passport, a driver’s license, a tag, or any other valid form of identification.
Homeless on the eve of the Fourth of July? Not good. The office was closing for the
holiday. Charmed as the agents were, they all either had out-of-town plans or dogs
intolerant of four-legged houseguests.
They weren’t expecting me to take her home. Then again, neither was I. But the nose,
the eyes, and, perhaps, Amy’s birthday were influencing me. Amy was a softie when it
came to dogs. Years ago when the movie Michael opened, she called to tell me I
should see it but was compelled to warn me that the dog in the movie dies.
“But it’s okay,” she said. “The dog comes back to life a few minutes later.”
In the movie, John Travolta plays a butt-scratching, cigarette-smoking, pie-loving
archangel who comes to earth I forget exactly why — maybe only to unite Andie
McDowell with her true love. I watched the movie and called Amy back.
“You go to the trouble of telling me the dog dies, but you don’t warn me that John
Travolta dies, too?” I fumed.
Her response? Laughter. Because there it is: Amy loved dogs. She also loved cats,
rabbits, donkeys, goats, ducks, geese, the swan boats in Boston, and red-winged
blackbirds with broken wings. To her, John Travolta was an actor in a role, but the dog
was a real dog.
A real dog, like the stray in front of me.
I’d talked over with my compadre (what is the current lingo for significant others?) the
possibility of getting a dog. I’d mentioned that I didn’t know if I was ready for the
commitment and the responsibility, but I hadn’t named my biggest concern, which is
that dogs make you fall in love with them and then they die and, unlike movie dogs,
they stay dead.
All true, but sitting in front of me was a real dog gently thumping her real tail against
the leg of a desk chair. We took her home, assuming her owners would soon appear.
That evening we walked her four times and petted her velvet ears a hundred times.
The next day we walked her six times, bought her a package of pigs’ ears at Feeders
Supply, and taught her how to get up on the couch. The next day I made the
connection to the dog’s arrival on Amy’s birthday. Maybe it was an omen that we’d get
to keep her. We batted around possible names, proceeding from girls’ names, through
biblical names to the names of trees and flowers in Judy Lowe’s Tennessee and
Kentucky Gardener’s Guide. Then I came up with Shelby, in honor of nearby
Shelbyville Road. We had a winner.
Life was good until the next morning, when her family reclaimed her. As often happens,
a series of small errors added up to disaster. They’d put her new collar on without
switching the tags first. Somebody left the patio gate ajar. They’d nailed up posters but
didn’t guess how far afield she might wander.
At our approach, the younger daughter flew toward us and threw her arms around the
dog. The older daughter, during the wild thunderstorms of the week, had turned
stricken eyes to her mother and asked, “Do you think Chloe’s outside in all this rain?”
Accordingly, we mustered up all the grace we could. Then we slunk home to lick our
wounds.
Shelby/Chloe had bushwhacked us with love with the way she’d raise a paw to shake
hands; her apologetic “if you insist” look when we invited her to join us on the couch;
the way she entreated us to please lift her into the tree so she could talk to her new
BFF (Best Friend Forever), the squirrel. With her in the house, I’d lost my resistance to
having a pet.
Responsibility? Yes, we had to walk her several times a day, but she’s the only
effective motivation I’ve found for achieving the daily recommended allowances of
walking and natural Vitamin D.
Commitment? Surprise: the willingness to make a commitment emerges from within a
relationship, not from outside of it.
And what about the way dogs break your heart? Here’s the thing I forgot. Long before
a pet can break your heart, it expands it. Shelby/ Chloe opened us to walking in
weather conditions of all kinds, to noticing that the world is full of tantalizing smells, to
regaling each other with stories of dogs we’ve known and loved — to, in other words,
life, in all its squirrelly glory.
Which is why later that same day I returned to Feeder’s Supply. In the back of each of
the store’s locations in the Louisville area is a satellite branch of the Kentucky Humane
Society. There you can see the dogs and cats and even go so far as to adopt a pet of
your own. Which I did.
Our new dog is the prettiest five-year-old Golden Lab in the city. We revised his given
name a little bit, so he’s now Kokomo (Koko for short). His coloring brings Brandie to
mind, and something about his forehead evokes Shelby/Chloe. The adjustment
period? It took him, and us, all of 10 seconds. Koko loves a good hike but is also
content to hang out under a shade tree. Like Ben Franklin, he’s a proponent of “early
to bed;” at 8:30, he pads off to the bedroom and settles in on the rug for a good
night’s sleep.
I thought a dog would disrupt our lives, but I was wrong. As researchers proved long
ago, the right pet can extend your life. It can lower your blood pressure, improve your
exercise habits, and contribute to your tranquility. I can just imagine how Amy would be
shaking her head, wondering why it took me so long to figure out the obvious.
By Mary Cartledgehayes
The dog showed up on Amy’s birthday. Amy, my sister, who was 14 months older than I
until 2003 when she died of cancer.I WASN’T THINKING ABOUT HER WHEN I popped
into the leasing office to drop off my rent check, or when Katherine, my favorite agent,
casually inquired, “Do you want a dog?”
Someone had spotted the stray a few hours earlier. She was a sweet little thing
sporting a collar, a leash, and a recent trim of her collie-esque locks. She had a nose
like Nick, the border collie I grew up with. She had eyes like Brandi, the cockapoo my
children and I claimed from the animal shelter years ago. What she didn’t have was a
passport, a driver’s license, a tag, or any other valid form of identification.
Homeless on the eve of the Fourth of July? Not good. The office was closing for the
holiday. Charmed as the agents were, they all either had out-of-town plans or dogs
intolerant of four-legged houseguests.
They weren’t expecting me to take her home. Then again, neither was I. But the nose,
the eyes, and, perhaps, Amy’s birthday were influencing me. Amy was a softie when it
came to dogs. Years ago when the movie Michael opened, she called to tell me I
should see it but was compelled to warn me that the dog in the movie dies.
“But it’s okay,” she said. “The dog comes back to life a few minutes later.”
In the movie, John Travolta plays a butt-scratching, cigarette-smoking, pie-loving
archangel who comes to earth I forget exactly why — maybe only to unite Andie
McDowell with her true love. I watched the movie and called Amy back.
“You go to the trouble of telling me the dog dies, but you don’t warn me that John
Travolta dies, too?” I fumed.
Her response? Laughter. Because there it is: Amy loved dogs. She also loved cats,
rabbits, donkeys, goats, ducks, geese, the swan boats in Boston, and red-winged
blackbirds with broken wings. To her, John Travolta was an actor in a role, but the dog
was a real dog.
A real dog, like the stray in front of me.
I’d talked over with my compadre (what is the current lingo for significant others?) the
possibility of getting a dog. I’d mentioned that I didn’t know if I was ready for the
commitment and the responsibility, but I hadn’t named my biggest concern, which is
that dogs make you fall in love with them and then they die and, unlike movie dogs,
they stay dead.
All true, but sitting in front of me was a real dog gently thumping her real tail against
the leg of a desk chair. We took her home, assuming her owners would soon appear.
That evening we walked her four times and petted her velvet ears a hundred times.
The next day we walked her six times, bought her a package of pigs’ ears at Feeders
Supply, and taught her how to get up on the couch. The next day I made the
connection to the dog’s arrival on Amy’s birthday. Maybe it was an omen that we’d get
to keep her. We batted around possible names, proceeding from girls’ names, through
biblical names to the names of trees and flowers in Judy Lowe’s Tennessee and
Kentucky Gardener’s Guide. Then I came up with Shelby, in honor of nearby
Shelbyville Road. We had a winner.
Life was good until the next morning, when her family reclaimed her. As often happens,
a series of small errors added up to disaster. They’d put her new collar on without
switching the tags first. Somebody left the patio gate ajar. They’d nailed up posters but
didn’t guess how far afield she might wander.
At our approach, the younger daughter flew toward us and threw her arms around the
dog. The older daughter, during the wild thunderstorms of the week, had turned
stricken eyes to her mother and asked, “Do you think Chloe’s outside in all this rain?”
Accordingly, we mustered up all the grace we could. Then we slunk home to lick our
wounds.
Shelby/Chloe had bushwhacked us with love with the way she’d raise a paw to shake
hands; her apologetic “if you insist” look when we invited her to join us on the couch;
the way she entreated us to please lift her into the tree so she could talk to her new
BFF (Best Friend Forever), the squirrel. With her in the house, I’d lost my resistance to
having a pet.
Responsibility? Yes, we had to walk her several times a day, but she’s the only
effective motivation I’ve found for achieving the daily recommended allowances of
walking and natural Vitamin D.
Commitment? Surprise: the willingness to make a commitment emerges from within a
relationship, not from outside of it.
And what about the way dogs break your heart? Here’s the thing I forgot. Long before
a pet can break your heart, it expands it. Shelby/ Chloe opened us to walking in
weather conditions of all kinds, to noticing that the world is full of tantalizing smells, to
regaling each other with stories of dogs we’ve known and loved — to, in other words,
life, in all its squirrelly glory.
Which is why later that same day I returned to Feeder’s Supply. In the back of each of
the store’s locations in the Louisville area is a satellite branch of the Kentucky Humane
Society. There you can see the dogs and cats and even go so far as to adopt a pet of
your own. Which I did.
Our new dog is the prettiest five-year-old Golden Lab in the city. We revised his given
name a little bit, so he’s now Kokomo (Koko for short). His coloring brings Brandie to
mind, and something about his forehead evokes Shelby/Chloe. The adjustment
period? It took him, and us, all of 10 seconds. Koko loves a good hike but is also
content to hang out under a shade tree. Like Ben Franklin, he’s a proponent of “early
to bed;” at 8:30, he pads off to the bedroom and settles in on the rug for a good
night’s sleep.
I thought a dog would disrupt our lives, but I was wrong. As researchers proved long
ago, the right pet can extend your life. It can lower your blood pressure, improve your
exercise habits, and contribute to your tranquility. I can just imagine how Amy would be
shaking her head, wondering why it took me so long to figure out the obvious.