The Dog From God--Just A Sweet Dog Story

March 11, 2004. It had been 3 months since I started the new chemo which never works. But was working. Before my eyelids opened that morning I "heard" these words----just as clearly as if someone were in the room speaking out loud to me: "You didn't die. You have to rescue something. Today!" Great. What's that supposed to mean? So I get up and go about my usual. Which was eating and lying in bed and watching movies.

Late in the morning as I walked to the kitchen I see something standing on our front lawn. It is a dog. A Shetland Sheepdog, a Mini Lassie. He was beyond beautiful, a classic sable with big white ruff. Oh, my. I got very excited because all week long a wonderful movie channel I had happened upon was "all Lassie, all day." They were showing only Lassie movies. It was like a train wreck. I could not have stopped watching those movies if my house had caught fire. I had NO idea as to the wonderful and rich history of Lassie and 2004 was the 50th Anniversary of Lassie. Thus, the Lassie Movie Marathons.

All the movies were from the 40s and had insane plots. If you could even call them plots. Said plots, every one of them, involved Lassie being tragically separated from her "real" family and swimming through oceans, rivers, waterfalls, etc. to return home. I am pretty certain many Lassie dogs died during the making of these films. If it is possible for a dog to look frightened-----what am I saying? This is LASSIE we are talking about! OF COURSE, she looked frightened. As she should have. She was often in a real river with real Class 6 rapids. I felt frightened even knowing that particular dog (just an actor dog, not the REAL Lassie) has long been dead. I know this because dogs don't usually last much more than about 16-18 years. Except The Real Lassie, who is still alive. She lives quietly in a mountain community in Southern California. But don't spread it around. She likes her privacy.

Lassie in the movies is a riot! The best movie was her as a War Dog. The writeup in the paper for the movie plot was this: "Lassie snarls at Nazis in Norway." PANSY FUCKING WANTS THAT KIND OF A JOB! Imagine the plot writeups she would create. Amazingly, during the war movie Lassie did, in actual fact, come upon some bad Nazis (2 of them so she was even outnumbered!) on the shore of Norway (is there more than one shore?) and SHE GROWLED AT THEM. Them fucking scairdycats ran like pussies with their tails tucked between their cowardly legs! I laughed and wept with joy and relief over Lassie's successful fight against the Nazis.

But she could also be a bad actress. There were those rumors about substance abuse, you know. Bac'n Bites are terribly addictive. Worse than Greenies, even! There were several scenes of her picking her way back from the warfront to get help and she got wounded. Well, in one scene the bitch would be limping on her right paw. The Very Next Scene she is limping on her LEFT paw. What a faker. And to make sure we moviegoers knew Lassie was wounded, she had a black streak smeared across her face. Except for the streak was left-to-right in one scene and then it was right-to-left in another scene. It was terribly embarrassing for Lassie. Makeup crew shoulda been hung for that stupidity. I hope Lassie bit them.

After 2 Lassie movies, I am again heading for the kitchen and the dog in the front yard is now sitting down. I make myself be good and not go out there and snatch the dog up and drag it unwillingly into the house. But I want that dog something fierce. Maybe it is just resting. Or waiting for someone.

Then I watch Lassie movies some more. In one of the movies, well actually in ALL of the movies, there is always a scene in which the crusty, mean old guys in the middle of some harsh harangue suddenly turn and say "oh, but by god, she IS a beautiful lassie, tisn't she?" And everyone lives happily ever after.

Now the dog in my yard is lying down. I can't take it any longer. I go out to the dog and talk all sweet to it. No reaction. Hmmmm. Could be deaf or maybe just luring me closer for the kill? The dog keeps looking up and down the street but doesn't run away from me. So I gingerly approach it and pet it and kind of check it all over. No wounds, not acting dangerous. I roll it over and even though Pansy does know what a Penis looks like (she saw those junior high Health Lecture diagrams), this dog's gender is a mystery to her. It's not female but then it's not male either? This seems odd. Pansy keeps checking, just waiting for the moment when she crosses the dog's "personal space" line and it kills her. Eventually, Pansy determines this dog is in fact a male dog. He's just a tad fat, though, and cleverly hiding his Huge Penis in his tubbiness and furriness.

Dog comes in the house with Pansy who is already madly in love with him and wants to keep him forever and ever and how in fuck is she going to explain this to Mr. Pansy? We already have that damn Pomeranian and those 2 mangy cats. And besides who knows when this stray dog is going to snap and become Cujo? We do kind of like the smaller animals and don't need another dog whose habits we have no clue about.

Well, Mr. Pansy comes home and Pansy makes a "found dog" sign for the front yard and we wait. Days go by. No one has lost this dog. No ads in the paper. Pansy gnashes her teeth because she really WANTS this dog. He is beyond perfect. Never barks. Plays with the Pomeranian and the cats. Waits his turn to eat last. TOTALLY HOUSETRAINED....unlike that rat Pomeranian freakazoid. Well, the stray dog does have ONE odd little behavior: when the phone rang he would run through the house to find a human and bark and bark and bark while leading us to the phone. It was amazing. Maybe he's a trained hearing dog.

Then Pansy takes the dog to her vet and damn, damn, damn, he has a microchip. Calls are made, Pansy is sad and.......the last vet this dog went to says their records show the owner is deceased as of a few months earlier. And his name is [gag, retch] "Frasier." And the other vet had no contact person or way to find where this dog has been living. Pansy's vet says it is quite common for people to now abandon dogs in neighborhoods in the hopes that someone will take it in. We have had the dog for about 14 days and he continues to behave wonderfully and let us know when the phone rang. Mr. Pansy suddenly turns one day and says "oh, but by god, he IS a beautiful dog, tisn't he?" WE GET TO KEEP HIM!

Mr. Pansy goes to work. Pansy sits with new dog in the backyard waiting for the stupid Pomeranian to decide if he's going to pee today or not. Pansy and Dog talk awhile and she explains he is going to stay here to live now but that she really doesn't like his name. He nods his nead. Pansy then realizes that this dog is what she "had to rescue" that day of the Lassie Marathon so she tells him that since the Pansys have rescued him, his new name is going to be "Timmy." He barks for joy and we begin living happily ever after.

Timmy helped the Pomeranian grow up and get over his broken family background. He played "chase" with the Pom---including taking turns to chase or be the chasee. He was an alternate scratching post for the cats to play with. He lost weight and grew a Penis! Most of all he made Mr. Pet-Hater Pansy love him to bits. Mr. Pansy called Timmy "angel dog". Timmy bonded to us after about 2 months and was proud to showoff and protect me on our short little walks up and down the street.

Timmy only stayed with us for 20 months. One day he was well, the next day he had an esophageal collapse. After a weekend in the hospital the vet called us Sunday night at 8pm and said he had taken a turn for the worse. It was a very sad night. I still do not understand why someone would not keep such a perfect dog. I'm glad he stopped by that day, March 11, 2004.