Lucy was an amazing angel dog who saw me through many of my life's most difficult experiences.  She walked by my side through it all.  She is also my only complete witness.  She knew the truth of my pains.  She saw the joys and the sorrows.  I want to share her story so her life is not ever forgotten. 



Lucy and I rescued each other at the Denver Humane Society in January 1998.  When I found her the name on her cell was Joey.  I was told that she was about 2 years old and that she lived with a family that gave her up because she kept escaping their yard.  I lived with a dog at the time named Lefty.  She was a pretty girl (she was white with black markings—one on her back that looked like a heart) so Lucy seemed like a better name for her.  Before she left the humane society, she had to be spayed so her first night home, I remember holding her all night to help her come out of the anesthesia.



She was a very good dog, already housebroken.  We took an obedience class together to get to know each other and so she could be a good doggie citizen.  The first week home she was outside with Lefty when we found that she had caught a bird in the yard.  She was fast and loved to chase squirrels.  Lucy and I would take long walks.  We lived right down from Washington Park and one day, I don’t know why, I decided to ride my bike with her on the leash in the park.  I remember you could get a ticket if you did not have your dog on a leash in the park.  Well, bad idea, duh.  She and I did well until she saw a squirrel and I ended up over the handle bars and bruised up a bit.



That Fall, Lucy and I moved out from where we were living into an apartment of our own on another block.  We had a second floor apartment in an old house on High Street in Denver.  She was my comfort in those times and would insist on sleeping under my covers at the bottom of the bed.  I remember when we would walk down the stairs Lucy would look at and recognize herself in the mirror on the landing.  We loved going for walks together but mostly each day she looked forward to going across the street to the school yard where all the dogs gathered (a dog park before I think dog parks existed) each evening to run and play.  She loved to run and eat snow and sniff other dogs.  She also liked to escape if you weren’t paying attention.  One day I was getting ready for work while she was out in the fenced backyard.  She would access the yard from the fire escape outside my bathroom window.  Before I knew it, she disappeared.  She had found a small opening in the fence and went for a walk down the alley and onto the next street alone.  



Lucy was such a good dog that she never chewed on anything that wasn't hers or furniture like some dogs do.  The only time she ever did was when she got mad one day because I went out without her so she shreaded a plant I had in the apartment.  When we were home in our apartment, one of our favorite activities was to sit at the low window together, hang out heads out and watch what was going on outside.



When we moved to Florida over a year later, we moved to Fernandina Beach where my sister and her husband lived with their dog, Wolf.  We would go for walks on the beach.  She loved going out into the water.  Soon after moving to Florida she and I went to help my grandmother in Georgia where we would walk the long country roads together.  Lucy went everywhere with me in the car, too.  When I started working for the airlines, she drove with me to Charlottesville, Virginia.  We found an apartment there where we had a roommate, Gene and his dog, Otis.  One of the only times Lucy went bathroom inside the house was once when she was upset that I was gone on a trip longer than usual.  I had a special braided rug in the kitchen and she pooped on it.  She was a very smart dog and usually communicated what she needed to me. 



Then while working for the airlines and visiting a friend in Florida, I met a man and decide to change my base to Jacksonville, Florida.  That’s when Lucy and I drove the Shenandoah Highway together.  We lived with my sister until we found another roommate with dogs.  Then September 11 happened and I eventually stopped flying and changed bases to work customer service at the station in Tallahassee.  We lived with grandma again until we could find a small little house in Havana, Florida that was perfect for us.  We walked the neighborhood in Havana, too.  We found a nice big open space down from the library.  



Then one day Shane decided he was going to come live with us in Havana.  We lived there until we found out that we were going to have a baby (Shane-Christopher) and we moved down to Orlando.  By that time, Shane had two dogs Sugar and Bear.



This is when Lucy’s story began to change.  During the pregnancy, Lucy continued to be my walking companion.  Soon after Shane-Christopher was born she learned that I would have to spend a lot of time with the baby and she could not sleep on the bed, etc.  We did walk together everyday with baby Shane-Christopher.  Orlando was not the same as our long walks in greener spaces.  Walks were shorter and all concrete.  We found some parks but none we ever got attached to.  Then I became even busier with Shane-Christopher's therapy and I found out Madeline was coming.  I think this is when Lucy realized she really couldn’t be the center of attention anymore.  One day Lucy, Sugar and Bear got out of the fenced yard together.  They ended up by a busy street and a girl opened up her car door and took Lucy home.  I was pregnant with Madeline and was sick with not knowing where Lucy was.  I put up signs everywhere.  I did not give up hope.  I went to businesses close by and asked questions until one day, about two weeks later, a lady called me and said she knew who had my dog.  She gave me the number.  I called.  We met.  I held my breathe until the lady opened her car door and LUCY jumped out.  I found her again.  The lady’s daughter had picked her up and took her home.  She was called Daisy for about two weeks.  Sugar was never found but Bear found his way home about a week later.



So Lucy got to see me through my pregnancy.  When Madeline came, of course, I got even busier.  We still walked though just not as fast, not as far and not as long.  We were slowing down.  After the kids and being in Florida, Lucy didn’t get to go everywhere in the car anymore.  She had to stay at home and wait for us: too hot.



As the kids grew, they played with Lucy.  Madeline would make dishes for her with her play food, cover her with her special blanket when she thought she was cold.  But mostly in these last years, Lucy was an observer.  She observed everything and watched over us as the kids grew.  She greeted us when we got home everyday.  She had to stop walking with us in the last year because she would often lose her footing and fall on the walk.  Lucy would only ask to go outside in the backyard.  If you did not pay attention and let her back in right away, she would somehow manage to find an opening, however small, in the gate and escape for a small walk in the front yard, maybe a neighbors yard, then come scratching on the front door for us to let her in.  She was so very smart.  



I knew we were all getting older but I think I just always thought she would be with me forever.  



In the recent years, she would let me know that she needed to go out while I was sleeping in bed by nudging me with her nose on my toes.  Early mornings and after the kids went to bed would be our time together again to communicate.  



And, every morning she loved watching me make Shane-Christopher’s lunch.  Her treat was the sweet potato skins.  She understood that she was a dog in this new world of kids.  Kids were okay for her because they were a source of snacks in between meals.  She would follow Madeline around if she had food and snatched it when Madeline was not looking.  She also would dutifully check in and under Shane-Christopher’s wheelchair to find any stray droppings.



Before Lucy even got sick last week, Madeline intuited something because she spontaneously asked me to help her make a card for Lucy.  Inside it had all hearts and she had me write, “I love you, Lucy.”  I remember the Thursday before she passed, I saw her laying on her bed looking at us.  She was just watching me and the kids with a look of “I love you.”  I didn’t realize at the time that it also meant “I am going to miss you.”  



That night, I held her like I used to in the kid’s room, covered her with Madeline’s special blanket and listened to her sweet satisfied sighs.  She knew she was leaving but I just kept thinking she was going to get better.  She always did.  I would stabilize her legs when she walked around or had to go out.  She ate a little on Friday because I bought her her favorite food.  She seemed better but by Saturday morning when I let her out and walked with her.  Her legs were so wobbly and she wander into the backyard until she plopped herself in front of the guinea pig graves.  She was telling me that she knew it was time.  So all Saturday morning, I held her inside and later in the afternoon we went outside.  There was a breeze and she lay in the sun.  As it got later, I decided to start a campfire in the chimenea.  Somehow a campfire seemed appropriate.  We stayed out back and watched the moon rise together.  I lit a rose scented candle and petted her fur.  She would tell me when she wanted to be held and I would hold her.  It all brought back memories from when she was first home with me in Denver.  I love my Lucy.  We were best friends.  We hiked, camped and took long walks together everywhere.  I miss her so much but she I know she is free to run again in heaven.