Pookie

special dog. I think my friends get tired of me telling our dog story, but I am going to recount it anyway in tribute of a very special dog that came into our lives 10 years ago and passed away peacefully yesterday. 

We had just moved to Las Vegas and one of our children was not doing well adjusting at their new school. We had gone to a lot of trouble moving to a school district with good ratings, but bullying and indifference can occur anywhere and we discovered it found us again. I was beyond desperate to help this child that was retreating further into her own reality and less in ours. Night terrors and auditory hallucinations filled her mind. We were desperate to find help.

One morning, in the space between sleep and awakening, the following thought came through my head. " Get her a dog. Animals are our guardian angels on earth". This surprised me as I had always enjoyed animals, but never thought of them in this kind of role.  I did not relate this to my daughter and ,frankly, I do not know if she would have understood me anyway. She was that far into her own world. 

You hear horror stories about Craig's list, but for us, we have had some very cherished experiences obtaining animals  on that Craig guys massive lists.   We found Pookie, the schnoodle,  soon after and met her in the Anthem Hills area of Henderson, Nevada. This dog had been trained from a puppy to roll on its back as a greeting and allow you to rub her belly and her paws. She was also trained in a house full of girls so while she put up with guys, her first affection and loyalty was always to the females in the house. 

We brought Pookie home and our daughter's nights immediately improved. She kept the dog on guard in her room and the  voices abated and she was finally sleeping.  About a week later, I found a drawing our daughter had sketched of Pookie. It showed a small white dog who had grown angel wings.  Without  my prompting, our daughter renamed the dog Angel.

A couple of years later, our kids were doing quite well.  Angel,or lets just call her Pookie again,,,she never answered to the name Angel anyways, was  in a fight with another dog.Our in-laws graciously offered to help us nurse the dog back to health as we were stretched pretty thin between work, school and the health needs in our family. Pookie took up her new guardianship at the feet of my incredible in-laws.  This angel dog was ready to be pampered under the cheerful voice of one of my greatest heroines- my mother-in-law. Although my father-in-law had always been the dog person, Pookie continued in her loyalty tradition of loving the alpha woman of the house, even sneaking her way into a place on the end of the bed at night. Pookie loved my mother-in-law so much we all decided they were meant to be together and that Pookie had moved on to her new assignment.

Perhaps it is unusual to write a tribute, or let's face it, this is probably an all-out  obituary for a dog, but this mom now knows a secret.  "Animals are our guardian angels on earth". RIP Pookie, this family will never forget you!