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Who wouldn’t want you?
Me!
I didn’t!
You arrived early evening locked in a metal cage lugged into the living room by my husband. I had just fed baby Anya and was trying to get dinner (bagels lox, cream cheese and canned Campbells tomato soup) on the table for Fred, 6 year old Brady and myself. I had only gotten home from work the hour before after teaching third grade all day at Woodside Elm. and then picking up Brady from Kinder-care and Anya from her Redwood City babysitter.
“John’s daughter found them on her way to school today,” Fred explained….two small brown rodenty-looking puppies……They were locked in a bird cage that had been tossed behind an empty house. John, Fred’s business partner, had kept the little girl puppy and gifted Fred with the male.
Thanks John.
You were a flea-infested, vicious and very frightened bundle of skin and bones. Fred and Brady thought you needed a strong name to survive. They named you Spike. I just thought that you needed to go and live somewhere else.
Fred was the only one who could hold you for the first week and that was only if he put on a pair of thick leather gloves.
But gradually you became acclimated to our family, at least to the male members…even starting to sleep at the foot of Brady’s bed.
But I was not won over….not one little bit.
Then the day came when I arrived home to find that you had dug a hole in our sofa…….a deep round large hole….the floor littered with foam.
That’s it! I announced. I’ve had it! I’m taking him to the pound.
Ignoring Fred’s pleas and Brady’s tears (since Anya couldn’t talk yet I assumed that she was on my side) I tossed you into the back seat of the car and off we went to the San Mateo SPCA.
Well we didn’t get far. I made several trips around the block…thinking-
about Brady’s tears and how he had bonded with you-
how he didn’t even complain anymore about bedtime now that he shared it with you
about your awful start in life and miraculous rescue
About your warm little body curled up between Fred and me on the sofa as he watched tv and I read and you snored peacefully between us.
So I brought you back home
And lived with you twenty more years….
After Brady left home
and then Anya
And Fred died
and it was only us
Spike.

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