The soft brown eyes of the golden retriever looked up at her from the contrasting green carpeting. He was getting a bit older and grayer in the muzzle, but rarely if ever missed the refrigerator door being opened, much less the sound of an electric can opener.
His legal, American Kennel Club name is Sweet Sandy Paws, and in the days prior to thanks giving, after the fateful 9/11 attack, he was born. His parents, two purebred AKC Goldies were tall, well-proportioned beautiful dogs.
When his new owner came to pick him up at the tender age of five and one-half weeks, he had no idea what was happening. No clue as to the luxury of life that would come.
She held him to her breast and he tried to suckle at her teat through the cloth, his little puppy teeth a tiny bud. His first car ride and he became nauseous, vomiting all over her. She just laughed and stroked his little face.
He did not whine a great deal, nor mewl. Her father was driving in their Aerostar and they did not go straight home, but to the local PetCo. He promptly dropped nearly one-hundred dollars in bowls, toys, puppy food, and a tiny collar with a little bell.
She mollycoddled him as they walked throughout the store, with little children pointing at him and everyone saying how cute and adorable he was. Even at this tender age, he started to develop a sense of how he would be loved and looked after.
At the house, her mother thought him adorable, and they laid an old blanket out for him to sit on in the sunken living room. When he sat upright, he was not tall enough to clear the single stair.
At night, he slept with her. She learned from him to be a good mother again, watching over him, playing with him, and thinking outside of her own self-needs and depression.
When she got him, she was unemployed, and they were never separated; either she carried him, or she would giggle as he toddled about on his little puppy legs. It did not take him long to find his high-pitched squeaky voice, nor to discover the other animals in the household. He too had to learn to share, not with his brothers and sisters but by a strange, curious tribble of a dog known as a Pomeranian.
Then there were the other, odd animals, who answered to no man. They were called cats, and smelled radically different from anything else he had seen in his little life. The household was full of them, nearly a dozen, and each had their own perspective. None were too thrilled when he discovered his yelping howl with its cute lips. He was quite sure they were going to enucleate him unless he was fast enough.
Growing quickly, first in the legs he learned to span the step between the sunken family room and into the kitchen. Quickly he learned this was the place to be! Scraps of cheese accidentally hit the floor, the odd scrap of roast beef or chicken.
Still quite small, he learned not to be stepped on, and the family, in turn, learned to listen to the bell on his collar and to watch their step.
At eight weeks, he was ready for his first serious outing. She had a cadre of friends that she would go play games with and shoot the breeze with. Once arrived she carried him up the two-story walk up, huffing and puffing. The group decided to get Chinese take away and so for the first time in his life he found himself in the big Rose City.
He looked forlornly as his mistress went in and quickly got her food. It smelled very interesting to him, for while he had never had Orange Chicken before and those noodles looked quite enticing.
She managed both dog and dinner waddling yet again up the stairs and plopped on the couch with a resounding thud. Peeling open the food plate she noticed they had given her an extra utensil. She unwrapped them both, took one, stabbed the smallest piece of meat with it and fed him straight off it. The rest of the guests looked in astonishment.
"What?" She declared, "You've never seen a dog fork trained before?"
The group groaned at her as he delicately took the offering and did not chew but inhaled it. This would be the start of his love affair with anything sweet and deep-fried.
Soon, though, reality set in. She obtained a night job, and while he would still sleep in her bed at night, curled up upon her pillow, he was lonely for her. He learned to sleep alone, with the lights off. She learned the meaning of the term, 'brag book' and would regale her coworkers tales of his antics of puppy hood.
At a year old, mostly grown, he was a handsome, proud young man, with his bib starting to fluff up. He learned words and commands, and was full of himself, especially when the biscuit tin was brought 'round. He could stand up on his hind paws, sit, stay and things of that nature.
Now, nearing his ninth year of life, she would stroke him as he slept, he was still her son, and she his mother. They had moved a couple of times; he traveled the length and breadth of the great Pacific North West, and even occasionally still ate Orange Chicken off a fork.