Goodbye, Old Pal.

Last night, just as we were beginning our bed-time routine with the girls, one of our neighbors knocked on the door. She had come to tell us that some of the neighborhood kids had found our dog, Lucky, in the woods near our house. We're not sure if he was bitten by a snake, or got in a fight with another dog, or was just hit by a car and limped off into the woods to lick his wounds. At any rate, Lewis will have to go and bury him this afternoon. This is the passing of an era in a way.

Lucky was the bridge from our world before children to this chaotic toddler filled life we now lead. We got him just after we moved into our current house. One Easter my cousin showed up at Grandma's with two puppies, a mixed Labrador, and a mixed Doberman. His two dogs had just had puppies, one had 12 and the other had 10. No offense to Labrador lovers, but I just can't deal with them. I haven't been able to stand Labs ever since I was 9 and my Grandfather's Black Lab repeatedly jumped on my back and scratched me. He thought I was playing, but I was really screaming my head off. I was nervous about getting a big dog, but Lewis assured me that the Doberman he had when he was a teenager was just a big baby. So, we got two of the Doberman puppies.

For a little while, Buster and Lucky were my babies. We worked hard to train them and teach them to stay in our yard. When school got out for the summer, one of the neighborhood boys took to playing with them and we almost lost them. We managed to teach Lucky to stay home, due partially to an unfortunate electric fence incident. But Buster never learned his lesson. When he stopped coming to us, and was bothering the neighbors, we did the only thing we could. We called the dogcatcher to come and get him. Please don't look down on me for this. That was a very hard day.

But Lucky stayed with us. When Marley began walking we removed the electric fence he lived in from our backyard so that she wouldn't get shocked or entangled in it. We were afraid that without it, we might never see Lucky again. But the risk of Marley getting hurt was greater than our fear of losing Lucky. So, for the past two years, Lucky has been a free dog.

I used to tell Lewis that he was like our teenager. We could come back from somewhere and he would coming running up from wherever he had been, just like he was waiting for us. He always had a look like he'd been up to something he didn't want us to know about. Lucky went through lean times when the children were newborns, simply because we were so busy. But for the most part, we enjoyed having him as a pet. I only have one regret, that we should have played with him more.

Of course we had to tell Marley about it. Fortunately, Laney is still too young to really even miss him. Marley wanted to know if we would ever see him again. Then she wanted to know if we could get a new puppy. Lewis and I are in negotiations. We'll see.