If you know anything about me, you know I love my sweet rat terrier Pandora. She comes when I call her, snuggles on command, lets me scratch her ears, rub her belly and curls her block heater body next to me when I’m cold. Frankly, she’s the best dog in the entire world. I know that’s a bold statement to make, but I feel confident that she can live up to it. Hell, she was the valedictorian of her training class. She’s a keener, just like mommy.
I’ve had my little pup since she was 8 weeks old and now 5 years later, I can’t imagine my life without her. Since I’ve been her primary care giver for most of her life, I’m pretty in tune with her. Gary’s always surprised when I suddenly jump up because I know she’s doing something wrong, or she has a “dangler” that she needs help with before she rubs her butt on the sofa. I don’t even need to be in the same room, I just intuitively know.
Last night was one of those perfect examples. She always sleeps curled up on my side or around my legs, and because she’s so small I’m always very conscious of where she is when I shift around in bed. Around 3:00 in the morning I felt her rustling under the sheets and then sit up. She never does this when we’re all sleeping. She usually moves around and then plops right back down. As soon as I felt her sit up I bolted awake, and grabbed her from under the covers.
I didn’t quite get her on the floor before my poor baby began to throw up. Luckily she was only sick on the sheet and not my one of a kind, hard as hell to clean quilt. I couldn’t get Gary to get up for the life of me so I took Pandora to the bathroom and made sure she was all clean and gave her some water. Then I headed back to bed, cleaned up the mess as best I could and laid a few towels over the wet spot.
My poor girl was restless all night, and wouldn’t leave my side, nudging my hand to keep rubbing her sore belly. She wasn’t sick again but I barely got back to sleep myself. When I left the house this morning she looked better, and ate her morning milk bone treat with great gusto. Hopefully that will be the last of her throwing up for the next little while.
As I was thinking about my baby girl this morning on the way into work I realized that if I care this much for my dog, is my heart even big enough for the love I will feel when I have a child?
