Lacy
Also, seven years ago today, Lacy Marie came home from the shelter to live with us forever.
The story:
I was digging through petfinder, looking for a cat to keep my cat Max company. I decided to peek at the dog page and just dream about having my own dog. And there she was. Lacy. It was January 15, 2006.
In October 2005, my sister was in town and we went to Walmart. She wanted to dye her hair. It was dark, and we saw a medium sized dog running through the parking lot. It was running up to people, wiggiling to be petted. Since I'm a crazy dog lady, I called for the dog to come over to me, which she did. She was dirty and skinny, but so happy and wiggly. She had a dirty plain black collar and no tags. We put her in my car, which she was happy to do, and went into the store. We bought my sister's hair dye, a bag of food, and a leash. She was so happy to see us when we got back too.
We went back to my apartment, which had a no dog policy, but whatever, lol. Lacy didn't freak out at the cats, and sniffed around, and then hopped up on the couch. As she was filthy, we decided a bath was first thing. I tried to get her to go up the stairs, but she had no idea what to do with them. I had to carry her up. She suffered through her bath, like she still does, just standing there tragically. That night, when I went to bed, I put her in my room. I didn't want her to get tempted by the cats (my roommate had a cat too). I made her a bed on the floor, which she was happy to be in as long as I sat there. When I got into bed, she got into bed. We went back and forth a couple of times, and I gave up and just let this strange dog sleep in my bed. We hadn't named her yet, so we just called her puppy or whatever. When I woke up the next day, she had her head on the pillow next to me, facing me, and we had a snuggle. I was hooked.
Still, Allen and I put up an ad on the local newspaper and on craiglist. If she had people, we wanted her to get back to her people. We took her to OKC for the weekend since we had the intention of asking Allen's parents to keep her until one of us had a place that accepted dogs. My parents liked her, his parents were less sure. They hadn't had a dog since before Allen was born, when they bred Old English Sheepdogs to show (I know, wtf, lol). They'd been deeply attached to their last dog, Duchess, and just couldn't see loving another dog.
Anyway. About two weeks after I found Lacy (we named her Lacy the weekend we went to OKC), I got a phone call. A guy was able to describe her brown brindle and white, with a few white spots on her back, and the black collar. Damn. I cried when I hung up the phone. Apparently Lacy had been missing for like a month and her name was something odd, like Heaven or something? Angel? Meh. The guy worked at the university and asked if I could bring her to him there. I took her to OSU to meet the guy. She seemed happy to see him, but she's happy to see everyone. He didn't ask where we found her, didn't seem interested to know the state she was in when I found her, asked if he could take the leash since he didn't have his on him, and he didn't even particularly seem happy to see her. Sigh. I so did not want to hand her over. I went home and sobbed for the rest of the night. I never forgot about her though and looked for her every time I went to walk around the lake.
So, back to the next January. There she was in the shelter. Her picture on petfinder said she was available until Thursday. The animal shelter puts down dogs and cats who have been there two weeks every Friday morning. D-: I pulled out the picture we had taken of her, and sure enough, it was her. I called Allen freaking out. He agreed to try to get to the shelter before 5 the next day (he was in OKC building his parents' house and only taking one or two classes that year). We met at the shelter and went to look at her. She was so excited. I do think she remembered us, but who really knows. Allen said we should give it until Thursday afternoon to see if anyone else wanted to adopt her since neither of us lived in a place that could have dogs and he wasn't sure his parents would be ok with her. I said screw that and that I'd write a check that I knew would bounce to get her out. He finally agreed and we took her home. Best decision ever.
I am so glad that my sweet girl has been with us for seven years now, and hope we have several more. I love my pit bull princess!
