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Doe-eyed Lilly has bonded with me. When I lay down, she climbs up
on my lap and falls asleep in a deeply limp trust, from which she
awakens startled if I make a sudden move. She is a bit spooky and
runs from loud sounds. This jumpiness could be a natural trait, or
something from her past that is unknown to us, a past that goes back
ten or twelve years, so the vet estimates. Her body is pressed against
me as she sleeps and I type.
When we first saw her in the shelter, she was straggly and desperate
looking in her cage. The card said she was a Dachshund/Pomeranian
mix, and she looked like a big-eyed fox. She licked my hand, and that
was it, I was a gonner. We picked her up on the morning before the
afternoon of her planned euthanasia.
Pack-wise, Lilly’s shyness is several letters down the alphabet from
the “ alpha” position. Her submissive gestures are plain to see, but
thankfully they do not include the cringing wee-wee when you reach
down to her.
For many days, she acted bewildered, unsure and lost in her new
surroundings. She stiffened when picked up, physically recoiled when
touched on her back, and bolted from sleep if touched at all. It took
several weeks for her to begin to relax for a back scratch or massage,
which I do for her whenever I touch her. I think it has sealed our
bonding.
Charlie the Pug is a docile creature, but he has managed to assert his
dominance over Lilly in subtle ways. He will growl in a half hearted
way if Lilly comes too close to him while he has a chew, but he does
not know what comes after the growl if it doesn’t work, except pick
up the chew and run away.
So here we are with another rescue creature. We love the puppy/
kitten stage, but there is plenty to recommend adopting an older pet,
especially one in dire straits, like our rescue cat, Alpha, who got along
peacefully with Lilly that first week, before she ended her two year
stay with us in that sad last trip to the vet. I know the added years
were a blessing for her. She must have thought she won the Lottery,
but in some ways, taking her on gave us even more. We miss her
affectionate nature and the unique adaptations she made to her near
blindness and weak hips.
We seem to have become an assisted-care facility, something we
could not have done in our younger more busy days, or so it seemed.
A little leisure is a wonderful thing, a condition in which you can do
little meaningful things you could have done before but were too
busy thinking you didn’t have the time.