The first time I ever heard of Lucy, it was just a message from someone wanting me to help her find a home for a dog. That was all.
I absolutely, positively had no interest in adopting her. I was away from the house too much of the time and I was also just settling into a new house with the cats. There were too many things up in the air. The last thing I needed was another responsibility.
But I didn’t have any choice in the matter. Lucy adopted me.
A week or so before she came to my house, I went over to the apartment where she was living to take a couple of pictures of her. She was terrified of people. She was terribly unsure of herself.
The people who had rescued her from a chain when she was a puppy had too many animals and they were moving to a smaller place. She was the only one who didn’t make the cut to go to the new place. She was expendable.
I was told that she would always be a “special needs dog.” She had to have a home that would tolerate her inability to spend much time with people because of her timidity — her outright fear of everything and everybody.
When they day arrived that these people had to move, they were leaving her behind one way or the other. She had nowhere else to go. I agreed to bring her to my house — temporarily — until I could find a home for her.
As I drove her home, I knew she was never leaving me. I didn’t want to admit that I had been suckered that easily, but I knew she was mine — and I was her only human.
Over the next few weeks and months, she blossomed into something I couldn’t foresee. She got over most of her timidity. As she felt loved — and felt that she had a stable place with the cats and me — she grew confident.
She soon didn’t cower at the sound of trains or look terrified if she heard a voice other than mine. She became something very different than the agitated girl who had been so scared on the car ride home that she pooped in the car.
It’s hard to imagine life without her now.
I’m not the first person to feel this way about rescued dogs and cats, of course, but I definitely don’t feel as though I rescued her. I feel as though she came along when I needed her — when I didn’t even known I needed her — and she provided an element of life that made a difference for me. As has been the case with so many of the cats and dogs who I’ve taken in, she rescued me, too.
So Happy Adoptiversary, Lucy. After three years here, you’re the queen. You have me trained. I’m lucky you adopted me.