{"id":26750,"date":"2019-01-25T21:04:10","date_gmt":"2019-01-26T03:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=26750"},"modified":"2019-01-25T22:35:26","modified_gmt":"2019-01-26T04:35:26","slug":"three-years-after-she-sneaked-in-worlds-happiest-dog-is-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=26750","title":{"rendered":"Three years after she sneaked in, World\u2019s Happiest Dog\u00ae is queen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But I didn’t have any choice in the matter. Lucy adopted me.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to imagine life without her now.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

So Happy Adoptiversary, Lucy. After three years here, you’re the queen. You have me trained. I’m lucky you adopted me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[517,39,41,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-26750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-adoption","8":"tag-dogs","9":"tag-lucy","10":"tag-pets","11":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-6Xs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26750"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26757,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26750\/revisions\/26757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}