Abbey Arrives (Because I Promised)

After our family dog died of lymphoma, I couldn't believe how quiet the house had become. Always having been a cat person, I now stared at our two senior cats and wondered, "Why don't you make any noise? Why so much stealth?" I began obsessively looking at petfinder.com and came across a photo of a small dog, Abbey. I read her description, but there was just something about her picture that seemed...odd. She was staring straight at the camera, one ear up, one folded, had bi-colored eyes, and a somewhat blank look. No.

A couple of weeks later, my dear friend, Sherry, asked if I'd go with her to look at a boxer at our shelter. Looking back, I'm sure it was a ruse on her part. As we got out of her car, I saw Abbey out of the corner of my eye. A shelter worker had her on a leash and was walking her...straight towards us.

"Look at the long legs on that rat terrier!" Sherry said a bit too enthusiastically, "She's precious!"

"No, I know who that is. I saw her on petfinder, but she's not the right dog for me."

Of course, this was taken as encouragement and the next thing I knew, Abbey was sitting on a bench between Sherry and myself. She raised her chin and looked at me with warm chocolate eyes---well, warm chocolate eye. The other one was more like an ice blue marble. But, I had to admit, there was something achingly sweet in her face. She seemed perfectly calm and well-behaved.

Upping the ante, Sherry coaxed me into making a second trip to visit Abbey, this time with my son. Again, Abbey was very serene and sweet. I still couldn't quite decide what I thought. Was it too soon after our beloved dog's death? Or was Abbey just not a good fit?

That weekend, my husband joined our son and myself for yet another Abbey visit. When we arrived, we were told that she was the longest resident small breed dog they'd had. She'd been moved over to the larger section that housed bigger dogs to make room for newly arrived puppies. Okay, that tugged at my sympathies. It was decided she was a rat terrier, border collie, whippet mix. Three high energy breeds. Great. We sat in a small room and, again, Abbey behaved exceptionally well. My husband, who had left the house with the firm statement, "We are NOT coming back home with a dog!!!" suddenly announced:

"Okay, we can take her."

Then, a surprising thing happened. As soon as the words were uttered, Abbey took off on a wild tear around and around the room. She leaped up in my lap just long enough to scratch my face, then continued running and wagging her tail. Of course, my husband and son thought she was hilarious.

When we brought her home, she raced to our sofa and sat stiffly with her back pressed against the couch. She looked one way, then the other, with a look of total terror on her face. As I began to look through her pile of paperwork, I noticed comments like "frequent accidents" and "can jump high fences". Horribly, I also learned that her previous owner had kept her in a crate for about 22 hours a day. She kept looking at each if us in turn, wondering what was expected of her. Nothing, really.

It took Abbey some time to seem to trust us and accept affection. In return, she is our devoted and loving pup. She still has some flaws: she has tremendous fear aggression towards other dogs and is way too possessive of us, her pack. But, she's a happy, loyal little dog which is really all we ever wanted.