Both Linda and I have been closely involved with horses and dogs all our lives. We both grew up with animals and horses and dogs, particularly dogs came to be the pivot point of our lives, most notably and happily in the form of a small dog daycare and training facility, Gone To The Dogs, Inc. After we’d made the decision to retire to Portugal, we sold Gone To The Dogs, Inc. where I had trained dogs for the last sixteen years and Linda had run the shop. During the final few days of working I had an experience that served as a fitting and final punctuation mark for our work.
On a Spring afternoon after finishing with my paying clients I took my Vizsla, the ebullient TRIXIE, over to Bridgeport Village and sat with her on a bench in front of Peet’s Coffee House. Several people walked by and smooched her up to her great delight..
At last a very pale elderly lady came slowly down the sidewalk in a wheel chair pushed by an equally elderly, kind-eyed gentleman. They backed and filled with the chair until the woman was close enough to the bench to pet TRIXIE. I noticed at that point that she had probably recently fallen and was really banged up on one side of her face and I felt instant empathy although she beamed and seemed pleased to be out and about.
TRIXIE took one look at her, and starting at her fingers, licked her hand and bare arm all the way to the top of her shoulder and back down again. The woman was motionless, transfixed.
Finally she said, “She’s very loving and that is important…As a young woman I had a fine Morgan mare who would lick my arms and face, just like this…would lick me until I stopped her, and in all our years together she only kicked me one time and that was because the farrier frightened her.”
“I miss that little bay mare,” she said. And turning a bit toward me she asked, “Did you know her?”
Her husband said nothing, but teared up.
I could not speak.
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