Sasha the Dog

Sasha is a blessing in fur; she is the most polite, obedient dog I have ever owned. Don't get me wrong, she has her moments of rebellion, but for the most part she's nearly the perfect model of a dog. I found Sasha in a small county animal shelter through Pet Finder, a site I highly recommend if you have it in your heart to adopt a homeless or fostered pet. Sasha's name was Dixie when I saw the photo of her expressive eyes imploring me to save her from death row. Through a serious of very fortunate events, I happened to be working from home that day and struck out to meet the skinny dog on my lunch break. I feel certain that had I not been able to visit her that very day, poor little Dixie would never have become the beautiful Sasha; only God knows what might have become of her.

When I got to the shelter and walked to kennel 4B to see the skinny rust-colored dog who talks with her eyes, my heart knew that instant I had to take her away from that four-foot square concrete cage and give her a home. I signed the papers within twenty minutes (and after a phone call to Luis) and her an appointment to pick her up in a few days, after she was spayed. The poor little girl dog of approximately eighteen months had already had a litter of puppies, all of whom were adopted well before their neglected mother. I suppose I should tell the story of how Sasha, who was called Dixie in her former life, came to be on death row.

I only know the story as it was told to me by the shelter workers. According to what was on paper when I found her, Dixie was purchased as a puppy by a family out in the country. The family did not know much about dogs, or just did not care, and left Dixie in their yard to fend for herself. When Dixie was about eleven months old she was impregnated by a stray dog and gave birth to six puppies. After the puppies were born the people who named her Dixie and stuck her in their yard became annoyed by the hungry cries of the puppies and carted mother and pups away to the shelter. When they arrived the puppies were six healthy little bundles, thanks to the heroic efforts of malnourished Dixie to feed her babies. The puppies were quickly adopted through the shelter, leaving Dixie alone and with the clock ticking down the days until the eighteen-month-old mother of six was deemed unworthy of kennel 4B; that's where I came in and Dixie became Sasha.

When I picked her up, Sasha was still feeling poorly from the operation, during which they gave my baby a peace sign tattoo on her lower underbelly to let the world know she had been spayed at a shelter. On the ride home from the shelter Sasha simply licked my hand then curled up into a tight little ball on the seat next to me and went to sleep. When I brought Sasha home to meet Luis and Sam she was five pounds underweight; you could see ribs and backbone, her teats were enlarged, skin was dry, coat was dull and her eyes made you want to cry with their longing for affection. I promptly took our new baby to the vet to find she had a case of worms and would not gain weight until they were out of her system, which took only a few days thanks to the powerful medication. I started her on a limited ingredient diet and fed her the vet's prescribed amount twice a day. Sasha quickly began to blossom under the new diet and the copious amounts of affection lavished on her from the start. She was already crate-trained, thanks to her stay at the shelter, and we shortly found out what a quick learner Sasha is. It took less than a week for Sasha to learn sit, wait, down, come, and how to walk properly on a leash; what a miracle!

Sasha has become my second shadow and follows me around wherever I go, seemingly to make sure I'm alright. She waits patiently outside any room I enter without her and when I work from home she rarely wanders away from her spot on the rug next to me. She is hysterical to watch when she wants to play with Sam because Sam just get annoyed and Sasha never seems to get discouraged about this fact. She is also so obedient that, with an upraised paw, the cat often tells her to calm herself and lie down...and she does it! I have been meaning to capture this phenomenon on camera but rarely remember to have the camcorder handy; very few people me when I tell them the dog does everything the cat tells her to. For the moment I must take a break from talking about my beloved Sasha to let her run around in the back yard for a few minutes.

To be continued...