Going to the Dogs! Josie.

While between dogs, I wrestled with the idea of not adopting another one. I reasoned that my husband and I would have more freedom. We wouldn’t have to worry about the dog if we wanted to go on a vacation or even overnight somewhere. I thought about freedom from vacuuming all the time and the considerable expense. Then I had a brilliant idea! I could get my fill of dogs by volunteering at the animal shelter. I would be an adoption counselor.

There was a shelter nearby, RAL or Richmond Animal League, and it would be a good fit.

I never thought about the cats that were there, too. I am not a cat person.

While learning the ropes, I realized many dogs frightened me, too! I knew they came into the shelter from challenging situations and hadn’t yet learned to trust people. Some had food aggression, some had never socialized with other dogs, and some were more anti-cat than I was.

I just wanted to play with the puppies. Two dogs came into the shelter that caught my attention. One poor little one had three working legs. The fourth just hung there. The vet decided that it would be better for the dog to amputate the leg. The other dog landed in the city pound with no collar or identification. This dog was emaciated and needed heartworm treatment. She was so shy. These two captured my heart. I knew that if I did adopt, I could only handle one. They both got used to me. In the end, I broke down and adopted the shy one. All the steps in and around my house would have burdened the three-legged dog. I have 39 steps alone just to get to the front door. You must walk up a steep slope through the driveway to get into my home.

I adopted Josie, the name the animal league had given her. When her heartworm treatment was finished, I brought her home.

She became my shadow! After a while, she began eating. However, she never responded to anything I said. She would just sit and watch me. She wouldn’t play. She wouldn’t bark at the door. Perhaps she had a hearing problem, but she responded to loud noises, and thunder drove her crazy. I thought she was a sweet dog, but sadly, she was the dumbest dog we ever had. She couldn’t even learn her name! We had her for six weeks or so when we made a discovery about Josie. One day, my husband and I were trying to title a piece of music he had written. We were sitting in the living room, and Josie was in her usual place on the floor next to my feet.

The piece he wrote was very Mexican in style. We looked online to see what titles for this type of music had already been used. I started to read the titles out loud. When I read a list of Spanish titles, the dog stood up and started wagging her tail. It hit me! She had been raised by Spanish-speaking people! I know a fair amount of Spanish, and I began to call out some commands: Sit, Stay, Come, Cookie, Outside, etc!!

She was ecstatic.

My dog wasn’t stupid at all! She was just foreign! Slowly, Josie eventually learned the commands in English, and she responded to her name. She would only respond to a Spanish command if she did something annoying or knew it was against the rules.

I had a bilingual dog! Now, how funny is that?

Poor Josie was never active, though. She earned the nickname "carpet" because that’s all she did: sit or lie on the carpet. She lost the ability to jump up on anything. Even getting into the car was difficult. She also developed a horrible skin condition that resulted in huge sores that bled. I bought her a T-shirt in every color to cover the sores up. I so wish that sweet girl had more time with us. In the end, she seemed happy just to be here. I keep her urn with the cremains and her collar and tag on a shelf of my desk.