Unfinished Ode to Sadie

I wrote the following piece for my personal blog on Jan 11 2010. At that time, Sadie was starting to slow down a bit. Still, I had no idea her end would come so soon after this. Sigh.

Sadie was born March 25 1992. At least that’s the date on the papers the ASPCA gave me when I adopted her that August.

The day I adopted her, the room was full of dogs, most of whom probably would have been very good dogs. But I had my eye on the little barking black puppy and barely glanced at them as I made a bee line straight to her. She was my dog and I knew it.

I wanted a big dog. Having grown up with weimeraners, I was used to big dogs. Plus I was living on Norfolk Street on the Lower East Side at the time, not the safest neighborhood in those days.

The ASPCA said she was a Shepard mix. Turns out that’s the generic term they use for some indistinguishable mutts. My best guess is that she’s Border Collie-Schipperke mix. She definitely has the smarts and herding instinct of the Border Collie. With her own unique twist 🙂

It wasn’t hard to house train Sadie. She already knew that making peeps and poops outside was the right thing to do but still had some accidents. One of the first quirks I noticed was that no matter where paper was laid down for her to go, she only wanted to go in one spot. Right in front of the TV in the living room. So that’s where the paper got laid and she never peed anywhere else again during her training phase.

My apartment had spiral stairs leading to a small room that opened to a roof deck. One of the first times Sadie was left alone, I came home to find her at the top of the stairs, sitting with her ears perked, looking oh so cutely down the stairs, waiting to be rescued. Apparently she could negotiate her way up the spiral stairs but going down was too much for her. Mommy to the rescue.

Sadie has always been a finicky eater. You could lay a steak dinner on the floor next to her and all she would do is sniff it and walk away. Therefore she is allowed a privilege not many dogs have…..the yummy buffet. There is always a selection of pupperonis, milk bones, and other goodies on the floor for her. No matter where she lives, her yummy buffet is always available to her.

I’ve dragged Sadie along with me through nine moves, nine different homes. She always adjusts like a trooper. Since her hips are arthritic, she can no longer climb stairs. But most of the time when I bring her upstairs, we do the Sadie wheelbarrow. She goes with her front paws while I hold her back end and carry it up the stairs. She seems to want to do it that way instead of being totally carried. That’s spunk.

After her last operation at age 15, she had bandages wrapped around her middle with drainage tubes dangling to get rid of puss and fluid around the surgery site. The next day, that dog was pouncing on her yummies like nothing at all was wrong. Spunk times ten.

That’s another Sadie twist…..yummy fests. It’s not enough for her to eat daintily from her buffet. Before a yummy can be eaten, it must be tossed in the air with the mouth, beaten on and pushed away, taken back, thrown around, and only when she’s satisfied, consumption begins. This holds true for the first yummy or two. Subsequent yummies are expected to be dished out one at a time by an attentive human, with said human eventually holding the yummy so that she may snack more comfortably.

There’s much more to the Sadie story. For now, suffice it to say that she owns me and I wouldn’t have it any other way.