My Dog Mavis--Bringin' the Love

I wasn't looking for another dog, but I had a friend who took pity on a neglected, pregnant dog. Five puppies later, she was desperately looking for adoptive parents. I was not looking for another dog. I already had a perfectly good dog!

Before long, I found myself visiting to take a look at the puppies. It wasn't for myself, of course, but so I could describe them to someone who might actually be looking for a puppy. A week or so later, I made another visit--just to see if their eyes were open. Then another--just to see how they were growing. Encouraged by what she obviously mistook as interest on my part, my friend began urging me to choose one for my own. I held out though.

By the time she'd found homes for all but one of the puppies, my pal had no pride left. "Please take her," she begged, " I'm running out of friends!" Still, I tried to resist, insisting that the puppy would soon be too big to fit through my pet door.(The dog I already had was a Jack Russell). "But just look at her ! ", my friend gushed, (not blind to the fact that I was weakening) "She looks just like a Boyd's Bear--she'll never get that big."

That did it. Seriously....could anyone resist owning a real live teddy bear?

Two enlargements to the pet door, and eleven years later, Mavis is still bringin' the love!

As any parent knows, toddlers are noted for a phase called "The Terrible Twos"; and as any dog owner knows, the canine equivalent is "The Terrible Chews".

Few possessions escaped Mavis's highly developed chewing abilities. An apparent bibliophile, my dog devoured books by the dozen. She'd simply pull them from the bookshelf whenever the craving for good literature struck. I think the replacement fees I paid to the local public library may have been instrumental in building a new addition.

Mavis soon found that she was just as adept at removing CDs from their rack as books from the shelf. Her musical tastes were eclectic--she gnawed her way through Beethoven and Rachmaninoff with the same reckless abandon as Classic Rock and sappy Christmas recordings. Nothing was safe. She even destroyed a brand new printer/scanner I'd never taken out of the box.

Mavis's chewing reached its zenith on a wintry day. The previous day, I'd returned home late from an out of town shopping trip. I was tired, so I placed my purchases, still in their shopping bags, in what I thought was a safe place, and went to bed. Next morning, I left for work never giving the shopping bags a thought. All that day, the winter skies delivered that dreaded specialty of winter in the Midwest--freezing rain.

After chipping the ice from my car, and slip-sliding home, I saw my neighbor, who was out salting her sidewalk. With a sly grin, she said, "Mavis has been busy!" Bracing for a scene of destruction, I opened the door. Surprisingly, there was none. The dogs greeted me, then raced out the pet door to the back yard. I went to the kitchen window to watch, puzzling over the neighbor's cryptic remark. Here, the mystery was solved. (and here, I should reveal that my shopping had been done largely at Victoria's Secret) Mavis had been busy! She'd spent the day carrying the contents of my shopping bags through the pet door and arranging them--and parts of them--over the landscape.



The scene was surreal, reminiscent of a Dali painting. Tattered camisoles, lacy new bras, and discreetly sexy hipsters (many still sporting their price tags) were chaotically draped over shrubbery, dangling from fallen branches and strewn across the frozen lawn. A glittering coating of ice preserved them in their tortured poses. The Ice Sculpture Garden was, for a short time, a neighborhood curiosity.

Then the Spring thaw came, and with it, Mavis seemed to enter a new phase. Sensing, perhaps, that her finest work lay behind her, she turned her back on The Terrible Chews to embark wholeheartedly upon her true vocation: Bringing joy to everyone she meets.

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Pets have so much love to give. Return that love by caring responsibly for them. Unwanted puppies and kittens end up in overcrowded shelters or suffer the miserable life and death of strays, homeless and alone. Every pet deserves to be wanted, loved, and cared for. If you can't afford to spay/neuter your pet, check with your local shelter or Humane Society to see if they have a spay/neuter program. Many of them can help. Do it for the love of your pet.

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