Roominiscing

She was the best dog in the history of ever.

And I almost missed out on getting her.

Friday, she could barely get down the stairs, even the way I'd been doing it for a couple days, walking with my legs right up against her head, holding her collar, steadying her, guiding her. Down on a flat level, she was okay, but still bumped into the occasional chair. It was obvious she was having trouble with depth perception ... I'd give her a treat and she'd stick her mouth past it first and then realize it was to the left. She didn't seem in pain, per se, just perplexed. Stop the world, she needed to get off.

I brought her into the living room so I could put on my shoes and asked her to lie down so she'd stop spinning and rubbing into things... I was instantly taken back to a January evening in 1998 at the Humane Society in Minot, North Dakota, in a small room, when this happy brown puppy, not knowing what to do with a silly cat toy on the floor, gave up and laid herself down on top of my shoes.

I'd finally owned my first home, rather than an apartment or the basement of someone else's house, and wanted a dog. The shelter only had maybe 10 cages, and I spied a yellow lab pup first. It was a yellow lab. Happy, bouncy, licky, soft, big feet. Typical. It'll do, I said. But the staff balked when I told them my yard wasn't fenced in (saying the breed needed room to run), so I went looking for a smaller dog, since that made sense in my head. And the next one down from the lab, in all the hubbub and dogs barking to and fro, was this little quiet thing, leaning against the wall, looking up. Not excited, not timid, just there. Just waiting.

I'd learned that she'd been given up by some folks who said they didn't have time for her; she'd been living in a garage and smelled of oil when she was dropped off.

After gluing herself to my feet, I told the shelter I had a huge porch that I could block off until such time that I bought a fence, and they allowed me to take her home the next day. In the lobby, she suddenly came alive, barking her happy fool head off at the staff, as if to say, "HaHA! I've got an owner, now! Shows how much you know!" The first stop with her was a WalMart to buy toys and bowls and food and such, and I was surprised to find her curled up in the back seat of my Thunderbird when I got back, no worse for the separation. Her expression was more "Oh, it's you again. You were serious." From that point on, whenever I'd leave her in the car, I'd walk back to see her staring out the window at me.

First thing was to get rid of the silly name she'd been given by her first owners: "Fantasia". It didn't take long to equate her golden hue with the Irish Cream Liqueur, and "Bailey" stuck. "Bailey Roo" was just a natural off shoot. You can't explain it. Kind of like "Dover Doodles." It just is. Although Bailey did tend to hold her lips in an "o" shape when she barked at something, an audible "roo! roo! roooooo!"

It was January 25th.

The next day, she ate my newspaper off the coffee table, but it got better from there.