A Lucky Day January 25, 2002 It was Friday, January 25th, my son and I were heading home from Burlington, North Carolina, with Lucky. We were happy, sad, nervous and scared… Just eleven days before, we had lost our saint bernard, “Baxter”, in a tragic traffic accident. No time for good byes, no time for one last slobbery kiss, one second he was alive, the next he was gone, forever. A quote I wrote for Baxter’s scrap book: “I dream of a dream, where a saint is with me.” What we wanted was another Baxter, what we got was Lucky. Lucky picked us: It was wet and muddy there in Burlington on that Thursday, and here we were looking at huge muddy saints. Kevin their loving caretaker kindly showed us every available saint. There was Beethoven, Penny and Lucky that we were most interested in. We went to the nearby Best Western, and talked about and dwelled over which dog was it going to be. Beethoven was beautiful, Penny was unusual and Lucky was well, Lucky was one of a kind. The next morning we went back to adopt Beethoven, which was hard to do with Lucky sitting in my car, as if to say, “come on, what are you waiting for.” About an hour later, in the midst of the Winston Salem traffic, Lucky decides to jump into my lap, I was driving! After yelling and my son tugging on him, finally he jumped in the backseat of my small compact car. Lucky was just breaking the ice for laughter, conversation and hope. Lucky is an amazing, beautiful, playful addition to our home. He is sweet and careful with our aging blind toy poodle and 3 legged beagle, and best friend to our lab. Discipline is a must, and I am terrible at it, but love, patience and redirection is working for us. His favorite thing is watching TV, his favorite movies are Beethoven 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th . No matter what he is doing, if I pop one of those in the VCR, he stops and sits in front of the TV. His favorite outing is dinner at Sonic Drive-In, where he always eats 2 hot dogs and gets all the attention. He prefers to drink water from a bottle. House training him was so easy, all he wants is to make us happy. What a great happiness he has brought to us, so loving, so sweet. After losing Baxter, you can only imagine how hard it was to find out that Lucky has heartworms. We are almost 3 months into the treatment, and so far it all looks good. Lucky has been a wonderful patient and we have savored ever minute with him, and I get those slobbery kisses every chance I can, I fall asleep looking at him, I wake up looking at him, this reminds me of how I felt about my children when they were babies. Looking back, January 25th was a very lucky day for us and I am looking forward to all the Lucky stuff that is ahead. I have spent over 25 years rescuing pets, and have just about had every breed at one time or another. But once you love a saint, there’s no going back to a saintless life. “If there are no saints in heaven, I wanna go where they go.” I wish all saints a loving home … maybe your home is just waiting for one. UPDATE: 11/14/2002 Hey yesterday Lucky tested negative to heartworm. He is heartworm free! After 3 months of treatment, we can celebrate! Lucky had dinner out at Sonics, where he ate 2 hot dogs, drank a cup of ice water and stole all the attention. What a great day it is!!!
Baxter November 2001
