This is Lucy. She’s the first dog Chad and I brought home together back in 2013. Lucy is a little bit of a diva. She doesn’t like the riff raff.
Lucy doesn’t know how to play for more than about a minute. She doesn’t like anyone to be near her when she eats her food. She doesn’t like the crate, never chews anything she’s not supposed to, and LOSES HER FLIPPING MIND if she thinks you are going to take her on a walk. She does this little tippy tappy dance with her front feet and spins in circles. Lucy will stare at you VERY intensely as if you are supposed to read her mind, and WTF is wrong with you that you do not understand.
The first time I met Lucy was on New Year’s Eve. We were home, not doing much of anything really, and I kept hearing scratching at the back door. I opened the door and remember exclaiming, “IT’S A PUPPY!!!!”
We think she was about 4 months old.
It was cold and we had no idea where she’d come from, so we let her sleep on our couch, and in the morning I put her on a leash and took her outside to go potty. I remember walking weirdly near the back corner of our yard because we were definitely not supposed to have a dog at our little rented single-wide, and our landlords lived literally right across the street.
While I was walking her, our gross neighbors (the sorts of neighbors that give you a deep appreciation for bullshit like neighborhood associations) said that was their dog and she’d gotten away the night before. My heart sank because I KNEW that Lucy had run away from them to us, and I was going to have to let them take her back.
Those neighbors had the same landlords that we did, which meant that they were ALSO not supposed to have a dog [in the house].
Note for whoever needs to hear this: if you keep your dog tied up outside, or in a small pen, and they are never allowed in the house, you DO NOT DESERVE A DOG.
For the next month, our gross neighbors tied Lucy (then named Princess, pronounced pre-ahn-suss with a very un-princess-ey drawl) to their back deck where she cried and cried and cried. During the day she would get loose and run in front of cars, and sometimes strew the garbage that said neighbors never hauled away or had picked up across our yard.
Nothing says ‘neighborly’ like picking up other people’s diaper and food garbage while being constantly stressed that the dog they definitely don’t deserve is going to be hit by a car.
At night when Lucy (I mean Princess) cried, I’d sneak over in the dark with treats and toys and pet her for a little while. Then she started getting loose again and I’d let her come in and sleep in the house.