Sidekicks

He’s my guy, and I love him.

Petey tumbled into my life in December 2015, a gift from God that Christmas. A wild pup at four months old, he challenged every limit of patience and training a grandmother, widowed woman could invest in a living being. Every effort was made to bring him around to my way of thinking. When he turned three (21 in dog years) that very thing happened.

He’s my soldier boy, always on alert for me. On our back country hikes in the wilderness, I may not always know where he is. But he knows where I am.

He’s my defender. If someone (or something) enters our space unannounced, this little tornadic fireball goes on the offensive, even chasing bears away.

He’s my angel. Intuitively knowing when I’m missing my family or worried about those I love, he’ll come from the farthest reaches of our property and sit on my lap.

He doesn’t say anything. Just being present is all I need. And though he weighs just over 22 pounds, he’s more than enough.er 22 pounds, he’s more than enough.

In all his sweetness and devotion, he’s still a dog. He’ll roll in poop or a fermented carcass given the opportunity of my back being turned. Then he drapes his stinky self over my shoulder as I’m driving us home. It’s then I’m inspired to write a country song, “Don’t Come Lovin’ On Me.”

I awaken in the morning to sounds of his morning hygienic grooming. Opening my eyes to the scene of his nose between his back legs does not lend to a pleasant beginning of the day.

He’ll obey my commands until his short attention span has ended, or yet, when he has better ideas. He always has better ideas, which lead to perils in which I must rescue him, or clean up the mess, or give exhausting explanations to his victims.

From moment to moment, I rarely know who is for whom… him for me, or me for him. Yet there’s no question about one thing- we’re stuck with each other, and we like it that way.