The Wonders of a Good Dog

Meet Skye. She’s a two-and-a-half year old black lab girl that came to my friends Karen and John a couple summers back. They had been searching for a rescued dog for a while, having recently settled into a nice house outside Seattle that has the kind of yard that just begs for a game of fetch. My apologies for the picture… black dogs don’t afford the camera a lot of contrast to work with, and, well, she’s a real moving target so Karen was attempting to hold her still with her foot. Skye is really best experienced in tail wagging 3D.

Skye and her sister were abandoned one summer day. Both purebred and well behaved, they were not the kind of dog one would usually find homeless. It would seem that the current spate of tough times might have forced their owners to make a hard decision about who was getting fed. Fortuitously found and taken to a local dog trainer, the dogs were soon ready for new homes.

Skye arrived with good manners, and Karen and John have worked hard to keep them tuned up. While she is certainly a well loved girl, the love she gets comes down on the side of a besotted doting rather than a flat out spoiling. Her people keep her in line on the important stuff, the stuff that makes her easy for dog shy people (like me) to be around. Like any other intelligent animal that has been rescued, I think she knows she’s got it good here and seems determined not to goof it up. She doesn’t jump up (heaven!), she rarely whines, and she barks only when her job dictates it (people at the door, itinerant critters in the yard).

She is also a real character: while obedient about laying down when told to, she has a cute way of pretending that if she’s not looking at you when you command her, maybe you’ll buy that she didn’t hear you until she gets around to flopping down. It’s not really disobedient, just the typical pas-de-deux one does with a healthily headstrong teenager. She doesn’t chew on anything that isn’t hers, but loves to carry her toys around, her latest favorite being a pair of clean socks. She often sleeps on her back, legs akimbo and tongue lolling, belly right there just asking to be rubbed. Like any other self-respecting dog, she is accomplished in the art of the unsuspecting SBD.

Skye is a beautiful glossy black, and her ears feel like the softest velvet. She has intelligent and expressive gold eyes, the eyes of the retriever breeds, ready to guilt trip you at a moment’s notice. Let’s not forget that she is a dog, not a saint, and so of course she will use those eyes to try to convince you that she hasn’t been petted or fed in a week, perhaps two. She isn’t allowed to beg at the table, but let me tell you, those eyes often get her a treat in her bowl at the end of a meal.

One of her nicknames is “Skye the Wonder Dog” (see what I mean about besotted?!) Those of you who know me know that I am an avowed cat person. But I could be swayed to convert on the wonders of this particular dog… just as soon as I’m done scratching her ears.