Somewhere around 2009, we were ready for a new dog following the untimely death of Otter the Wonder Dog (whom my wife thinks was poisoned by a neighbor).
We went to a pet adoption day to see if a dog we saw on a website would be into us. She (he?) wasn't. We took her for a walk behind the store and the dog had zero interest in us.
Somewhat dejected, we returned the dog to the store and started to leave. That's when a paw reached out of the kennel and stopped us.
It was Lucie, then known as "Star".
Lucie had been adopted once before and taken to Kansas with her new family where at some point she knocked a toddler down, the story goes. And so the family - helicopter parents who denied their kid the joy of growing up with a great dog - put her up for sale on Craigslist.
That's against the rules of adoption and, fortunately, someone in the Twin Cities saw the listing, and Lucie was retrieved from the home and brought back for another try.
So she decided in that store that we were the right humans for her.
Every dog is a perfect dog in its way and Lucie checked all the boxes. An Australian shepherd mix, she kept track of us. She was the first dog that wanted to be with me. And every morning, I'd wake up early to write the blog for Minnesota Public Radio, but not until "the BlogDog" got her walk. Lucie was never interested in hearing an excuse for passing on a walk; we were going. Period. Snow? Rain? Doesn't matter. We were going or she would nag you until nightfall.
Not that I didn't try to get out of it, mind you. But you can't write a blog while a good dog is using her superpower to command you to action.
That routine continued for another 15 years.
She'd greet me every evening when I returned home, a "Tigger" stuffed animal in her jaws to be thrown and retrieved.
Lucie was the perfect traveler, joyfully sticking her head out the window for a treat from the tollbooth collector. Her only flaw was a general disdain for the ocean.
She loved the Woodbury dog park and would begin howling a mile away once she realized the destination. It is there we'll spread her ashes.
Lightning fast, she was a champion rabbit hunter although her career stats for catching squirrels are not impressive. She failed at every one, and on our recent walks, she'd make a threatening step or two when she saw one, possibly remembering the joy of the chase, but no longer able to do much more.
Lucie had some quirks. She disdained Carolie's cough but would find mine acceptable. Weird. (Video link)
At certain times if you sat down in a room in which she was sprawled, she'd get up and go to another room. She valued her "alone time."
Carolie reminded me today that her main trick was sprawling on her back and sticking out her tongue if you'd say, "show me a dead dog." We didn't teach her that so maybe her time in Kansas wasn't a complete waste.
She was - as all dogs are - a good dog; the best we've ever had.
In recent years, time took away a lot of the Lucie we'd come to know. She went deaf a couple of years ago. She mostly just slept, though she would become a puppy again for a few minutes when she realized that I was about to take her for a walk. But otherwise, there was a sadness in her eyes that was disconcerting.
In the past, I'd walk at my pace and Lucie would follow. But now, the walks were long as I allowed that it was her walk, not mine. No blade of grass went unsniffed along the route. Her hind legs no longer worked quite right but she was not given to complaining. She was outdoors and in her happy place.
I'm not a believer in God or Heaven but I'm open to the possibility of a dimension where dogs live long lives and catch the squirrels they chase and where they sleep on the furniture and dream of the humans they once raised, content that theirs is the best life a dog ever had.
