Day...

I lost Shadow when she was only 8 years old. She was my first dog, really my dog. Not the family dog, she was mine and mine alone.


One summer the family dog, Wicket, part Labrador part something tall and lean and named after the popular Star Wars series, found a rabbit’s nest. Before we knew something was wrong, she killed all but two babies. The little ones she did spare were so tiny, only hours old. Their little ears were closed buds and their eyes were shut. My sister, Heather, and I were not going to let those babes die. So we each took one, fed them kitten formula with eye droppers, massaged their bellies to make them defecate and basically slaved 24 hours a day to ensure those little guys survived. But, this isn’t a story about rabbits.

Regardless, those two little bunnies thrived. They grew into fighting, thrashing, scared to death, I will fight to the end, I am wild, machines. And so, my dad confronted my sympathetic mother, my mother who championed my sister and me, who paid for nourishment for the little guys, and he said, “They have to go. I don’t care if you get her a dog (meaning me) but they have to go.” And so Mom arrived at my bedroom door and told me it was time. They were wild! My consolation prize would be my own dog. And so we found her in the paper several weeks after the teary-eyed release of the kicking, scratching, ready-to-go rabbits. That little black Lab was and always will be, my Shadow.