Sandy

(Waaaaay back in the day, like sheesh maybe 12 years ago or more.)

"Don't pet her. She'll bite."
Oh how these words seemed to echo through out my teenage years. When I lived at home they boomeranged about and always came back. Because always there was another person bumbling their way forward, eyes fixated on the "cute little dog."
The outstretched hand and goofy grin gave them away.
The petters.
The ones who stumbled in to nipped fingers before they even knew what bit them...so to speak.
"Don't pet her, she'll bite." I warned in the best no-nonsense tone a teenager can manage.
They never heard, their cooing and awwing and slobbering, over the adorableness of my dog, drowned out my warnings.
It also drowned out the low almost undetectable growl. The one that accompanied the ever so slowly rising hairs along Sandy's back and had her lip just beginning to quiver.
The petter, like some sort of doggy lover zombie, shambled closer, un-heeding my warnings and their own ears with trilling laughter and "pashaws, she won't bite me."
She won't?
Why I had no idea that a person could be absolutely certain. I mean I'm not even absolutely certain that the bag boy at the grocery store isn't going to snap at my hand when I hand him the avocados that rolled away from his reach.
"She won't bite me." They always claimed with pride and that ridiculous note of confidence. Doggy psychic-ism must run rampant in my old neighborhood, as I heard this phrase time and time again.
Most of the time I watched in slow motion horror as the petter, apparently un-concerned if they left our premisses with the same number of fingers as they arrived with, leaned closer and closer to the fairly small, golden haired dog with the floppy ears and lip curling back in a pretty accurate elvis impersonation.
Then, as I saw the fingers dangling like pink sausages, straining ever closer to the eager little jaws of Sandy, saw my dog's control snap like cheap thread, I would break free of my reverie and lunge forward in sync with my pet.
It was a race to see who'd reach their goal first, me to Sandy or her teeth to snapping tight over the petter's fingers.
Luckily I was bigger, and would snatch her up, an armful of angry canine, and spin away from the confused and dazed petter, before Sandy could get her mouthful. A justified bite is no less painful than any other.
The petter would always look on with big sad puppy dog eyes and every one of them, man, woman and child alike, would whisper some version of "She was going to bite me!" The words each petter spoke over the years might have altered slightly but the disbelief was always the same.
Really? REALLY? She was going to bite you? Imagine that.
I'd shake my head in disbelief and bundle my little dog away to our room, sure of the fact she wouldn't bite ME!
Probably not....and if she did at least I'd know enough to realize I probably deserved it.
We were roommates for many years. And like many roommates we became great friends, sisters almost. You have to when sharing a confined space with another living being.
Oh we had our tense moments, I imagine any one would have a fit when discovering their roommate had just birthed a half dozen babies all over your dirty laundry you had left on the floor.
But those puppies were sweet. So sweet. And I touched them when they were just minutes old, even though Sandy's eyes were glazed with a strangely fierce look of concentration reminiscent of how she'd look at the Petters. But I knew. She wouldn't bite ME. And when she did, nipping at my fingers I took the snap for the warning it was and backed off with nothing but bruised fingers and a lesson learned.
Birthing puppies multiple times in my bedroom was a forgivable offense, who among us can not point a finger at any family member guilty of a similar crime. But the time she ate my Halloween candy things got a little tense.
Halloween candy is sacred.
It is NOT to be touched by brothers or Mother's or any one who so much as looks like it has a sweet tooth. I'd give my teddy bear a smack if I thought it's lifeless button eyes had stared a nanosecond too long at my miniature chocolate bars.
So the day I came home from school and flung my school bag on to my bed and met the eager welcome of my dog was almost like any other. Almost. Until I saw the trail of carnage and destruction spewed across my room. As if some devilish monster had snuck in during school hours and found my Halloween candy stash and, evil of all evils, ate half of it and destroyed the rest with sharp toothed drooling bites.
They say small dogs are clever.
But it wasn't words of praise I was thinking when I figured out that my friend, my faithful companion, my roommate, my dog Sandy had hopped on to my bed, from there to my night stand and from there to an even taller dresser and had reached into the open top drawer like it was her own personal candy buffet.
I thought it had been safe. Candy in a top dresser drawer, albeit an open drawer, should have been safe from all manner of candy thieves.
The sticky bits clinging to the carpet and Sandy's wide, dark eyed gaze and wagging tail that swooshed happily back and forth as if nothing was wrong were a defining moment in our friendship. Forgiveness was learned. When someone you love has wronged you in the worst way possible, chewing up your stash of miniature candy bars, you learn to forgive. And hide your candy better next year.
I'm sure I wasn't the best roomate for her either. I tended to hog the bed. I had strange people over and let them in to our room with out asking her permission. I often raided her stash of un-matched socks that she stole from the laundry pile and hid under our bed, returning them to the various owners with out so much as a "May I?"
I threw away the duck foot she found and dragged into our room with the sort of pride that beams like warm sunshine from a little dog, as she pranced through the door, head high and mouth full of duck foot. I snuck it away and hid it outside. I was un-thoughtful like that at times, blind as to the value of of an old leathery duck foot.
Our relationship was not all one of stresses and tense moments. It's funny how those things stand out, when the reality was long stretches of time that blurs together. Cold snow and frosty breath as we huffed and puffed down the drive way to check the mail. Sharp green grass and hot sun on our backs as we wandered through the fields looking for strawberries. Both of us eating as many as we picked.
In the fall we played hide and seek with my brothers and I always lost. Because they'd follow Sandy to what ever bush I was hiding behind. Frantically wagging her tail, eyes full of doggy laughter, obviously not understanding the rules of hide and seek. Or perhaps she knew them very well and was thrilled to always be the first to find me.
Moving out was hard, but Sandy understood, in the way that best friends do. We had a talk, she and I, as I packed my bags to go to California and be with the man I loved. She wouldn't have to travel thousands of miles, she could stay in the country and hang out with my Mom who I knew Sandy loved. And I thanked her for yet another valuable lesson learned because she was my pet. That her needs had to come before mine. And when people asked "Are you taking your dog?" she and I rolled our eyes because of course I wasn't. That would never be fair.
She never did learn the hang of blogging or messaging, and she thought *twittering* was something that birds did. But she posed for endless photos.
I am pretty sure after I moved out she may have been under the impression that she was now a doggy model, as my Mother clicked away with the digital camera and emailed countless photos of her. She no longer sat, she "struck a pose".
I can say with absolutely no bias that she was the most gorgeous, photogenic dog in the entire universe and beyond.
A little golden dog, just the right size to scoop up in your arms if you wanted to carry her, but big enough to snuggle with on a winter's night when the temperatures were below freezing.
She'd have enjoyed biting many more people if given the opportunity.
I'd like to think she's nipping all the ghostly fingers of relatives already passed over. That sounds like doggy heaven.