Roxy--A Weekend Canine Visitor

Our home is still dog-less. 


With travel, challenging family responsibilities, and our work schedules, finding a new dog to join our household has been badly delayed.


We do discuss it a lot.  Of course, we discuss it less often during extreme February snowstorms and the severe thunderstorms of June and July. When the weather is as rare and perfect as it has been last week, the topic comes up more often.


This weekend we had a chance to do a "test run",  to see how we would adjust to once again giving our home over to a dog, who in turn would graciously allow us to occupy the space!

My co-worker asked Mark and I to take their Jack Russell Terrier, named Roxy, into our home for the weekend.


Roxy is a little character!  Constantly moving, unless she is sleeping (and she sleeps hard), she showed us lots of affection, and guarded the house almost too well.  Roxy hated other dogs, which made it interesting to leave her out in the yard with the neighboring dogs. 


And the poor people who walked their dogs in front of our house got a full symphony of snarling and barking.  This was unfortunate; I think, given some time and patience, I could work with Roxy to calm her fear.

 Roxy, for all of her fierce posturing, weighs only about six pounds. 

She enjoyed naps....And at night, sprang into bed, and burrowed deep under the covers, like it was a tent!

And she played hard...but knew just how hard to chew (or else I would have lost my entire chin...) 

And she was a very loving little girl....I would catch myself thinking about having Maggie in the house.  How I would get annoyed when her water bowl got in my way, until that day when we didn't need to put her water bowl out any more....

I missed the innocent and enthusiastic play-time, and cute, sloppy gestures of affection....

It seems that I didn't lose my touch for dispensing treats...Roxy preferred baby carrots..

I was reminded how dogs, helpless as they are, demand our focus on their present moment; and in the process, we forget about the stress of the day, at least for a while.


I satisfy my need for canine companionship with my frequent dog-sitting, and my volunteer work at the Buddy Foundation.


Some day, though, we need to fill that empty space, not to replace the irreplaceable, but to provide us with an object of sweet, raucous, forgiving love.  Stay tuned.