My Dog Alice: by Mara

I got to do the Long Trek with Alice (dog) this morning before work…one of the many benefits of working the closing rather than opening shift at the bank. Alice is an unusual dog (I know because people are always asking, “what is that?” and I have to say, “It’s a dog…”) So, I have compiled the following history/ fact sheet for future reference.

9 things about Alice

1. She’s from the pound, or “shelter” as we say now. You can actually “check out” dogs there, try them out and bring them back in 48 hours if they try to eat the cat or something. Alice had been returned twice already, poor baby. I have no idea why. She was the saddest-looking thing in that place, which is saying something.
2. She was clearly abused as a puppy and was terrified of men when we got her. It took months for her to realize that D is a nice guy who doesn’t beat dogs and start to trust him. She’s nuts about him now, though.
3. She won’t eat if I’m not home, which is kind of cute except when I’m out of town and she goes days without eating anything. Then it’s just sad.
4. When she feels insecure (which is often) she “hugs”: she’ll stretch her neck across the face of whoever she’s sitting with. I’ve never seen a dog do this before.
5. She’s very quiet.
6. I let her get hit by a car once. She was fine, better than the car, but it’s still one of my darkest, most guilt-ridden moments in life.
7. She seems to have more than nine lives. D and I have seen her go through stuff that would kill most dogs: Shortly after we got her, she ingested more than 1 ½ pounds of high-quality baking chocolate, which is toxic (supposedly) to dogs. She jumped out the window of my car while I was driving. She ate most of a pincushion (with pins) and plenty of other stuff. And got hit by that car. That’s just what we know about; those first 8 or 9 months are still a mystery. Thank God she’s settled down a bit in her adulthood; she’s five years now.
8. She’s pretty ugly for a dog; a mutt that doesn’t look like anything if you know what I mean…you can’t say, oh, she’s half this and half that. More like, “well, I reckon that her parents were both mutts, and all her grandparents…I don’t think there’s a breed to speak of for several generations of her lineage.”
9. She’s intensely loyal to me and has bitten D for real before thinking that I was in danger. (I wasn’t. There are some things dogs don’t understand very well.) D thought it was great though (an attack dog!), and tries to get her to do it again sometimes.