Shady Sadie

For the past three weeks now, I’ve heard the same odd noise every morning on my way to the kitchen to make coffee.  THUMP -THUMP-THUMP-THUMP pulls my attention off course, so I can confront the source of that sound.  As I make my way over to to the couch, the rhythm becomes louder, more and more urgent, stopping only after I take a seat.  That’s when Sadie stops wagging her tail, rolls onto her back and presses her head into my lap.  She pulls her front paws to her chest and stretches her hind legs away from me, leaving her belly free for a good morning rub.

The first time I met Sadie, she was lying on the landing outside the yoga studio, thin and exhausted, with several raw mange spots visible on her legs and face.  The owner placed a bowl of water and food by her head and told me she wandered up earlier in the day and had been sleeping in the same spot for the last hour.  When I approached, she rolled onto her back and offered her now familiar belly, her eyes still closed.  “So much trust!” was all I could think as I pet her.

All through yoga class, I kept hearing a voice in the back of my head telling me to take her home.  But the only thing I found on the landing after class was the empty bowl of water and a few stray pieces of kibble.  She was back on the streets and I walked home convinced it was for the best.  With only a few months into my new life here in Vallarta, the last thing I needed was a dog.

A few days later, Fern comes home from a morning walk with his dog, Prinz, and tells me about this skinny stray who came up to him on the beach.  “I went to pet her and she immediately rolled onto her back.  She was so sweet!”  He said if he saw her again, he would bring her back to our apartment so that we could get her healthy, and find her a good home.  The next day, I came home to find a note from Fern saying he was at the vet with the new stray.

Right now, she’s curled up on the couch looking at me, the loud THUMP-THUMP of the early morning greeting is replaced with a little wave from the tip of her tail when I put my hand on her head.  She’s a 40-pound mutt of some type, dark gray hair with a white chest and paws, and a scraggly beard.  The vet thinks she’s about a year old.  Although she licked me and nibbled on my fingers with every name I tried; I decided on Shady Sadie.

Sadie has three basic needs: food, play and sleep.  When I bring her to the beach in the morning, she runs from one dog to the next, looking for a wrestling or running partner and looks confused when some won’t accept her repeated invitations.  If she is not playing, Sadie is sniffing for something – anything – to eat.  She has an amazing nose that will sniff out and every edible food scrap in her path – especially fish heads at the beach.

At home, I am learning (over and over) about Sadie’s chewing habit.  In spite of several buying toys for her (that she clearly likes and will chomp greedily on), Sadie will occasionally pick random objects around the apartment for her chewing pleasure.  In these first three weeks, my new dog has already demolished several rolls of toilet paper, chewed holes in at least three T-shirts, and pulled every pair of shoes out of my closet before finding the right one to gnaw on.  I even found my eyeglasses on her blanket one afternoon, the lenses and frame were OK, but the arms had been completely nibbled down to the underwire.  Last night, an iPod adaptor cords was chewed in half.

In spite of the growing list of lost items, when I hear Sadie’s tail drumming on the couch every morning, and sit down to say hello, I realize I was right – the last thing I needed was a dog.