A is for Annie

Annie is my therapy dog, my guardian angel, and my companion in life. She’s also the reason my big easy chair no longer has a cushion and is now tilted up on its back waiting to go to the dump. A little piddle problem in her early years, followed by a love of chewing. But I’m happy to report that at 6 years old, she is totally self-contained and no longer eats furniture.

She does eat a lot of other things, however. She chews on grass like a cow or a goat and loves to gnaw on wood. When we go on our woodsy walks, she grabs at anything that might possibly be food, things like banana peels, Starbuck’s cups, plastic toys, poop, fish heads, and bones. Last week, she hit the jackpot with a dead squirrel that had been car-smashed and dried into a giant squirrel chip. We had quite an argument as I hollered, “Drop it!” and she looked at me with eyes that said, “Are you kidding me?” I pried it out of her massive jaws and frisbeed it out of reach.

One thing she didn’t try to eat was a severed foot we found the same day. Brown fur, white claws. I don’t know what it came from, but Annie didn’t want anything to do with it and thinking about it gives me the shivers.

With all that eating, Annie needs a little something to wash it down. She will sip leftover coffee out of a Starbuck’s cup if I don’t stop her, and she likes to lap warm beer from discarded bottles, but her favorite is muddy water. She stands in the middle of a puddle, lapping the brown liquid, and then, when she’s had enough, she will lie flat in the puddle, coating her fur from toes to shoulders in mud while I scream, “Annie, no! I do not want to give you a bath!” Then, dripping and happy, she proceeds down the trail, tasting the weeds and leaving her mark wherever it strikes her as necessary.

A is for Annie, best snuggler in the world. I sit on the loveseat, she jumps into my lap, all 80 pounds of her, and all is right with our world.

Tomorrow, I will take my A-to-Z blog challenge to Childless by Marriage. Guess what B stands for.
Because I have several blogs, I’m going to make this like a progressive dinner or a scavenger hunt. The alphabet blogs will proceed from A to Z but will dance around among my newsletter (today only) and Unleashed in Oregon, Childless by Marriage, and Writer Aid. Here’s the schedule:

A Newsletter
B Childless by Marriage
C Unleashed in Oregon
D Writer Aid
E Unleashed in Oregon
F Unleashed in Oregon
G Unleashed in Oregon
H Childless by Marriage
I Unleashed in Oregon
J Writer Aid
K Unleashed in Oregon
L Unleashed in Oregon
M Unleashed in Oregon
N Childless by Marriage
O Unleashed in Oregon
P Writer Aid
Q Unleashed in Oregon
R Unleashed in Oregon
S Unleashed in Oregon
T Childless by Marriage
U Unleashed in Oregon
W Writer Aid
X Unleashed in Oregon
Y Unleashed in Oregon
Z Unleashed in Oregon

More than 1300 other bloggers have signed up for the challenge. Check out the list at kmdlifeisgood.blogspot.com/p/under-construction.html. You might find some great new blogs to follow. I know I will. Find out what B stands for tomorrow at Childless by Marriage.

Author: Sue Fagalde Lick

writer/musician California native, Oregon resident Author of Freelancing for Newspapers, Shoes Full of Sand, Azorean Dreams, Stories Grandma Never Told, Childless by Marriage, and Up Beaver Creek. Most recently, I have published two poetry chapbooks, Gravel Road Ahead and The Widow at the Piano: Confessions of a Distracted Catholic. I have published hundreds of articles, plus essays, fiction and poetry. I'm also pretty good at singing and playing guitar and piano. View all posts by Sue Fagalde Lick