Out of Spec

True Love

When true love strikes you, sometimes you just know it. You think about him almost constantly. You have tons of pictures of him. You want to show him off to all of your friends. There's that special feeling when he sits next to you. He's always happy to see you. He's such an important part of your life that you think about him every day. Here's a picture of the love of my life.

This is Simon. He's a four year-old black lab/golden retriever mix. He is the most wonderful, devoted guy, and he's very special to me. My life with Simon began quite spontaneously. The year is 2001. My brother, his wife, and their dog moved out of town, so I didn't have Murphy (my brother's lab mix) to go visit. My dad was adamant against pets for some odd reason. When my brother wanted a dog, Dad said "no," but he brought Murphy home anyway. When Dad saw how cute she was, though, my dad finally consented. When my sister wanted a cat, dad said "no," but she brought Max home anyway. My dad is alergic to cats, so Max had to go away. Mike and Murphy had moved out when Mike and his wife got a place together. My parents missed Murphy like crazy. Theresa moved out to be with her husband. So with just my parents and I, the place was kind of empty.

I was a senior in high school, living alone with my parents, becaues all of my siblings had finally moved out. February of my senior year, my sister-in-law, Tina, was working as a secretary at a local doctor's office. A woman in her office mentioned her golden retriever having a puppy. The woman's husband and children wanted rid of the puppy, because they had two full-grown dogs already. Tina told me about it, and I was anxious. One cold February day, my parents and I hopped in the car and drove out to the woman's house. It was supposed to be "just to look." Well, one look at the puppy, and we couldn't resist. He came home with us that night.

This was a Friday evening. I stayed awake for awhile, thinking and thinking about what to name the cute little guy. I wanted to name him "Kismet," but everyone hated that but me. After tossing around a few names, I suggested "Otis." That went over pretty well, and we all went to bed. I, however, was not settled on this name. I went to a forensics (speech league) meet the next day, and was gone from 5:00 AM until ten or eleven that night. Throughout the course of the day, I thought and thought about what to name him. Finally, I decided on Simon. When I got back from the speech league meet, my family had been calling him Otis all day! I didn't know what to do. Finally, I talked them all out of that horrible name, and he's been Simon ever since.

I trained Simon all myself. Since I was young while my brother was training his dog, I remembered a lot of the things he did to house-train Murphy. Simon's training went quite smoothly. He had a few annoying habits, however, which took awhile for us to get rid of. His favorite things were eating tissues and socks. These are puppy things, of course, but they had to be enforced as wrong behavior early on. We also occasionally caught him in the act of eating other things he wasn't supposed to.

One famous story about Simon's notorious cast-iron stomach occurred during these formative puppy years. My boyfriend at the time (now ex) and I were watching Animal Planet in my living room--a show called "Emergency Vets." A black lab puppy was having emergency surgery to remove blockage in its stomach. The doctor pulled out a sock. Looking over at Simon, sure enough, a sock was sticking out of his mouth. I knew this was a habit I had to break him of early on. Luckily, he only eats food (for the most part) anymore... and the occasional tissue, for some inexplicable reason. He only rarely eats food off of the table, and he's eaten a few things if they've been left on the very edge where they're just too tempting for him to pass up.

My dog is so well-behaved. My parents don't want me to take him with me when I move out. They keep rationalizing it. "Oh, you'll be going to graduate school. You'll be too busy for a pet. By the time you get through with graduate school, Simon will be too old to move" et cetera et cetera. They don't like the idea of me bringing Simon to grad school with me. He's such a good dog, though. He's very intelligent as well. His favorite words include walk, leash, ride, and treat. He also knows the words brush and bath. I think he may know field and car, but I'm not certain. Sometimes, if he feels like it, he can identify people. "Where's Steph?" my mom will say, and Simon will come trotting to me. One of the greatest moments was when my family and I were sitting in my living room. Simon was bugging my mother, so she said to him, "You know Simon, if you want your ball, it's back the hallway." Simon walked away, then reappeared moments later holding his ball. My cousin started laughing and couldn't stop. I just shrugged. "That's my dog."

It's obvious that I love my dog, too. I ask about him every time I call home. Just stepping into my room people realize what he means to me. I have a bunch of photos. A few of my nephews, one of my parents, some friends photos... and seven pictures of my dog. Sometimes I don't know what I would do without him. I'll be heartbroken if my parents won't let me take him with me.

Well, I wrote my introductory paragraph of this blog entry to make you think I was talking about a human guy. While I haven't found that guy that I can love as much as my dog, you had better believe that he ought to love my dog before he tries to love me. I will probably have a dog all of the years of my life after this one, but Simon will always be my first true love... of the canine persuasion.

Posted by StephanieReigh at November 1, 2004 7:51 PM