golo animal lovers' blog

george and lacy....mostly lacy

by GingerTea
Published Jun. 30, 2008

In December, my son got married.  I remember how I cried because he was leaving, how empty the house seemed, how I brought Georgie-bear from PetSmart because it needed some noise.  And then Lacy, who spooks me when I,upon waking in the middle of the night, catch her in the eerie blue glow of the television antenna with her nose turned skyward, possibly worshiping some dark deity only she can see, and to which she sacrifices our sofas, came to feather the nest.

I'm looking at the lump under the blanket on my bed right now. Lacy has twisted and turned and somehow managed to situate herself under the pile she has made of my bedcovers. It doesn't do to make the bed, anymore. The first thing she does is dig with her paws or nose the covers downward until she has found an opening through which to crawl. She then proceeds to burrow herself into her little cave, and it's hard to tell how much is blanket and exactly where she is in the middle of it all.

A mess-maker, that one is. Last night, I called her because she was being much too quiet and I couldn't find her. Suddenly, she poked her little black head up from the loveseat. What a sight - a pleased-with-herself expression on her face, her gun-barrel nose poking up over the white styrofoam plate she had fished out of the garbage clinched between her teeth. She looked as if she was ready for the buffet line.

She does all kinds of crazy things. Most are amusing, some are annoying, and a few are even infuriating (i.e. the stuffing from my sofa littering the living room floor). But many are endearing. For instance, she refuses to go to bed at night unless I go, too. When she's tired and ready, she fixes me in beady-black eyed misery until I finally give in and say - Ok, are you ready for bed, then? Her ears perk, she jumps up and heads down the hall. And if I don't follow, she does a u-turn and stares at me again.

She's much too good to sit on a bare floor, being the princess she is. She drags a blankie around with her, and drops it when she's ready to sit or lay down in the living room. She has a thing for blankets, and I often thank God for the deals Walmart offers on throws, because they are not only her cushions, they are also toys with which she tortures poor, long-suffering Georgie Bear. She somehow manages to throw them over herself and attack poor George, who grabs the blanket instead of Lacy, and the tug-of-war is on between him and a living piece of fabric.

If she's in the room, poor George doesn't have a chance at quality time or attention. If he approaches me, she throws herself in front of him or grabs the considerable hair on his neck and pulls him away. One night, I watched her jump on him as he lay on the floor, grab him by the fur and literally pull him around. And he simply let her do it.

She likes to hold hands. Often, she'll reach out that skinny little paw and crook it over my palm. I've no choice but to hold handswith her. And then she'll throw back that long neck and gaze up at me like, "this is good, mom."

She knows the word cookie in any inflection of the voice, and if we aren't careful, she will one day be able to spell it. As it is, she can hear a wrapper crinkle from two rooms away, and knows that means cookie, too. At breakfast, she fully believes she is entitled to her own plate of sausage and eggs, and has been known to eat cabbage, blackeyed peas and the handles of hairbrushes.

She does not like pink collars studded with rhinestones- definitely is not a blinging kind of dog, and she has made her point by chewing off that pink collar in favor of the plain blue and red one. There is nothing pretentious about her at all.

She is a crazy little dog that often stands upright on the loveseat and hangs her head backwards in such a way that she actually does look like a bat (what with those ears) hanging upside down. For all her messy ways, though, she is an enormous source of comfort and amusement. Her personality is vibrant and sometimes poignant, especially when she knows she's in trouble and her little face and big ears droop, and mom, will you please forgive me and I won't promise to never do it again...You know, I wouldn't trade her for anything