Little Sweeny; our dog number seven.

Last week, I wrote about Hazel.  The week before Jean wrote about Casey. This week it’s back to Jean writing about the one little dog we have here at home: Sweeny.

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Sweeny

On that day we lost Poppy back in February, 2011, when we were still living in Payson, Arizona, it was as though she had been vaporised! Dear, sweet little Poppy.  A ten-pound Poodle mix I had rescued in Mexico.  She had been living in and around a Mexican construction site and when I rescued her she was very scrawny and without hair.  But Poppy, as I named her, soon blossomed into a little, blonde, beauty and I grew to love her very much.  Prior to Poppy, I had always liked the bigger dog but Poppy taught me the pleasures of a ‘lap’ dog that also happily slept under the covers at night with Paul and me.

Most afternoons in Payson, we took some of the dogs for a walk along a trail hike of about 2 miles.  The dogs were allowed to be off-leash and loved it.  Poppy always came and stayed with me, never leaving the trail as did the other, bigger dogs.  That February, it was a chilly Winter’s day (Payson and area were at 5,000 feet above sea-level) and we were all dropping down into a dry wash when I glanced behind to check that Poppy was handling the slope. To my total horror, she wasn’t in sight. Indeed, Poppy was never seen again.

Despite days spent scouring the terrain, notices in Payson shops, radio announcements on the local radio station; it all came to nought.  Poppy was gone!  Locals that we spoke with and who knew the area of desert where the trails were, the Granite Dells, were all of the opinion that Poppy had been stalked by a coyote that would most likely have grabbed her in an instant.  Such happenings had been known before.

I was inconsolable with guilt. I had let Poppy down by not giving her enough attention and it lay heavily upon me. For weeks and weeks I moped, missed her snuggles and that cute, little body crawling into the bed with me.  One day, I broached the idea with Paul of adopting a small dog from the local Humane Society.  Naturally, Paul agreed in an instant and in next to no time we had jumped in the car and were heading to the Society.

I wanted an older dog but the two small dogs that the Society had were really only suited for adoption into a one-dog household.  The Society did, however, have two puppies from a mother that had been taken in by them when that dog was heavily pregnant.  The pups had been born and raised at the shelter.

It was love at first sight when they handed me the puppy that was destined to become Sweeny.  Sweeny Todd to give him his full name was a two-pound bundle of fluff.

Today, Sweeny is a twenty-pound terrier mix.  A very ‘sassy’ little dog that is as much loved by his doggie brothers and sisters.  Sweeny, too, sleeps on the bed, laying alongside me and the edge of the bed so that he isn’t between Paul and me.  Sweeny has developed the habit of waking me in the morning by laying, full-bodied, over my face; to the point of me not being able to breathe.  Guess I shouldn’t have called him Sweeny Todd! 😉

No dog will ever take the place of Poppy or fully assuage me of my guilt that I still feel to some extent. But ‘The Sween’ has helped beyond measure.

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Next week, meet our dog number eight.

• Animal rescue
• consciousness
• Core thought
• Dog lessons
• People and their pets