McBeal

Back when we were young and rested and wrinkle-free and living in Baton Rouge, we bought our first little house on a tree-lined street in the middle of town. The kitchen floor sloped, the hallway was about four inches wide and the living room walls were a deep, Pepto Bismol-ish mauve. But we loved it. That little house was mighty good to us.

We’d been living in our house for about nine months when David went home for lunch one day and found a very skinny, very pregnant dog lying in our neighbors’ flower bed. They said they didn’t know where she came from, but they did know that they had no interest in keeping her. D felt sorry for the puppy dog and fixed her some water and some food, and when I got home a few hours later, she had moved to the flower bed in front of our house. She was covered in fleas, so I took her inside and gave her a bath. She never made a sound.

We decided that night that we’d take care of her until her puppies arrived, and then we’d find her a good home. When the puppies arrived, we found people for all of them, but the dog – who we’d since christened Ally McBeal because, well, she looked like she could use a good steak dinner – showed no signs of wanting to leave. We talked about it and made a decision to keep her, but she was going to have to be an outside dog. Plain and simple. The end.

But then one night D was out of town, and it was raining, and I felt a little sorry for Ally the Skinny Dog who was in our backyard. So I put a towel on the floor of our bedroom, called her inside, and she curled up on that towel like it was the world’s finest dog bed. She never made a sound – but her sweet little eyes told me that she was grateful.

I think it took her about six months to bark in our presence, by the way.

So now it’s almost ten years later, and while we have no idea how old Ally was when she came to us, we tell ourselves that she was one. Because if she was, say, five or six, then that would make her a Really Old Dog at this point. And we don’t want for her to be a Really Old Dog. We want for her to stay with us forever. It’s where she belongs.

When our human child was born, Ally didn’t really know what to make of him. But now that he’s old enough to play with her and walk her and feed her and tell her 48 times a day that she’s “such a sweet girl,” she’s a devoted fan of the six year-old. And her favorite thing in the whole wide world – MORE THAN BACON, EVEN – is to go along for the ride when D takes Alex to school in the mornings. Even though Ally is 11 or 14 or 17 these days and spends a great deal of her time relaxing and also sleeping, nothing makes her shake a tailfeather like an invitation to ride in the truck.

She sits right next to A in the backseat and never makes a sound. She just wags her tail.

We’re so glad she found us.

And we love her a whole bunch.

But you’ve probably figured that out by now.