My Sweet Lady

By Dixie Schaefer

My Sweet Lady is the true story of a rescued dog and how she enhanced the lives of two special needs young adults. Lady was a German Shepherd mix who connected with the family in a unique and heartwarming way. It is about fleeing a wildfire, relocating to a ranch at the edge of a wilderness, interacting with wild creatures, and adding horses, go

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dixie Schaefer
• Release date: Jan 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9780999658215

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

What's that up ahead? my daughter, Doreen, asked as she turned my car into the hospital parking lot.

I don't know, I replied. There's a crowd of people standing in a circle.

It was a late August morning in 2000, and the summer sun had already begun its merciless assault. They're holding up a sheet, Doreen said. I think they're trying to create shade for something. It looks like an animal.

Maybe a dog got hit by a car. Oh, that's so sad.

Doreen parked the car, and we walked toward the group gathered on the sidewalk near the hospital door. We arrived just in time to see a woman in a nurse's uniform lift a wet, dark, newborn puppy for the onlookers to see.

It's a girl, she announced, smiling.

The brown and black mother dog gratefully licked water from a bystander's fingers. What a smart dog, I observed. She came to the hospital to have her pups.

Mom, you'd better go inside or you'll be late for your treatment, Doreen prompted.

I obeyed reluctantly, not wanting to subject my painfully burned breast to yet another barrage of radiation, but glad that the series of treatments was almost over. Doreen had been a great help, taking time off from her job as a physical therapist assistant to help me through the last few weeks of the ordeal.

Have you heard that there's a dog giving birth outside? I asked the radiologist.

No, I've been busy in here.

Guess she's a stray, I replied. It's amazing that she came to a hospital to have her pups.

What does she look like?

Kind of like a German shepherd, only smaller.

I wonder if she's Father Benedict's dog. She fits the description. He passed away three weeks ago.

I started to ask who Father Benedict was, but the radiologist turned and left the room. The priest was probably a chaplain, I decided, since Saint Bernardine's was a Catholic hospital. That might explain the presence of the dog. Maybe she came looking for him when she went into labor. Poor thing, looking for her master, bewildered. Then again, maybe she was another dog.

When I returned to the scene outside, the crowd was still there. Doreen had taken over the job of giving water to the new mother. Her light brown curls were hanging over the dog's face, her jeans and blue tee shirt showing wet evidence of her endeavor.

Oh Mom, she's so sweet. She knows we're helping her, and she's so grateful. Doreen's blue eyes were damp with emotion as she extended her dripping fingers for the dog to lick.

Has anyone called animal control? a bystander asked.

Yes, replied the woman delivering the pups, but these ladies offered to take the dogs to a no-kill shelter, so we cancelled the call. She nodded toward two elderly women.

Another pup arrived. It's another girl, said the nurse.

She looks just like a little white rat—how cute! I mused.

Oh, Mom, why don't we take the dogs home with us? Doreen implored.

I'd love to, but if we have dogs in the house, your brother won't be able to come visit.

Poor Stanley! He always wanted a dog. If only he wasn't so allergic to them.

It wasn't just dogs. Anything with fur would bring on his asthma. There was the guinea pig. We had it all of twenty minutes. Stanley held it under his chin and immediately broke out in a terrible rash. I'd tried to get him interested in something without fur, but the goldfish died soon after we got it, and the myna bird was so bad about biting we sold it. Besides, as Stanley explained to me, you can't hold a goldfish. He wanted something he could pet.

I stroked the mother dog's head. You know, we really should get going. Everything seems under control here, and we need to get back to Big Bear before Heidi and Tommy come home.

It was a long drive from Saint Bernardine's in San Bernardino, California, to Erwin Lake in the Big Bear Valley. My thirty-three year old daughter, Heidi, and twenty-eight year old step-son, Tommy, would be getting home from the daily training program for developmentally disabled adults in a couple of hours.

Doreen cast a worried look over her shoulder as we headed for the Jeep. Are you sure there's no way we could take the dogs home with us?

I really wish we could, I said honestly. I loved animals, but even if Stanley wasn't allergic, how could I suddenly spring a mother dog and five pups on my husband? I knew Bob liked dogs. He had a cute little Yorkshire Terrier, Benji, when we married in 1992. Stanley, who was then in college, came to visit. He had only been in our house twenty minutes when he had an asthma attack. I couldn't ask Bob to give the wee dog away. He'd had him for years. Benji passed away from kidney failure at age sixteen, shortly after Bob and I married. We never considered getting another dog, mainly because of my son's allergies. Someone suggested we try a poodle, since they have a different kind of hair, but we thought that wouldn't work since Stanley is allergic to dog dander as well as dog hair. I knew from experience that thorough house cleaning wouldn't solve the problem. After Stanley went away to college, his youngest sister, April, talked me into adopting a kitten. We steam-cleaned the carpets and furniture before her brother came home for Christmas, but he still got sick, so we gave cute little Tigger away.

As Doreen turned the Jeep onto a freeway leading to the bottom of the mountain, I began to feel a worry knot forming in my stomach. Maybe we should turn around and go back for the dogs, I ventured. We could keep them till we find homes for them. It'd be temporary, just till the pups are weaned.

Bob's pretty handy. Maybe he could build a dog house.

That was true. My husband worked for a construction company. But would it be fair to make the dogs stay outside? Big Bear Valley usually got a lot of snow in winter. Benji had a little doggie door so he could come in out of the weather. When he passed away, we removed it and put paneling over the hole in the wall. Maybe Bob could build an insulated dog house.

We traveled in silence for a while, both of us fighting the urge to return to the hospital. It wouldn't do any good to go back for the dogs now, Doreen said, as we turned off Interstate 10 to the road that would take us to the bottom of the mountain.

You're right. Those nice ladies have probably taken them to the shelter by now. Maybe, if we explained the situation to Bob, he'd tell us to go get them.

We passed through the town of Mentone, then up a straight stretch of road that ran parallel to the rushing waters of Mill Creek, past the little community of Mountain Home Village. Brush gave way to lush stands of conifers and oaks.

Doreen slowed to a stop. A large buck with a huge rack of antlers stood quietly in the middle of the road. He turned his head toward us for a moment but made no move to get out of the way, so Doreen turned the engine off and we sat silently, in awe of the magnificent creature. It was a rare sight. Despite its forested glory, I'd seen very few deer in the area throughout the many years I'd lived in Big Bear. I hoped the delay wouldn't make us late getting home. It was imperative that someone be there when Heidi and Tommy were dropped off.

The buck moved on to the shoulder of the road and Doreen started the engine. As we passed the turn-off to Forest Falls and began the steep climb up Highway 38 toward Big Bear Valley, I wondered how Tommy and Heidi would feel about having a dog.

Tommy, a tall handsome fellow with dark brown hair and brown eyes, has mild cerebral palsy, moderate retardation, and autism. He had loved Benji, but, according to Bob, it was his first dog, April, that had inspired him to learn to speak. Tommy couldn't quite pronounce the dog's name,