Patches the Wonder Dog

Patches the Wonder Dog

Just the name alone makes me smile. I love dogs of all shapes and sizes, all breeds, and all colors. Dogs have a genuine way of making everything in the world seem like it is going to okay. They look at us with their beautiful eyes and they smile! Yes, my dogs smile at me all the time. It is just one of their many remarkable traits. Our sweet dog, Patches, the Wonder Dod is no exception.

When our youngest son was small he used to sit in the backyard with Patches and share his sandwiches with her. It was pretty darn cute – a bite for my son, a bite for the puppy. Dogs love peanut butter and jelly! Some people were horrified that I’d let my son share his lunch with a dog. I’d tell them that Patches wasn’t just a dog, she was a member of our family.

Patches was a sweet girl who came to us by way of our neighbor. The neighbor found her and knowing we were considering a dog, brought her over to our house. Patches was a mess – splotches of hair missing, a belly full of worms, hungry, and thin – and we fell in love with her instantly. How can you resist a puppy running around your giggling baby son's feet untying his tiny red Keds?

A trip to the vet told us that she was in bad shape but that solidified her place in our family. The vet said he could make no guarantees whether her hair would grow back or if she’d ever really stop being afraid of everything. We were willing to take a chance on this mess-of-a-dog and see what happened. We left the vet with an arsenal of medications, a lot of hope, and an appointment for a recheck several weeks later.

When we returned to the vet's office he could not believe she was the same dog! Her hair had grown in and filled in all the bald spots, her worms were being treated well, and she was eating like crazy – including several pairs of shoes. The vet looked at me and said, “This puppy made it because of the love of that little boy.” And he gestured towards my son who was sitting on the floor laughing with her. She survived because of love. Well, isn’t that just the truth for all of us?

Patches was very special and everyone of us still cries when she is mentioned. She brought us so much unrelenting love and was happy to see us every time we opened the door whether we had been gone a week or just went out to the mailbox.

She hated bad weather and would cower under a table when it rained, or when there was thunder or lightening. One day, while we were away, she became frightened when a sudden storm came up and she jumped over our fence. We were frantic for days looking for her. We’d all take turns driving around the neighborhood calling her name to no avail.

One evening my husband and our two youngest children went out looking for her. She had been lost for quite a while at this point but we were determined to find her. All the windows were down in our minivan and all three of them would call her name, “Patches,” over and over and over again. Finally, my youngest son who was probably no more than three or four at the time looked up and said, “Can we just get a new dog?” This sent our daughter into squeals of crying because at seven years old she understood things in a whole different way than her little brother. Our son loved her but had had enough of the whole thing and spending his afternoons searching for a lost dog was getting really old!

Several days passed and a neighbor came over one day and told us he thought he’d seen Patches running around a neighborhood several miles away. That night my husband, youngest son, and daughter went out again, calling her name and driving around. All of a sudden, like a phoenix from the ashes, they saw her laying on the 19th green at a local country club! When the kids opened the door of the van and called her name, she came running and jumped right in the van. She was dirty and thin and oh-so-very happy! She never left our yard again and she never shared her adventures with anyone.

Our sweet Patches lived for seventeen and a half years. Towards the end of her life she laid around the house more than she played but she was a happy girl and always excited to see us at the end of the day. Our youngest son was definitely always her favorite friend though. We used to laugh and say that if the house were to catch on fire, she’d help our son out first, then come get the rest of us, if there was still time. She was a sweet and loyal friend.

During the final months she developed a tumor that grew very fast. She could no longer walk well and wasn’t enjoying her food, or snitching a piece of pizza off a table. She was ready. The night before she died I made her favorite dinner of spaghetti and meatballs and she laid on the floor barely touching it. That meal was as much for my benefit as it was for her.

Our vet goes to patients homes to put a dog down but he had an emergency that next morning and we had to take her in. She loved riding in the car so she had one last fun filled ride laying in my lap in the backseat. When we got to the vet he was his usual kind self and let us spend as much time as we wanted with her but it was obvious to us that she was ready and willing to go.

The vet tech shaved her little paw – she suddenly looked so small lying on the table – and she didn’t make a sound. Patches loved everyone on earth except our vet. Every visit to the vet yielded growling and biting from her and the vet would just smile. Our vet is a terribly kind grandpa-like man who cares deeply about everyone’s pets and it was always a funny mystery to us that Patches didn’t care for him. Her last final act of defiance was to lift her head from the table, and with all the energy she had left in her tiny aching body, she growled at the vet. He smiled and said “good girl.”

If there is a heaven Patches is there eating Italian food, playing with small children, and waiting for us.