Finding Hope

In 2010, I wanted to get a dog. For some reason, I had my heart set on a Great Dane. So, when I was asked if I would foster a little, two-year-old, blonde, longhaired dog, I said “absolutely not.” However, after some cajoling, I finally agreed and Hope came into my life. Right away, she asserted herself as a lap dog, as evidenced by my very first photo of her, even though her size pushed the limits of the definition of “lap dog.” While I might be smiling in the picture, I was not smiling a few hours later when she slipped free of her leash and took off for most of the night. I walked around the neighborhood, voice hoarse from calling her name for hours. Eventually, I went back home and resorted to calling for her from the back deck, hoping she would make her way back. Hours later, she turned up, looking pleased as punch and happy to see me. Bounding back up onto the deck and into the house, it was if she was excited to tell me all about her adventures.

A week or two later, I signed the adoption papers, admitting that I was a failed foster parent. I enrolled her in obedience classes where she was a quick study at everything except learning how to heel. For the fifteen years I had her, she would forever want to walk ahead of me, scouting the way, being impatient that I couldn’t go faster. After running ahead of me, she would find something fascinating to sniff, investigating until I passed her and the retractable lead went taught. Then she’d bolt ahead as fast as she could, bounding like a rabbit, to find the next great thing to smell. In that way, she leapfrogged her way down many hiking trails with me, including summiting Baker Mountain at Saranac Lake when she was 11-years old.

Despite the occasional escape, during which she’d take herself for a walk around the neighborhood, usually to chase after a pesky squirrel, she was a good dog. She was well mannered around everyone, unless you were a man wearing a hat, which meant you were absolutely not to be trusted, and she made sure to tell you. A former foster parent had taught her how to jump up into people’s arms, which she would often do unprompted, earning her the nickname “Flying Wallenda”. Almost everyone found themselves cuddling her eventually, whether they wanted to or not. Scrolling through my photos of her, I’m struck by all the times I caught her cuddled up with family and friends, even though she really, really hated being on camera. For the longest time, she would run away at the sight of a camera, and even after many years of trying to get her used to it, she’d still stop whatever cute thing she was doing if she thought I was trying to take her photo.

While she may have been small, averaging between 25-30 pounds, she had a giant personality. I was tempted to change her name when I got her, but quickly learned that she would fix you with her beseeching eyes anytime you had food, ever hopeful that you would share. It became standard practice in our house to give her a piece of whatever you were eating, and/or to let her lick your plate clean. Always energetic, she loved to play. Chew toys were a favorite, to the point of breaking several teeth throughout the years on her Nylabones (no matter how big or small they were.) Plushies with squeakers were never safe, typically becoming dissected and their squeakers removed. And one of her favorite games was something I called “bed shark.” She would root around under a blanket, snorting and tossing the blanket into the air as she burrowed and rolled around underneath. It became a game when I start to tickle her through the blanket and she would chase her invisible assailant, eventually throwing the covers off and being excited that she had found me.

It’s difficult to condense 15 years into a single post. So many stories could be told, like the time she chased after javelinas in the Arizona desert, or how she became an honorary Bernese Mountain dog. Countless more photos could be shared, showing what a cute, fluffy, cuddly, playful little girl she was. An entire post entitled “Losing Hope” could detail her decline, her final days, and how we said goodbye. However, writing it would crush me under a tsunami of grief. Therefore, I will leave you with just two cute videos of her, memories of her attitude and intelligence that make me smile; because in the end, memories of her are now the only places where I can find Hope.