The Dog Blog: 13-plus years with my dog Lady

Monday, October 1, 2012

13-plus years with my dog Lady

I THINK OF THIS PHOTO AS "WICKED LADY."

NOTE: Lady passed on Sept. 17, 2016; that was just two weeks short of her unofficial 16th birthday. We got her Oct. 1, 2002, and we counted her Gotcha Day as her birthday.

LATEST UPDATE: March 31, 2016 marked 13 and a half years we've had Lady. If she was two years old when we got her, as they said at the animal shelter, then she's 15 and a half years old now.

UPDATED AGAIN: We bought Lady on Oct. 1, 2002, and we count Oct. 1 as her birthday. So she turned 15 today (Thursday, Oct. 1).

Happy birthday, darlin'.

UPDATED: Lady (the former Lassie) unofficially turned 13 on Oct. 1, the 11th anniversary of the day we got her from the Guilford County Animal Shelter. She limps a good bit now, she's slower nowadays, and she has trouble getting into our vehicles.

Still, all in all, she's doing pretty well. As I said last year, happy birthday, darlin'.

ANOTHER UPDATE: We got Lady on Oct. 1, 2002, and today is March 31, 2016. That means we've had her 13 and a half years.

WE ADOPTED LASSIE (that's what they called her then) at the Guilford County (N.C.) Animal Shelter 11 years ago today. They said that she was a two-year-old collie mix, probably because of her coloring.

I agreed that she had the colors of a collie — white and reddish brown — but she didn't look much like Lassie. Her nose was too short; she was too small, in height and length; her tail was curly, more like a sled dog; she had smaller ears than a collie, and she had a big ruff around her neck, like a sled dog.

So we changed her name from Lassie to Lady.

We moved to our new home that day, and she's been an integral part of our family for 11 years.

Happy birthday, darlin', and many happy returns.

P.S.: We recently did a DNA test (last September 2015) and found that Lady is one-eighth boxer, one-eighth chow and 75 percent mutt. Most mutts are about 50 percent mutt and 50 percent something else, so they call her a mega-mutt.