"...and your little dog, too!"

margie_gulch, originally uploaded by panthergirl.

My mother always hated animals. In Brooklyn, we would say she "shkeeved" them. Every once in awhile, I'd drag a kitten home, but it would be banished outdoors and would eventually leave. Since my dad loved dogs (sort of, but that's another story), we got a German Shephard puppy when I was about five. Again she was not allowed to live in the house except for a small area of the basement. Eventually she got sick. My parents took her to the vet and came home without her, with some matter-of-fact explaination to us, shocked and heartbroken.

When I was in High School, a friend found a puppy in a dumpster and gave it to me. I did a big sell job to keep her, saying that she was going to be a small dog, and somehow my parents agreed. AND because she was so little she remained indoors. I named her Stymie, after the character on the Little Rascals.

She was kind of a pain, never really got the hang of "housebreaking", but we all adored her. One day, much to my amazement, I heard my mother coo, "We love you, Stymie..." When I was 17 and graduated from high school, my parents moved to Florida (again, another story) and took Stymie with them. A few years later she died of leukemia and they were devestated.

The funny-looking face that softened my mother's heart?