I came downstairs this morning and Savannah was sleeping right in the center of the area rug that's in the middle of the kitchen. That's the same exact spot that our dog Gracie used to like, and the very same spot where Gracie would choose to sleep when I was busy cooking or baking.
More often than not, I would lose patience with Gracie as I tried to work around her, going from one part of the kitchen to the other and trying not to trip over her as she slept right smack in the center of that rug. I can distinctly remember saying time and again: "We have 23 acres here, Gracie, and you are always right under my feet!" And that dog would look up at me with her eyes, not even lifting her head, and the expression on her face would be so sad. Possibly, she did indeed understand my words. Or maybe she was just picking up on my impatient emotions. Gracie didn't ever move out of my way when she was in that spot, unless my husband happened to come down the stairs and then she would follow him into the TV room or out into the yard.
On just such days, my husband would tell me "Don't get mad at Gracie... she just wants to be near you." Which I never believed... that dog was Gary's dog from day one, and Gracie just tolerated me when he wasn't home. Gracie was indeed a great dog, but she was a one-person dog, and my husband was forever and always her one person.
I don't think Savannah is going to be that way. Now that she has finally learned to trust my husband the way she trusts me, she is showing us that she isn't playing favorites. When I'm on the first floor and my husband is upstairs, Savannah will stay close by me and be perfectly content. If my husband comes down from the second floor and goes into the TV room to watch a ball game, she is right there on the sofa next to him, head in his lap, and loving all the extra petting and attention. If I'm in the TV room as well, she is on that sofa right in the middle of us, frequently turning herself around so we each get a turn with her head in our laps. When I'm working on my laptop in the breakfast room, Savannah is in her bed in the corner of the room. She can watch me type, and I can see her in my peripheral vision on my right side. Sometimes she's sleeping, sometimes she just watches me.
In the late afternoons, I've been taking Savannah outside for a walk when Judy and little Bella are also out walking. Savannah clearly likes that tiny Chihuahua and whenever we get up to the top of the hill, Savannah will be looking for Bella and turn herself to stone, not moving a puppy inch until she is certain that Bella is not there. I can see now that Savannah clearly recognizes Judy and is happy to see her out there on the road, greeting Judy even before she bends down to see Bella.
There has been so much progress since the first day we brought Savannah home... makes me wonder even more about her previous life. Just the fact that the previous owner didn't name the two puppies is bothersome... and Puppy #1 and Puppy #2 weren't names, they were just convenient numbers doled out to identify one puppy from another when they were taken to the vet for vaccinations.
During one of Savannah's first weeks with us, when Savannah wouldn't go near my husband, and would indeed walk the other way to get away from him, Gary was sure that he had made a mistake with this puppy. He told me that he had 'felt sorry for her' and didn't want her to have to 'ride back to Houston in the back of that truck' on such a blistering hot afternoon. Gary said that she was 'damaged goods' and would never be as good a dog as Gracie was.
That phrase about 'damaged goods' hurt me to the core that day... I remember telling my husband that in one way or another, every person on this planet is damaged... and it's not the damage to our souls and/or bodies that's damning, it's our reaction to it and our rise above it that counts. Clearly, Savannah has put her puppy past behind her. She is no longer just Puppy #2 in a fenced-in kennel with Puppy #1 and a family who clearly had no time at all for raising one puppy, much less two.
I don't know if it was the long stretch of time that passed without having a dog in the house, but I can honestly say that I'm enjoying puppyhood with Savannah even more than I did with Gracie. In all fairness, we brought Gracie home when she was just two months old, and the crate-training and the potty-training was more than I had wanted to handle at that time because we had just moved into a new house. All that work and effort I put into Gracie, and it always seemed that I was just a shadow in her life who only came into focus when my husband wasn't in the house. And then, just barely. I was happy for Gary, because he really wanted a loyal dog after having a bad experience years ago with a dog who never bonded with him and barely bonded with anyone else, but it was truly the pits for me, after having put so much time and effort into caring for that puppy.
Savannah has been an unexpected gift... we set out to get ourselves a puppy but I didn't expect to get such a vibrant and vital personality as well. That vibrancy took a while to shine, but it's definitely there, and it's getting brighter with each day, each week. Having this happy puppy in our home has changed the entire aura of this house. In these past five weeks, Savannah's confidence is continually expanding and her sense of trust is nearly palpable in its intensity. And I really believe that the best of this puppy is yet to be.
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