Arrival

I hadn't expected that another Scottish terrier would enter my life so soon. Not long after the turn into this century, three of them departed - Golly from old age, Jet from cancer and kidney failure, and Gus from heart failure.

Golly was a large dog, so I named him Goliath. He wasn't very quick, or very curious, or very anything - a happy creature who would wander off from time to time in spite of what I thought was extreeeemely sensitive supervision.

I remember one very cold January Sunday morning we went for our early morning walk on the bikeway/walkway next to the lake. Suddenly, he wasn't there, and because the snow crust was hard, like the ice covering the lake, there were no tracks to follow.

My response was what it had been for other similar episodes - get in the car, roll down the windows and drive slowly around the neighborhood call his name, and pray, all the while feeling the knot in your stomach go from modest to almost painful. After several hours, I gave up and came home to fret.

I called animal control, let the police department know, rang a few neighbors and the humane society in Saint Paul.

Nothing, nothing but silence interrupted by the screaming inside my head about how could I have been so stupid, his body will never be found, he will come back, he'll never come back, the familiar litany of unexpected loss.

Monday came and went with no news. I called the local animal shelter, but no scotties had been admitted. On Tuesday, I put one of those want ads in the paper about a lost scotty in the vicinity of, the offer of a reward, and please call my number. My praying increased.

And then on Wednesday, the phone rang. It was a man who worked at a neaby retirement home and had been driving to work on Sunday morning when he saw this black dog in the middle of a normally very busy road, so he picked the dog up and took it to work and at the end of his shift, to his home.

I drove to his house, confirmed it was Golly, paid the reward, and got my beasty back in the car. I don't remember the tears of joy, but there had to be some.

After the ground thawed in the Spring, I called the local rep for Invisible Fence, and she came out on a Saturday morning, walked the property, and wrote up a quote. I glanced at it, gulped, and said I would call her on Monday to let her know my decision.

That afternoon, Golly disappeared again, but this time I found him trotting south on a nearby road, heading for the excitement of the same intersection he'd found in January. I put him in the car, drove home, and called the Invisible Fence person and left a message saying that the quote was fine, and if they could install the system on Monday, that would be fine with me.

As the end approached, Golly found the stairs in the house difficult, so I would pick him up, tuck him into my shoulder and take him up and down. After he died, I missed the feeling and warmth of him every time I used the stairs for, wel let's just say, a few years.

He was tolerant and sweet, unlike most of my other Scots, and holding his paw was an immeasurable source of reassurance.

Jet Lag was my mother's dog, and when she died, I volunteered to take him on. It was a rash decision because I really didn't want another scotty, but more importantly, his rear legs were paralyzed, and he dragged himself from place to place. My love of dogs came from my mother, although my father disliked every four-footed who appeared in the living room, and I thought that taking on Jet was the least I could do. (I'll write more about Jet later, but he taught me the importance of persistence, and that was an important lesson.)

Gus, sweet sweet Gus, was taken from us my heart failure caused by no known reason, although to this day I expect poison was involved. In spite of my lousy housekeeping, I kept few toxic substances on hand, and what was around the house was carefully stored to keep it from any curious beasties.

They departed, and my hip went to hell over a period of four years. During that time I realized that to have a dog would be unfair to the dog, as I couldn't provide it with the kind of play and exercise it would need. So the house and I heard no click of nails on the hardwood floor, no barks of warning - and no occasional dumps to surprise and delight. I did not much like the silence every evening, but the pain in my hip began to take over, and it was several years before I decided to have a hip replacement.

Unlike most people I prepared for my surgery and had a quick recovery; by summer I had stopped thinking about the hip full-time and occasionally the thought of another Scot did enter my mind. Yet I did nothing about it.

Nothing until the phone rang one day, and Janelle Dixon, the head of the Humane Society for Companion Animals called. I had been on her board for a number of years, and the organization did wonderful work saving and adopting out animals of all sorts.

"I have a Scotty I think you need to have a look at," she said directly. Some time ago, I had let it be known that should a scotty turn up, and if someone remembered, perhaps that person might let me know. Nothing had happened for a long time, and I had more or less forgotten about it.

The next day, I drove out to the HSCA facility near Como Park in Saint Paul, and Janelle very kindly brought out "Helen," and walked her back and forth.

I was in love in an instant. This dog was small, more to the breed standard than some of my other Scots, moved pretty well, had a beautiful head but slightly slender legs. More importantly she was curious, enthusiastic, energetic, and I knew that she had found a new owner.

for a few minutes, I didn't know quite what to do in terms of telling Karen. But before leaving the shelter, I opened my cell phone and ring her up to report that I had seen a quote hellacious Lee beautiful" Scottish Terrier bitch, that the vote had been cast, and that she did not have a vote.

Two days later, on a very busy Saturday morning at the shelter, I took care in there so that she could see "Helen." There she saw a bouncing small black dog responding with leaps and lyrics to the hands of children coming over the plexiglass wall which kept her in a small pen. I could tell that Karen was smitten with the dog almost as quickly and as much as I had been. We were both relieved to see a small sign at the top of the pan which read, "Hold."

When I went to the front desk to do the paperwork to adopt Helen, the woman behind the counter expressed great relief that the dog was about to leave the shelter because she said, "we get asked about that dog every 30 seconds from the time we open in the morning until we close at night."

After handing over $450 or so, Karen and I put Helen, now renamed Islay, in the car and took her home. I had made some efforts to prepare the house for the new dog in prompt, impromptu fences, dog bed in the guest bathroom downstairs, resurrected food and water dishes from previous canines., and some puppy pads in case they were accidents, as we knew they're definitely would be.

We did not know at the time how many accidents there would be before Islay began to become more civilized, but upon entering the house, she was off to explore, tearing around the house looking out windows, getting up on her hind legs to look even further, and, in general, orienting herself to her new quarters.

Why, we wondered then, and we wonder now, would anyone let a dog like this loose somewhere in the city of Saint Paul to be picked up by animal control, put in a shelter, and left unclaimed. Obviously, Islay is a purebred scotty -- in looks, in temperament, enthusiasm, and in loyalty.

While I don't remember it clearly, I am certain that Karen and I sat down for a stiff drink of whisky that evening. No doubt each of us in our own way was wondering what we might have gotten ourselves into, were we up to the challenge of an energetic and aggressive Scottish terrier, would we pass a final exam?

If there were a shadow cast in my mind that evening, it was this: will I live long enough to enjoy all of this dog's life and perhaps be around to see her out? The thought that she might be my last scotty on this vale of tears was a sad one, but it increased my determination to enjoy every aspect of my life -- our lives -- with her.

There has been one recurring thought over these last several years-that is, perhaps some of my friends got together in cahoots with Janelle Dixon and arranged to put this Scotty in my way knowing full well that I would not be able to resist. I realize this is a far-fetched notion, but the alignment of the stars -- my somewhat less than formal request to staff the Humane Society but should a scotty turn up with a possibly think about calling me, that they would get words to Janel who would then pick up the phone and call me, and that I would be open to the challenge of a Scottish terrier relatively soon after my hip surgery.

But those concerns disappeared as Islay ran around the house, jumped up and down, got on and off the furniture, and bestowed endless licks on Karen's and my faces.