A Big Little Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

But our second assistant, Elaine, who had come to us after retiring from another job, worked in our office suite in a commercial complex called Newport Center.
    Linda and Elaine had asked if they could meet Trixie when we did. They were friends as well as employees, and the addition of a dog to our lives made them happy for us. Besides, they were always looking for one reason or another to skip work, and this was a much better excuse than claiming for the sixteenth time that a beloved grandmother or beloved aunt had died.
    Also with us were Vito and his wife, Lynn, visiting from Michigan and staying in the beach house for two weeks. They had a dog they loved, a not-mooshy Labrador retriever named Rocky, so we figured they could help us adjust to our new daughter.
    Judi arrived with Trixie’s puppy raiser, Julia Shular, who also had with her a black Labrador in training for CCI. They had all of Trixie’s favorite toys, a bag of her kibble, and what seemed like 9,324 pages of instructions on her care.
    Joint surgery will force the retirement of any assistance dog because, in a pinch, it might need to pull its partner’s wheelchair. Even after healing, the problem joint puts the animal at risk. Having recuperated for six months, our daughter was fully recovered.
    When Trixie entered the house off leash, she had a sprightly step and an eager, inquisitive expression. Tail swishing, she came directly to Gerda and me, as if she had been shown photographs of us and knew we were to be her new mom and dad. Then she politely visited with Linda, Elaine, Vito, and Lynn, sharing the fur.
    Cynics will tell you that love at first sight is a myth, but their opinion is not to be respected, and only reveals the sad condition of their hearts.
    We fell in love with Trixie at first sight, in part because of her beauty. Her mother, Kinsey, was a gorgeous specimen, and her father, Bugs—Kinsale Bugaboo Boy—was a winner of multiple dog-show prizes. Her grandfather Expo also had been a show-dog champion. Trixie had a good broad face, correct ear size and placement, dark eyes, and a black nose without mottling. Her head and neck flowed perfectly into a strong level topline, and her carriage was regal.
    Beauty took second place, however, to her personality. Although well behaved, with a gentle and affectionate temperament, she had about her a certain cockiness, as well. During that first meeting, she seemed always to be either laughing or ready to laugh, and Judi said she had been the class clown of her graduating group.
    Because the male Labrador remained in training, Trixie took advantage of her new status as an ordinary dog to tease him and to tempt him to break his sit-stay. While we listened to Judi and Julia instruct us in Trixie’s basic commands, we watched our girl take three differenttoys to the Lab and hold them inches from his face, jubilantly squeaking them to impress on him what fun he was missing.
    Her favorite toy was what we called a dangle ball, a big fuzzy ball dangling on a loop of braided rope. She swung this in front of the Lab’s face, like a hypnotist swinging a pendant on a chain, and when he let his mouth sag open, tempted to make a grab for the toy, Trixie stepped back, insisting that he break his sit-stay.
    In spite of our girl’s clownish tendency, we supposedly would rarely need to correct her behavior. Judi said that Trixie was so well trained and so smart that “if this dog does something wrong, the fault will be yours, not hers, because you will have gotten a command wrong or will have forgotten to do some part of her daily routine that she requires to stay on her schedule.”
    Linda and Elaine left, not to return to work, as we might have hoped, but to make funeral arrangements for beloved aunts who had died that morning. What a sad world this is, with so much death.
    When Judi and Julia left a few minutes later, Trixie set off to explore every corner of the house, bottom to top and down again. She would repeat