Lullaby for Lillie

Dogs are supposed to want to please their owners, but Lillie never indulged me this. Since she came to us at age 6-weeks, Lillie has had a sense of entitlement that rivals that of a new millennial coed. She just wants to please herself, and has always been vocal in expressing displeasure. They all have such different personalities, these dogs. I always swore that Lillie was a changeling because she was supposed to be out of the same bitch that whelped Jack, but she doesn't seem related to him. She's a little crooked, too. I mean physically--not as symmetrical as Jack or the mutts.

I always thought Lillie would live longer than Jack, because she's a year younger. She's smaller. Jack is something of a giant for the breed, and smaller things live longer in general. I can't figure out if she's 9 or 10. I got her a year after I got Jack, and I got Jack a few days after my mother died, which must have been in 1999 because I remember staying up in the house alone to see 2000 come in. My sister's clan were huddled in their hovels waiting for the world to end, and I wanted to be awake just in case. All the grains and stuff they hoarded--I don't know what happened to that. They planned to drink my niece's pool, although they hoarded water, too. They may have been planning to bathe in it, too. And it just seems that mom was dead then. The horror of knowing their plans would have been too much for an old woman. Surely she was dead then because there would have been a great commotion if she'd lived to see G.W. Bush appointed president. Ah yes, I remember being awfully grateful that she died without having to see another Republican president. So, Lillie came in the new millennium. She's nine.

The corgi lifespan is usually 11 to 14 years. But, Lillie has developed health problems. She got Addison's disease within the last year. I thought she's had cataracts for a long time, but now she's nearly blind. I don't think she'll last many more years. The blindness came suddenly. At Thanksgiving she could still play catch. Now, by Christmas, she can't find a toy to play with, or follow its arc, although she's still interested. She can't find her food dish, or figure out where her treat is when I give them treats. I touch her snout with it. If it falls to the floor she can't find it. She's afraid to go further than the porch, and she used to look for any opportunity to bolt out the front door and run the neighborhood. Her and Eddie. Once they picked up a straggler. I found them a few blocks away strutting down the middle of the road.

She's more dependent now, so she's less of a bitch. She has a shrill, annoying bark, and used to complain a lot. She doesn't complain as much now. She must have to keep her mind on stumbling around safely. She doesn't tear out the door to rassle the garden hose any more. She can't find it. Ought to save me a fortune on garden hoses. She still attacks the vac, but if I pick up the nozzle and move it 3 feet away, she's lost.

I got her as a pet for Jack, and he's always been perfectly content with her. He was downright avuncular when she was a puppy, but now he'll snap at her for food. He was overjoyed to get her. He would wait for her to eat before he ate when she was a puppy, and he let her drag him around by the collar. All day long. She was just a mite when she came to live with us. Her baby neediness freaked me out. I had to take sedatives. Jack kept her quiet at night. She was smart. It took a week to teach Jack how to use the doggy door, but the first day Lillie was home, I caught her watching Jack go out the door. The next minute, the tiny bean scrambled up the sill and out the doggy door, and she went in and out constantly. In to piss, out to destroy flowers, dig holes, tear up the garden hose. She was easy to housebreak, but perverse. I had a whole patio full of people over, and we all watched her go in the doggy door, just to the side of the glass opposite us, and squat.

She fell in the pool when she was a couple of months old. I was in my office and Jack started barking. He never barked much, and that bark sounded different. I couldn't pull the window cover back, and I tried to ignore it, but decided the barking was too odd. When I got outside she was desperately paddling for life right in the middle of the deep end. Who knows how she fell in. I fished her out with a leaf net, and held her in my lap in a towel for about an hour, as long as she trembled. That was the first time she'd ever let me hold her. She always wriggled away from you, and didn't care to be petted. After that, I removed the doggy door.

I didn't overwhelmingly like her, but I always thought of her as Jack's pet, so she had to be granted some latitude because Jack likes her. She has always tended to get nice when she's sick, and want to be held. Once, when she got the damned corgi colitis, I held her while I lay down on the couch waiting for $300 worth of medication to kick in. Jack brought one of her toys to her to try to interest her in being her old self. He nuzzled it onto the couch. She disappointed him that moment, but came back soon enough. Jack has always kept her ears clean. He still grooms her, but she doesn't return the favor. I don't know what's wrong with her. She is the only dog he ever cared about. He hates Eddie and is indifferent to Kendall. And even now with Lillie, if she gets in his way, and now she's blind she gets in everybody's way all the time, she better watch out.

But Lillie is pathetic when she's sick, and she's kind of pathetic now that she's blind. Her world has gotten much smaller. I have come to have empathy for her because she gets frightened in storms, and seeks protection curled against me or laying on my feet. She's outre most of the time, but when the going gets tough, Lillie gets needy. She remains underfoot.