Amigo was 9 weeks old when I met him. It was June 2006. My husband and I were running errands a few days before our trip to Alaska. I decided to wait in the truck while he went into the sporting goods store to pick up a few things. A bit later my cell phone rang. It was my husband, letting me know that someone had puppies in front of the store. The prospect of puppies sounded like it would be more entertaining than the talk radio station I was listening to, so I hopped out of the truck and headed that way. The breeder had the last two puppies (out of a litter of nine) in a kennel by the store entrance.
“What breed of dog are they?” I asked.
“English Springer Spaniels,” she answered.
As people stopped to look, it struck me that everyone familiar with the breed couldn’t say enough good things about it. As you might expect, many of the people going into the store were sportsmen, who knew Springers as field dogs. “Easy to train”, “Great nose”, and “Won’t quit” were some of the comments. I also heard the affection in their voices. One woman verged on tears as she recalled the Springer she’d had, she loved it so much.
I’d been wanting a dog for quite some time. I always thought it would be a yellow labrador, but now I was sure that one of those two puppies was the dog for me. How to convince my husband? Little did I know that he had already been swayed by one of them on his way into the store. As he emerged with his purchases, I bombarded him with all the reasons I could think of as to why we should own an English Springer Spaniel.
“Would you like to hold one?”, the breeder asked. She handed Amigo to my husband. If there’d been any hesitation to adopt before then, it all melted when the puppy nestled into his arms.
We’ve joked that Amigo exerted his StarTrekian mind control powers over us that day. Who could resist the wet nose on the cheek, the gentle paw against the chest, and those deep brown eyes that mezmerized our hearts?
It would be an overstatement to say the rest is history. I can say that things changed with this addition to our household. Amigo has been a dynamic feature in our lives every day since then. There’s always something going on with the then-puppy, now-dog who won our hearts.
I wish now I’d written things down as they happened, but I didn’t. I had the view that I’d always be able to recall all the charming (and exasperating) events that occur when you live with a dog. Subconsciously, I thought that things would always continue to unfold the same way. A recent visit to the vet changed all that. I now see the merit of writing about Amigo’s exploits. This blog gives me a chance to do some reminiscing — maybe taking some side roads along the way — and to let you in on the days in a dog’s life.
-Amigo’s friend
