Our Miss Penny

Penny arrived to our house courtesy of my teenage son who had been golfing all morning on a beautiful spring day. Even though the day started out sunny and bright a storm cloud broke sending the golfers running to their cars. Leaving the drivers door open as he popped the trunk button, my son quickly began throwing his clubs in the trunk of his black spotless Camero. The rain intensified now accompanied by thunder and lightening as he dived for the front seat closing the door and the storm behind him. With a smell that could knock the petals off a rose he soon knew he wasn't alone. Sitting in the well maintained seat beside him sat the most pathetic, nasty, stinking, bag of bones of a dog he had ever seen. His first reaction was to throw this mess right out of his car which he did but the dog was quicker then he was and dashed right back in. Wiser now Jeremy put the dog out and slammed the door shut and started to drive away. Feeling relieved he made the mistake of glancing in his mirror as the pathetic little dog chased after his car in the now driving rain. Glancing in his mirror one more time was all it took and he slowly pulled his sleek car to the curb allowing the little dog to catch up. Grabbing a towel from the back seat Jeremy placed the little dog on the towel who settled right down as Jeremy drove home wondering how he was going to explain her to me. When he got home he poked his head in the living room where my older son and I were working on a college project. Mom, are you ready for a surprise he asked me? Close your eyes and I will bring it in he tells me apprehensively. A note I quickly picked up on. Squinting one eye only I peeked cautiously as he pulled this small bundle of bony fur that filled the air with its foul smell that would have made me bolt from my seat and sanity had it not been for a pair of the most beautiful soulful eyes I have ever seen. Taking the soaking wet bundle from him I carefully took her into the kitchen and placed a small amount of food on the floor for her to eat. It was gone in two seconds. Well girl, now for a bath I spoke to her softly. It took two baths before the smell gave up the fight and now I could really see how emancipated she really was. One more day out in the elements would have surely finished her off. Taking my blow dryer out she thoroughly enjoyed the warm heat. It was that first day that I realized she wasn't an ordinary mutt even though she was a dachshund / beagle mix. She understand every word we said to her and was even house broken. It was 2 weeks later that I found out she had epilepsy. The doctor said the seizures could lessen in fervency and completely go away or intensify; only time would tell. Sadly Penny’s (she is the color of a shiny penny) seizures began to increase and we had to start medication to control them. The combination of two med’s needed increased her appetite causing her to always be at her bowl in the kitchen. She would continue to lick her bowl long after it was empty driving us crazy with the sound. With her second visit to our vet he told us she weighed 12 lbs now and looked really good for the shape she was in on her first visit but warned me to not let her gain anymore weight. By her 6Th vet appointment she was now up to 22 lbs. Our vet had to increase her meds to accommodate her weight causing her more drowsiness, more couch time and more time at the bowl. By her 8Th visit she hit the scales at 27 ½ lbs and was having seizures every week as well as suffering a back injury from playing with a small neighbor’s dog. Now she took steps very slowly and even began sleeping past 10 AM each morning. Trying out some pain pills that did not work my vet even approach me with the “You might consider putting her DOWN” talk that first made me cry and then filled me with anger! I was not giving up on Miss Penny yet! Finding a spinal pain pill that finally agreed with her she began feeling like her old self and the pain pills even slowed her seizures way down. That was when I read an article on people and their Look a Like Pets. Well Miss Penny and I did look a lot a like especially because we were both over weight! I often thought people were looking at us when we walked down the sidewalk, thinking “there goes that chubby woman with her chubby dog”! Small children would stop us and ask if Miss Penny was having puppies. I was actually embarrassed for my dog!
Miss Penny became my constant companion and never needed a leash. When I got out her collar she would become all excited because this meant a car ride. She rode on elevators like a pro and never barked inside a hotel, especially the ones we snuck her into. She never knew a stranger and I always trusted her gut instinct when we met one.
I will never forget the one Stormy night that Miss Penny came nose to nose with a growling, snarling possum. Try as much as I could I couldn't get her to leave it alone till slowly I could see her tilting sideways as she began to seizure. I had to break some of the lattice away from under the deck and reach in there (next to the snarling possum) and drag her limp and quivering body out of there. That was our Miss Penny. She loved my Mom, my sons and all the babies that came into her life. She was a precious gift sent from God and I will always be grateful for the short tens years he gave her to us.
She left us on the 1st of September and I thought my husband and I would surely die with her. We wrapped her inside her favorite blanket and laid her upon a pillow. Larry made her a coffin and we gently laid her inside. With every nail my dear husband drilled into that box a little bit of my soul cried out. How could a little dog do this to two grown people? We laid her to rest near the tree she loved most. Her squirrel tree. Even though it's been two years since the day we said our good byes I can still see her crouching down by the base of that tree. I will always Miss her, my Miss Penny Pie Pie.
Everyone should have a "Penny" in their lives. I could never repay all the joy she brought into our lives. So Miss Penny, till we are together again......Aunt Onie
Miss Penny
She walked into my life one day
And I shudder to think I balked
I did not need a dog to feed
For my time she’d surely rob

What I did not know right then and there
Is what she’d mean to me.
My life would never be the same
My world she’d come to be.

She would come to be my new best friend
Never asking for nothing more
Then to have my love and a little time
Memories of her to store.

Her funny ways always made me laugh
The way she crept upon the grass
She surely thought she get the squirrel
Sadly both of them knew she’d fail.

She would become my constant companion
The host of all our parties.
For when our friends would come to gather
Miss Penny would never be tardy

Coping through her illness
Brought us together, one taking care of one.
She knew me and I knew her
And never would we feel apart

She plowed into my heart one night
And just like that she was gone.
With her she took a piece of me
Leaving nothing but memories second to none.

The way she cried with joy
When I came home at the end of the day
She made me feel like royalty
How much I wished she’d stay

As I sit looking out my window
It’s so easy to see her there
Creeping like a lion
To that squirrel she tried to scare

Though she had to go I know for sure
As I enter into Gods Estates
There sits a little copper haired dog
Sitting patiently inside the gate.

Till then so long Miss Penny, Miss Penny Pie Pie so long
So Long Pinto
You loved us well…..Aunt Onie