Word For Wednesday - Weathering

I have managed to weather this year well, but last year was another story.

I had gotten my dog, Aster in the late summer of 2010. Work was crazy and I wasn't sleeping very well. It had been about eight months since my dog Max passed away and I was ready for another dog. Max had a gentle disposition. He was great around children and other dogs. He was the ultimate omega dog. I started looking for golden retriever crosses that I hoped would have the same disposition as Max.

For a couple of months, I looked at the animal shelter websites in Santa Fe, Albuquerque and in Espanola. Alas, no golden retrievers. I looked at the golden retriever rescue sites, too. I wasn't in a hurry to have another dog. One day while I was looking at the Santa Fe Animal Shelter website, a golden retriever cross caught my eye. Her name was Tara.

That weekend, I went to the animal shelter looking for Tara. The kennels that you walk through at the shelter are small rooms with Dutch doors. Some of the rooms had the top part of the door open so that you could interact with the dogs. When I got to the room with Tara, both the top and bottom part of the door were closed. There was a sign that requested after visiting with the dogs to close the top door. There were two dogs in the kennel. A white lab and Tara. My friend Geri said I should take both dogs, but I only brought Tara home.

Tara was adorable, but I promptly renamed her Poppy. (She was subsequently renamed Aster, but that's another story.) The day after I brought her home I went out to breakfast with a friend. When I came back home I found her climbing over my six foot fence like a drawing of Kilroy was here. Who would think a forty pound dog could scale a wall that size? It was funny seeing her head peeking over the fence with her paws on either side of her.

I wasn't quite sure what to do with the escape artist. I should have been alerted that Tara was a jumper. There was a sign in her kennel at the shelter that both doors on the Dutch door had to remained closed after visiting. She was so adorable that I didn't heed this warning.

After telling a co-worker about her escapist behavior, she recommended taking her to dog training. The trainers she recommended didn't have any open classes. But Aster continued to escape, so I hired the trainer to come to my house. He didn't think Aster was beyond redemption. Woohoo! And he recommended that I buttress the fence with lumber that faced inward and dig trenches near the fence to prevent her from getting a running start. I decided against the dry moat around the perimeter of my backyard. I didn't know I would have to fortify Casa de GirlSprout to keep her.

Last fall, I came home to find my front door ajar. My house had been broken into and I called my friend Katie hysterically saying someone had stolen Aster. She recommended that I walk around and look to see if anything else had been taken. I discovered that my television and DVD player were taken. No one had stolen Aster, but she was gone. Katie fixed the door frame for me so I could close the door that night, but I was despondent that Aster was gone. I called my friend Geri. Geri drove up and down the street with me. We took a flashlight and walked up and down the arroyo near my house calling for Aster.

I went to bed crying and forlorn. In the middle of the night I woke up and felt something wet under my hand. It was Aster. She had climbed back over the fence and let herself in through the dog door.

Aster and I have weathered many storms, but I know she can find her way home.

Special thanks to Donna at Garden Walk, Garden Talk for hosting Word For Wednesday (W4W). Check out other perspectives on weathering.