Solid Gold Pets by Mom in her book "Lurking Back"

            I stride proudly down East Sooke Road, accompanied by my greatest shame. One of the lusty, tanned East Sooke residents jogs past me.

"Your dog has body rot," she says.

 “Yes,” I say, “I’m sure that’s what it looks like, but before you make hasty judgements, let me tell you the story of Jeannie.” 

Jeannie is one of the four-legged creatures we allow into our home, feed and pet, love, honor and cherish in sickness and in health, and in time, she should be made of solid gold. The irony of it is that quite often this solid gold pet, this walking monument of dollars, is a mediocre mongrel of a dog or cat that belongs in an alley. Ordinary as all get out, no way worth the money.

This is what I said to Barbie when she wished Jeannie on us. "She's such an ordinary little dog. I'm not sure I want her.”  Jeannie had been on her way to being shot because she'd evolved from a cute puppy into an adolescent dog in heat.  Barbie, a known sucker for pets, rescued her. She had her spayed and she brought her from Vancouver to us. 

We wanted a dog because we were moving out to the countryside in East Sooke but I wanted a cuter dog, possibly a dog with more class.  We said we'd keep her for a few days but I started composing ads, “HOME WANTED FOR FEMALE BLACK DOG, FRIENDLY.” etc.  

While we worked on our East Sooke home Jeannie quickly set about establishing roots. She spent her entire time on top of a pile of excavated earth, growl­ing, tugging and pulling out roots. We thought this was cute and we laughed. It seemed a shame to waste all that labour and we never did send in the ad.

While I packed our Victoria home, Jeannie unpacked.  One night she ate a whole jar of peanut butter. How she survived, I don't know; the peanut butter was all right but the jar was glass and it was sharp.

She survived my rage on moving day when tired and hungry, I went to the packing case on the floor to get the casserole I'd made for supper and found she'd knocked off the cover and eaten the whole thing.

But Jeannie is a kindly soul, large and black and a bit silly.  She tolerates most things, allows the cats to bully her, and gets along with the otters and raccoons.  But, by Jeannie, there is one thing that should have gone the way of the passenger pigeon, that scourge of the woods, that foul fiend, that mocking, sneering chittering beast, the squirrel.

Jeannie has worn a path all around the trees in our yard and into the woods.  She races along this path all day, whining and yapping with rage while the squirrels float overhead.  They’re mean to her. If by chance she forgets about them for a moment or dares to fall into an exhausted sleep, they come right down the trees and chirp at her and yoicks, tallyho, Jeannie’s away again.

She’s not always cute, however.  She grows an extra row of eyelashes, which irritate the eyes.  This has cost us a pretty penny, having them pluc­ked at first and then two opera­tions.  The last one made me a laughing stock.  Dr. Grigor sewed two white buttons above the eyes to hold the stitches and she looked funny.  At the same time she got an allergy and scratched all the hair off her back. This resulted in the appearance of ‘body rot’.

Yesterday she got her foot stuck between two roots, broke her leg, and now she has a cast.  She lies on the rug, her foot is swollen, she's uncomfortable and I wish I could help her. I'll phone Dr. Grigor in the morning and take her over to have the cast loosened.

Jeannie's body is solid gold, her eyes are rubies and her ears are set with diamonds.  She's cost us a lot of money but she's worth every penny - our blasted, precious dog.