“Sounds like you let that dog boss you around”

Scarlett. (Photo by Linda Hughes.)

So said my wife’s mother last Saturday, Valentine’s Day, when I called her to wish her a happy 99th birthday.
“Yes, I guess I do,” I thought later.
My dog Scarlett (two “Ts,” as in “Scarlett O’Hara”) is a rescue Irish-Setter.
I let her lick out my plates and pans (anything the dog licked goes in my dishwasher), I let her lick the aluminum-foil I baked fish on, I let her on my bed (which my wife wouldn’t allow), I dry her off if she got wet outside, I put meat in her dog-food, etc., etc.
That silly dog is all I have left after 44+ years married to a really good one.
We got Scarlett six years ago. Rescues are always a shot-in-the-dark. The dog may have been abused. Scarlett wasn’t. She’s from a failed backyard breeder. She’d already had two litters of puppies before we got her at age-three, and had been kept in a kennel.
Scarlett is our fourth rescue. We had one that had been passed around and abused.
He was so thankful to finally be in a good home, he’d lay it on us.
Scarlett wasn’t the dog we intended to meet. Scarlett was from Ohio Irish-Setter Rescue, and the dog we were to look at was one of Scarlett’s puppies.
Some other couple was gonna consider Scarlett as a possible therapy-dog.
Ahem; SURE! Scarlett was a very high-energy dog. She would have jumped on the client.
Ohio Rescue came with four dogs in crates in a minivan.
When the lady opened the side-door of her van I heard THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!
“I hear a wagging tail,” I shouted.
“Oh, that would be Scarlett,” the lady said.
Finally I met the dogs.
I led Scarlett and her puppy around on leashes.
Scarlett was a handful, jumping and lunging every-which-way.
Her puppy was laid back, much like his sire, who had also been brought along.
Scarlett was everything I ever wanted an Irish-Setter to be: a bouncing maniac.
She also was beautiful, the best-looking Irish-Setter I’d ever seen; she would be number-six for us.
I tilted toward Scarlett; the couple who had planned to meet Scarlett tilted toward the puppy.
But was it fair for me to take home such a high-energy dog? That is, fair to the dog?
By then I was 65, but I had just put down a very high-energy dog — he developed cancer.
I figured I could engage her, and promised I would do my best.
It’s this commitment to Scarlett no one understands.
“She’s just a dog,” they all say.
My beloved wife died almost three years ago leaving me alone with Scarlett.
I got so tired of explaining my commitment I left a grief-share that was beneficial.
A facilitator in that grief-share implied my caring so much about Scarlett was silly!
Right after my wife died I continued taking Scarlett to a park, which she loves, because she can lunge and jump and sniff everything. She has caught things and killed ‘em dead: shake-shake-shake-shake! She also digs things out.
We fenced our yard — cost us $16,000; about 3+ acres of 4.7, mostly wooded.
But now I can’t take Scarlett to the park, or even walk her out back, because of my knee, which has me hobbling in pain.
My knee has to be replaced.
So I feel bad about my dog; that I can’t give her the good life I promised.
So I let Scarlett “boss me around.”
And Scarlett has become extremely attached to me.
It’s a boring life I give her, but she whimpers when I leave her at the dog-boarder. They love getting Scarlett, but they’re not me.
She also follows me room-to-room.
I started crying the other morning — I cry often, missing my wife — and Scarlett started licking me.
As if to comfort me.
“They know,” my cleaning-lady said. “Anybody starts crying in my house, and my dogs appear.”
So yes, I let my dog “boss me around.”
I have a tragic situation on my hands, yet I have a dog who cares about me.
I can’t give her the good life I promised, so I let her rule the roost.

• “Linda Hughes” is my wife of 44+ years. She died of cancer in 2012.
• Scarlett is now 10 years old, and has gray on her muzzle.