I decided to adopt her on a whim. It was a summer day in Bloomington Indiana and I went to the pound just to see if there were any puppies available, I hadn’t ever been there before but I had a deep yearning to have a puppy. I didn’t even tell my fiancé at the time.
When I arrived I saw her right away, she was the newest puppy there and so little and fluffy. Her big brown eyes were the biggest part of her and she was all love. Like most things it was a fast yes for me so I asked if I could adopt her. Because she was so new I had to fill out a paper and wait 24-hours. I completed the adoption papers and then went home feeling like it was happening. I began to make all kinds of plans.
The next day I returned to find a mother and her son there expecting to adopt the same puppy. Because I had been there first I was given the opportunity to have her. The mother was so angry that she yelled at me and told me that I was taking the puppy away from her son who had his heart on adopting her…my heart was set too.
I named her Sidney “Semper Fi” Bailey, the Semper Fi (always faithful) for her daddy who was an officer in the Marine Corps at the time; she lived up to that name for 13 years.
Dogs change you, this one did. She saw the country with us, weathered the divorce with us, was my lover when I was alone, cheered me up when I was sad. She never asked for anything, she was a giver. She even went along with my shenanigans when I asked her to write a letter to the editor of Bloom Magazine...
And when it was time to say good-bye to her it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life.
The memory of Sidney lives on in my life, dog’s lives touch your life for the better.
- Patricia R