This episode is about Allie, the one that started it all for me. I share some of her endearing, and less than endearing but equally funny, shenanigans.
Transcript
Hey, welcome to Happy Tales of Happy Tails, the podcast where you’ll hear stories of the way pups have touched our hearts and our lives. So for the next few minutes, let everything else go and just listen and smile. I’m your host, Julie Jackson Hi friends, I thought I would take you back to where it all started for me today. I’ve told some of these stories before one very recently. And so I just thought I would have to go back and share about the first pup that ever really rescued me. And that was Allie. I was finishing up college at the University of Texas in Austin. And I was living in an apartment off campus by myself and go into summer school trying to finish up as quickly as possible. And, you know, campus, it doesn’t clear out. But during the summer, of course, it’s a much smaller population than than it was during the fall and spring semesters. And so I’m there and I come in and I think, wow, it’s just so empty here. And I thought I need to go, I need to go to the shelter. So of course my parents, very loving, wonderful, but super practical people were trying to discourage me because they said you don’t you don’t need that responsibility right now just finish up. But I said no, I really want to do this. I went to the animal shelter, and saw the cutest little puppy there. Apparently she had been brought in with two of her siblings and the siblings had been adopted out. So she was the last one left. And they had been found in an alley. So they the people at the shelter had all just really become attached to her and so they named her Allie. And we’re not sure what she was, but she when I got her she was probably only maybe under six months old, maybe close to six months old, tiny little thing. But she had a really short legs and the long body but not quite Doxon proportion. Her legs were a little longer than that. And her markings could have had maybe a little bit of Shepherd a lot of the brown and shepherd but then also had a lot of Collie Sheltie look to her. We have no idea what she was but the vet finally landed on a corgi Sheltie mix. And I think that was pretty accurate. I always laugh because Corgi mixes you know Corgi mix is always looked like a corgi in a costume of whatever the other dog is. So that’s kind of what she looked like was a corgi and a Sheltie costume. She was irresistible. But as cute as she was her looks did not even match. I mean it they paled in comparison to her personality. She was so funny, just so smart and so endearing. And very, very sweet, but very sassy and very independent. So I loved it because she was just my loyal little companion through and through. But it cracked me up because she I never would have thought of her really as a Velcro dog. Because at any point, she would kind of make it known that, you know, she didn’t have to be there. She was just choosing to. So anyway, I brought her home from the shelter. And my parents were not I mean, they weren’t mad or anything, but they were thinking, Oh, my goodness, what have you done. And the very, I don’t know if it was the first weekend I had her but I hadn’t had her very long. And I was taking her home with me. I was going home for the weekend. So of course she’s coming with me. And she would crack me up because she just she had that long body and the little short legs. And she would sit up on her on her hind legs, and she looks like a little prairie dog. And I’m driving her home. I had a little seat belt forward. She’s in the passenger seat next to me. And all of a sudden, she sits straight up in that seat and puts puts one of her left paw leans over on the armrest so she can see out the window better. And she just looked like this tiny little human riding home with me. But she was so delightful. And she so we get home. And of course immediately my parents are enamored with her. She was so charming, and sweet and precious and cute. But then she got really sick. And so we took her to the vet. And he got she was throwing up and he finally got everything settled down. But we weren’t exactly sure what was going on. And she was on a special diet and we were kind of afraid that it could be the worst and we’re watching her for you know all the things that you especially prey puppies never have because they just don’t come back from it. And he said I would not be a good idea for her to drive back to us. Student she’s still too sick. Oh, of course, I can only laugh now because I know that it had a happy ending. But after my parents resisted, and I said, No, I’ll take care of her, she’s, you know, she was my responsibility, I’m not going to, you know, you’re not going to end up with her first week home, they end up with her. Because I can’t take her back. But bless their hearts, they took such great care of her, both of them did, but especially my dad was such a softy, he, he would be the one that would protest the loudest, and then he ended up being the one that was, you know, just checking on her up all night and, and taking her back to the vet and doing all the things. And mom would call and give me reports of how dad and Allie were doing. So she was probably with them for maybe a couple of weeks, maybe two or three weeks. So I mean, it was more than just a few days. But then I was able to go back and she was finally healthy enough to come home. And of course, by then, I mean, I barely got her back from them. You know, that was that was it, they no longer protested at all to Allie being a member of our family. And it also started one of the greatest friendships and lifelong relationships with our vets, because he had a really great story, he had actually gone to school with my sister who was 14 years older than me. And so we knew him, you know, we knew him already. My parents already knew him and, and he took care of her for her entire life. And many of my other dogs too, and I’ll have to share his story sometime, maybe I can get him to come on here. He’s a fun storyteller. But he ultimately ended up going to a house call practice which, once I started having multiple pups, it was just such a huge blessing to have him come out and take care of all of them instead of loading them up. So anyway, that’s where a lot of a lot of things started. A lot of great blessing started in my life with that trip to the shelter in Austin one day. But Allie was so funny because she would win everyone over and I had friends that would come over and everyone just became ally fans, everyone would ask about her and won’t come to visit her. My friends at home, fell in love with her. And she just she had the funniest personality. Like I said, she’s very sassy. She was very smart, very independent. Never, you know, we kind of joke that dogs do things for we say reasons. And it’s not for us to understand. But she loved to organize her toys, she get all of her toys, and she put them in different piles and who knows what piles went where but she did. And she had specific piles, and she would sort them all and she was just really great dogs, she was very smart. Now, she was never trained off leash, and she would bolt and go go explore. So that was one thing we always had to watch. And there were some funny stories with that. But she, as you can imagine, over the years became very spoiled. And she was very loved. And she became a very big fan of treats. And of course, it got to the point where she would do something and then she would come over and demand a treat. And she thought pretty much anything she did was treat worthy. And you know, oh, She blinked she would demand a treat, she’d come sit in front of you and give you the look and bark at you if you didn’t give her the treat. And so I had this really cute treat jar. And loved to have it out because it was so adorable and and she knew where it was and she would go over to that treat jar and demand treats and and so then it got where we had a little bit of a weight problem. And we were having to watch that. So we had to start taking you know, precautions and watch it and then once I graduated and moved back to Fort Worth and was near mom and dad, of course mom and dad, you know she would spend more time with mom and dad and she would get more of the treats. And so then the you know, we really had to watch it and so finally the vet was like okay, we’re gonna have to put her on a special diet and so she went on the the diet food but she was still demanding the treats and and during this time, you know there were several moves and we lived in several different locations and and finally landed in an apartment. That was two story but the only thing that was on the second floor was a guest room and a bathroom. And so I just used it mostly for storage and yeah, I had a I had a bed up there and it was set up as a guest room but just had things in the closet and didn’t really go up there that much. So there was the stairs and a landing at the top of the stairs obviously right you know so just kind of a tiny little hallway when with a window that led straight to the the bedroom up there and that was it. Well, we have the treats and, and she’s still demanding treats. And she is not a fan of the fact that we’re giving her less treats. And like I said, she would go to the treat jar and she would demand the treat. And we didn’t always give in. But a lot of times, I mean, I’m telling you, she was hard to resist, and she was a character, she would talk to you. That was the other thing that was funny. We’d say Say, ‘say I love you, say I love you”. And she’d say,”Ra ruv roooooo”, and, and it sounded like she was saying that I had several friends that would come over just to see her do that. And and she got she developed this ritual to when we go to my mom and dad’s house, of course, she never wanted to leave there because she was the queen. And so when she realized, ready to pack up to go, she would jump up on the couch. And my mom had throw pillows, you know, on each end of the couch, and she grabbed it was the funniest thing, she’d get to one end of the couch. And she grabbed the pillows between her front legs and her back leg. So she kind of scooped them up with her front paws almost like she was digging and get them where they were between the front paws and the back paws. And she would do this backwards, jump and scoot the pillow all the way to one end to the couch. And she would turn around and she would do it again and scoot it to the other end of the couch. And it was very animated. And she was doing this it was very vigorous. It was almost like her way of throwing a tantrum, it was kind of a game. But it was almost like her her way of throwing a tantrum that she knew we were about to leave, and she didn’t want to leave. So anyway, she was just so so funny and had so much personality. So back to the apartment, we’re in the apartment with the two floors and and so first, we just have to start saying when she go demand the treats, it was like no, we’re not going to have a treat. And that, of course did not go over well. And she would just go to that tree jar and be very adamant and be pretty upset with us. So then I thought, okay, she’s going to the tree jar every time to demand the treats. So I’m going to put the treat jar at the top of the stairs. And then that way, if she wants to take us to the treat jar to show us what she wants, she’s having to climb a flight of stairs. And I mean, you know, she was a short little thing and climbing stairs, that was pretty, pretty decent exercise for her. So I put a table on that landing at the top of the stairs. And so if you went up the stairs, you go up the stairs and at the top of the stairs, you’re facing an exterior wall with a window that looked out. And then you would have to make an immediate 90 degree turn to the right to head into the bedroom. And so I put a little table right there in just that little hole space. And it was a half the wall there on the right that the table was in front of was just a half wall that would look down, you know, if you looked over that wall, you were looking right down the stairs, you know, you’re looking at a drop down the bottom of the stairs. So the point of that is even at the bottom of the stairs or when you’re coming up the stairs, you you can’t see that table, you can only see it once you get all the way up to the top of the stairs. And so she learned that’s where it was. And so sure enough when she wanted to treat she’d start barking at us or talking to us. And then she would go to the stairs and she’d run up those stairs and she’d stand there and she’d do her prairie dog set because she knew that was irresistible. And so we’d climb the stairs and and she would get a treat. And but then it got where it still she just was not she wasn’t dropping the weight and we were concerned about her health. And so we just finally said okay, we’re just going to have to cut the treats off for a while. We’re going to have to stick with the the low calorie food for a little while and our walks and we’re going to hold off on the treats. I do not remember honestly, this was so long ago. I don’t remember how long a time period that was. But we just she would run the stairs and I would just tell her no, come on, come down. Allie come down. No, we’re not doing we’re not doing a treat. And she would come back down the stairs and good girl Good girl. And we’d love on her and tell her how good she was. Well, I like I said, I don’t remember exactly how much time had passed how long we were doing that maybe a few weeks a month. It could have been a couple of months, I don’t know. But I find out that someone is coming in from out of town to visit and so they’re going to be using the guest room. And I was I went up there to make sure that everything was clean and you know fresh sheets on the bed and wipe the dust down off the bathroom because no one’s really using that room at all. I mean, we did not go up there unless we needed to get something out of that closet. I go up the stairs and I turned the corner and in front of that table at the top of the stairs in a perfect semi circle. Our piles of poop know how many I mean it was maybe a day wasn’t going up there. And when she would go up there and demand a treat and not get it, then I don’t know if she would do it right then when we would tell her no, or if she was going up there like during the day, I think that may have been what was happening because she She, at that point in her life, she was not created or anything like that we didn’t have to, you know, she she had privileges, she never taught anything up. She was good. As far as we knew she wasn’t going to the bathroom in the house. Oh, silly us. And so there they were, she had been strategically it was so strategic, strategically going up there. I don’t know, at least once a day, I don’t know, maybe maybe more. But when she would go up there and not get what she wanted, she would leave us she would leave us a treat. And it was this perfect semi circle that went like just, you know, started on one side of the at the foot of the table and just went in this perfect semi circle around to the other leg of the table. So she I guess she showed us ultimately she she did lose some of the way she probably never got back down to where she may be should have been. But she led a long and healthy life. And I have many more ally stories to share. But that’s always one of my favorites, the treat jar statement that she made for us. So I you know, and she really did start a lifelong she was the first dog that I had ever rescued, were just for me. And she was also the first heart dog I ever experienced. And and I knew from that moment on after, after bringing Ali in my life, I knew that I would never be able to live without a dog in my life again. So she is probably responsible for really a lot of other puppies being rescued too. Because if it hadn’t been for her I don’t know. I don’t know, I think eventually, because I’ve always loved dogs eventually I would have gotten there. But she’s the one that started it all. So anyway, I hope y’all have a great week. 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Remember you are as great as your dog thinks you are and smooch your pooch, y’all! Bye!