Amiga, My Friend

1993 was a very bad year for me. On New Year's Eve, I entered 1993 sitting in the emergency room waiting for my mother to be admitted to the hospital. She had Alzheimers and had been complaining of chest pains, then denying them. As the hours passed, my nerves were taunt, held together simply by the sheer fact that I knew I had to keep it together. She'd almost burned the house down only days before by sitting a bag in the oven, something I found just as the bag began to smolder. My father was in ill health, too, and frequently the target of her Alzheimers driven moods. At that point, I was feeling trapped, as if there was no way out.

Finally, after literally pitching a fit when the hospital refused to admit her, something totally alien to my usual laid back, calm personna, Mom was admitted to the hospital. Sadly, she never returned home. She went from there directly to a nursing home where she could receive the care she needed. Only a few weeks later, I was sitting in the emergency room again, this time with Dad. His ill health had caught up to him and he wouldn't return home, either. Less than a week after driving him to the emergency room, I was driving to his funeral.

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Despite my sense of loss, of course, life does go on. I was teaching in a middle school with a wonderful group of teachers. One of them decided that I needed a dog. Without saying a word to me, he took it upon himself to collect funds and even contacted the local shelter to see what was available. I wasn't so sure. I had never owned my own dog, odd as that sounds, just the usual family dogs. Yet, with every night sound magnified in the home my father had built with his own hands, it became increasingly apparant to me that I might appreciate a watch dog, so it was off to the shelter.

One of the teachers, my closest friend at the time, had told me wonderful stories of a collie she had as a child. So, despite the fact that I was looking for a smaller dog, maybe a Beagle, I stopped to chat with the mixed breed collie in one of the first kennels to the left as I entered. The card on the front of the kennel designated her a collie/husky mix.

While I was sure I didn't want this dog, she had other ideas. She literally jumped up and placed her two front paws on the door of the kennel, for all the world as if to say, "What took you so long?" I still wasn't convinced, however. I could see a Beagle down the row. I scratched her ears through the wire and moved on.

Okay, I've always loved Beagles. Can you guess that I was a Snoopy fan? So, imagine my surprise when this Beagle won't even come to the front of the kennel to talk to me. There are a couple Cocker Spaniels nearby, however, and I stopped to talk to them. They're friendlier but, well, they have lots of hair. I decided to make one more trip up and down the kennels to look at all the dogs once again.

As I turn, the collie/husky in the first kennel jumps back up on the kennel door as if to say, "I told you so. Let's go home!" I stop again at her kennel. She's too big. She has hair, lots of hair, and I was sorta thinking I wanted a lapdog. She isn't buying any of this, however. As absurd as it sounds, it was as if she was supremely confident that I was supposed to belong to her. I turned as if to go look at the Beagle again. She barked. I turned back.

She looked seriously disgusted with me. In retrospect, I figure she was wondering if she'd picked an idiot to adopt. That little bark, however, did it. Silly me, I convinced myself she'd make a good watch dog. She'd bark at strangers and her size would intimidate 'em. Amazing how well one can lie to oneself when looking into the eyes of a dog that is convinced she's going home with you.

I honestly don't know what possessed me but I walked out into the shelter office and said, "The collie says she's going home with me." Even more amazingly, since there is usually a waiting period to take a dog home, my vet had just called and was on another line. With her blessing, I was soon walking out of there with Amiga, a name I was already rolling around on my tongue in honor of my friends who'd spurred me to take the plunge into dog ownership.

As I walked Amiga to the door, a shelter helper asked if I'd like some help getting the dog into the car. Hmm, maybe, I said. I hadn't thought about such petty details as how I was going to get this dog into the car if she didn't wanna get into the car. Silly me. I had no sooner opened the back door and turned toward her then, whoozh, she merrily leaped in and looked at me, apparantly having decided that even if I was an idiot, I had a nice car. I would soon learn, as I discovered she was far more husky than collie in personality, that the best way to catch her when she went on the lam, which she did often those first few weeks, was simply to get in the car and drive to wherever she was and open the door. Worked ever time. She was a sucker for a car ride.

Driving home that afternoon, I was attempting to reassure her when, in fact, it was Amiga that wound up reassuring me. All the memories and stresses of the past weeks came rushing home as I told her how "It's just you and me, kid." I burst into tears and had to pull off the road. Suddenly, she was nuzzling me, seeming to somehow understand. It was that moment she became Amiga, the Spanish word for "friend."

That was in 1993.

It is now September of 2005. Amiga is lying on the floor before me as I type. In her usual way, she let me know, "What took you so long?" in regards to moving to Alaska. Unlike Foxy, who I adopted at the same shelter largely because she reminded me of a mini-Amiga, Amiga took to Alaska as if she'd been born here. While Foxy wasn't at all sure about this snow stuff, maybe because it often came up to her nose those first few months, Amiga loved it and, in fact, had to talked into coming inside even on days when the temperatures dipped into negative numbers.

She's a grand ol' lady now, her once effortless run gone, yet her personality remains. She is also the dog who, simply by being a husky in disguise as a collie, let me to a study of huskies which, of course, rekindled my interest in the Iditarod and all things dog. Without her, I wouldn't be here in Alaska today. She's my friend, my "Amiga."