The Forgotten Puppy

One of my childhood dreams came true almost 3 years ago when Dave gave in and let us adopt a puppy. We got Lily from an ad in the newspaper. She is clearly Boxer, but is also mixed with something else we've never figured out. When we went to pick her up, we found her cowering in her owner's house seemingly scared of him. We are not certain if she was abused, but from her first few timid weeks with us, we have reason to suspect that. Over the years Lily has amazed us with her intelligence. She learns tricks, games and people very quickly. She is extremely obedient. She has her quirks too...like never being able to greet us without a squeaky toy in her mouth, or always needing to eat her dog food on the living room carpeting. Some of her favorites things are, wrestling with Dave, ice cubes, digging for gophers in our backyard, having all 3 of us home with her and (of course) long walks. She is great at defending our home with her loud and mean bark yet she is the sweetest, most cuddly dog I've ever known.

Unfortunately her rank from number one baby has slid to a distant second and soon third. While the arrival of Ella has completely upstaged her, she still loves Ella. The two of them are best buddies. They play a game where Ella grabs her ball and runs as far as she can yelling, "Go, Go, Go!" before Lily tackles her. Their relationship is very symbiotic because Lily depends on Ella to drop food scraps for her and Ella (well, Mom) depends on Lily to be the vacuum cleaner.

We got very lucky to find such a loving and loyal pet. While she gets taken for granted most days, she is a very valuable member of our family.