The Purpose-Driven Dog
She wasn’t much to look at. Scruffy yellow fur, bent ears sticking straight out from the sides of her head. A conglomerate of Lab, golden retriever, and terrier. Just another unwanted mutt at the animal shelter.
Mom still doesn’t know why she took my sister and me to the pound that day. I don’t remember much, since I was only four years old, but I do have a hazy memory of spotting the dog in a cage smelling of disinfectant. She was plaintively whimpering and clawing at the chain link, like she was trying to reach us. Mom couldn’t resist, and the dog came home with us right then and there.
We named her Cindy after pop singer Cyndi Lauper (it was the 80s after all), and she got along well with our dalmatian, Sparky. But Cindy had a destructive gene and a strange aversion to stuffed animals, which was a big problem because my sister and I owned and loved many of them. It wasn’t as if Cindy shredded the toys into small pieces. She would meticulously rip off only their faces and leave the mutilated carcasses for us to find later. This frustrated my parents to no end. More than once my sister and I would receive a brand-new, expensive stuffed animal for our birthday or Christmas, and the next day we’d find a faceless plush corpse.
Cindy belonged to our family, but she and I had a special bond. Without fail, every time I’d try to run across the yard Cindy would tackle me, taking me down with a hook of her paw. If I ran through the house it was the same thing. I’d get frustrated with her, but it made me feel like Cindy was mine. She never wrestled with anyone but me.
A few years later we moved to another place. I got a little bigger and harder to trip. Our home was a good one for a dog, but in some ways Cindy never fit in. She didn’t have any tricks like Sparky. She wasn’t beautiful like the shepherd mix who joined our family later. She was just Cindy.
“What a useless dog,” my dad joked one day as he took a home video of the family and zoomed in on Cindy. He didn’t say it to be mean, but I never liked hearing those words. We wouldn’t dare talk about the humans in our family that way; why could we talk like that about our dog? About my dog.
When I was eight we found out my grandfather had cancer. The doctors discovered it too late to do anything, and by that time it had spread throughout his body. He didn’t have long to live. At my age, death was a foreign thing. I knew Grandpappy was sick, but even when my mom told me he’d died in the hospital, the news went over my head.
The news that came later didn’t.
I don’t remember the exact way my parents suggested giving Cindy to my grandmother, but I remember the devastation of my young heart. They gently explained how Grammy was all alone in her big house. Having a dog would be just the thing for her, and the fact that Cindy was already trained and not a puppy made even more sense.
They left the final decision to me. I cried at the thought of not having Cindy anymore, but inside I knew they were right. Grammy needed my dog. And it wasn’t like she’d be gone. We could visit her down in Virginia whenever we wanted.
It turned out the transition wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, for me or for Cindy. The next five years were some of the best of Cindy’s life. My grandmother doted on her like she was her only child. She lavished her with toys, beds, and treats. I’d imagine Grammy lying in bed at night, feeling safe with Cindy by her side. “What a good dog,” she’d whisper as she drifted off to sleep.
Whenever we could, we drove the three and a half hours for visits, and Grammy swore Cindy knew when we were coming. Maybe she heard Grammy talking to Mom on the phone, or maybe there was some unknown signal Grammy was sending. But it was uncanny the way Cindy would become restless in the hours before we’d arrive, and because of that Grammy nicknamed her Cindy the Wonder Dog.
My grandmother’s house had a bay window in front, and when we’d pull up in the driveway, Cindy’s head would instantly pop up in that window. If she happened to be outside when we arrived, she’d cry and carry on when she saw our car. We’d have fun trying to sneak up on her, but it never worked.
Every Christmas Grammy would come up to our home in Pennsylvania. I remember watching her in the driveway, and it was hilarious to see my grandmother trying to balance Christmas gifts in one arm while being yanked to the front door by tail-wagging, gleeful Cindy.
I don’t know if Grammy ever wondered how she would go on without my grandfather, but I do know that having Cindy gave her a reason to come home. Cindy needed her. If there was ever a chance of thunderstorms, Grammy would cancel her plans and stay home with Cindy, who was scared of storms. If Cindy so much as lifted her paw oddly, Grammy would rush her to the vet to check it out. She talked to Cindy constantly—not in puppy talk but in a normal voice, as if to a friend.
Grammy died when I was thirteen, and there was never a question where Cindy would go. She came full circle back to where she started. She was a little grayer around the muzzle, but she hadn’t lost her spunk and could still chase sticks and tug toys for hours.
One sunny fall day, I ran outside on the deck to where Cindy was waiting. Just like when we were both younger, her paw hooked around my leg and she did her best to trip me. I laughed, shaking my head, but I didn’t go down. We’d all come to realize this useless dog wasn’t useless after all. Cindy had a purpose beyond what we could have ever imagined standing in the noisy shelter that day.
