The Rescued Dog Who Rescued Me Back
It’s a few days after Christmas as I tell this story. Six weeks ago, the week before Thanksgiving, I lost almost everything. But I’m a blessed woman today, thanks to my dog, Ladybug.
I met Ladybug several years ago at a shelter near my home. I was looking for a dog, although that day I was only window-shopping because I did not have money to adopt. But there was this little thirteen-week-old puppy, a mix of black Labrador retriever, Irish setter, and greyhound. Think of a black dog built like a small greyhound with a sweet disposition. That’s Ladybug.
I fell in love with her, but what bad timing. The shelter people told me this puppy was going to be put down the next day unless someone adopted her. I wanted to adopt her, but it would cost me $50 and I did not have it. Right then that was a lot of money to me.
At the time, I was waiting tables on the midnight shift in a truck stop restaurant. The economy was already bad and soon to get worse, so business wasn’t great, which means nobody was rolling in tip money. I met the dog on a Tuesday, which is not the best time of the week for tips. But when I went to work that night, I told myself if I pulled in the $50 in tips, I’d get the dog in the morning.
We were just as slow that shift as I figured we’d be, and I only wrote six tickets all night. How I got $50 in tips on six tickets I have no idea, but I did. That was my first miracle.
So when I left work in the morning, I hurried to the shelter. The dog saw me and ran right to the gate, dancing in circles. What a joy! I named her Ladybug in memory of my fiancé Bob’s childhood dog.
Right from the start Ladybug went everywhere with me. If I rattled my keys, she would dance with delight, ready to go. She was a snuggler who slept with me at night. She was always alert and aware of her surroundings, and I felt very safe with her around.
I had met my fiancé, Bob, the same year I got Ladybug, so that was a good year all around for me. He was a long-distance truck driver, a customer I met while working at the truck stop restaurant. I noticed he was coming in more frequently, and eventually we started dating. Then the day came when he proposed to me right there in the restaurant in front of about thirty people.
We started planning our wedding. I have grown children and grandchildren, so this was going to be a very happy occasion for my family and me. The week before Thanksgiving, Bob and my family moved all my things into a new mobile home. Then Bob took off that day for a cross-country haul.
That night I would be spending my first night in my new home. My daughter and my little baby grandson were going to join me for my first night, but at the last minute she called to say that the baby had a fever. Reluctantly, they stayed home. So for my first night in my new home, it would just be Ladybug and me and my two long-haired cats, Gizzy and Mickey, who both adored Ladybug.
I took a shower, crawled into bed, and watched the eleven o’clock news. The sounds and smells of a new home were different, of course, but I didn’t hear or smell anything odd. Ladybug and the cats parked on the bed with me. I take pain medication at night for a back injury, and that makes me sleep very hard, especially at first. So soon enough I was sound asleep.
I had been sleeping a couple of hours when I became aware of something brushing my face. When you sleep with cats, this isn’t unusual, and I didn’t rouse for it. Then I felt Ladybug hit my chin. This was unusual, but I was pretty numb from medication and I didn’t rouse for Ladybug hitting my chin either.
The next thing I knew, my gentle Ladybug had my collar in her teeth, pulling on it and growling. That woke me up. I opened my eyes, disoriented. I sat up, and that’s when I saw that the end of my bed was on fire. Flames were literally shooting up from the blankets.
I scrambled out of bed, but I wasn’t used to my surroundings so I stumbled around with Ladybug for a few seconds. I felt my way away from the bed, around the dresser, and into the hallway. It was so dark in the hallway I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I knew I had to get outside but I was still disoriented.
Then I remembered, as is often the case in long mobile homes, there was a back hallway door to the outside. Ladybug had stayed at my side, but I couldn’t find my cats. Now instead of getting out while the flames got worse, I was trying to figure out how to rescue my pets.
Ladybug and I finally got outside. I momentarily hoped that if I left the door open, the cats would find their way out. But in my agitation, I turned and went back in to find them. Fortunately my neighbor Donna ran onto the porch and inside after me, yelling for me to get out. She had pulled her coat up over her face to go into the living room and get me. She literally pulled me through the door to the outside.
I jumped away from her. I was running on automatic and a little crazy right then, and a couple of teenage girls stopped me from running back in the place again. Donna convinced me to move away from the burning building, and one of my neighbors told me, “You’re going to be okay.” Everyone assured me that Ladybug and one of my cats, Mickey, were out and okay—the teenage girls had taken both the dog and the cat to their house.
Outside I became aware that it was freezing cold. The fire trucks had taken a little longer to arrive because of the icy roads, but now they were there and began doing their work. I looked at my home. It was fully engulfed in flames. It’s gone, I thought. Everything Bob and I have been working for is gone. Are we ever going to get anywhere? I stood and watched and listened. The firefighters threw a burning mattress out. It was the mattress I had been sleeping on. That’s when I passed out.
When I came to, I was on the sidewalk with an oxygen mask over my face. I was aware of being very cold, and then I realized again what was happening. Now I thought about all my family pictures inside the house—my children’s pictures, my grandchildren’s. My dad had died a few years earlier, and I knew where his pictures were, all inside a zipped plastic bag. I was very close to my dad, and those pictures meant a lot to me. I made crazy motions to get up. Then the chief of police got firm with me and put me in his patrol car.
A neighbor man I didn’t know walked up with Ladybug on a leash. The officer opened the car, and the man said to me, “Your dog is trying to find you—she’s been whining and howling and trying to tear my door down.” Ladybug hopped in the car with me, her tail thumping. “I have your cat at my house too,” the man said. I was very grateful.
Ladybug settled right down and leaned against me while we watched the firemen work on what had been our new home. I checked her over. Her eyelashes and eyebrows were singed, and so was one side of her whiskers. Otherwise she was fine, and we were together, safe.
While I sat in the patrol car, someone called Bob. He was several hours away, driving westbound on the Indiana Toll Road. I’m sure he annoyed a lot of people when he U-turned that big rig to drive eastbound and get back to me.
While my cat Mickey was safe with the neighbors, I was afraid my other cat Gizzy hadn’t made it. But that night the chief of police and my future brother-in-law found Gizzy inside the burned mobile home—miraculously alive and well! She had hidden behind a piece of floorboard we had propped up against the living room wall, and she’d pressed her face into a towel on the floor. It saved her life.
The next day, officials went over the damage. Everything synthetic had melted, even the shower stall. Bob was allowed to help them look for my family pictures—and they found them. My kids’ pictures were protected by the album they were in, which oddly had not burned. The photos are glued in there permanently, but they’re there. They found my dad’s photos intact. Because of the move, all these pictures had been wrapped in an afghan. That melted, but the pictures were okay. I also had a jewelry box that burned, but a heart-shaped pendant that says Mother sat untouched in that jewelry box, encased in solid ice.
The officials discovered that the wires beneath the mobile home had been tampered with and crossed the entire length of the structure. They still don’t know who did this, and the investigation is still open. The fire chief told me, “If it wasn’t for the dog, you would have been overcome by toxic smoke in a matter of minutes.” Praise God for Ladybug.
I can’t say I’m not affected by this, because I am. I need a light on when I sleep. Where I live now, neighbors heat with wood, and the smell of that smoke bothers me. Whenever freezing rain hits the window, it sounds to me like the boards popping in the fire. But Ladybug sticks close by. She’s my guardian in fur.
My kids ask me what I want for Christmas. I have the best gift, because I have life. I lost everything material in that fire except for pictures, a few dishes, and what I had on my back. But I have my animals, I have my family, and I have Bob, who recently gave me a diamond.
My folks always taught me to be a fighter. As I watched my life go up in flames, I had a moment when I thought, I’ve been fighting so much, and I just get knocked down over and over. But then I could hear my dad saying, You’re strong. You’re going to make it. Now smile and keep your chin up.
So that’s what I do, gratefully, with Ladybug at my side.