The 10th Good Thing About Rascal

The first good thing about Rascal was his wiggling, leaping “You’re awake!” greeting at the start of every day. My husband loves me, and my children love me, but not one human being has ever been as glad to see me as that buoyant little dog was every single morning of his life in our house.

Rascal was born to be airborne. For a creature with severe intervertebral disc disease, that kind of leaping is a disastrous risk. We tried at first to limit the danger — carried him down steps, closed doors to keep him off the beds, piled sofas high with items he couldn’t easily scale. No such efforts ever worked. Because the second good thing about Rascal was his irrepressible joy.

There is no gratitude like the gratitude of an animal rescued from a life of pain and fear and hunger. Rascal’s refusal to go on a walk with any house sitter told me he had never forgotten being a frightened stray scooped up from the Nashville streets by Metro Animal Control. The third good thing about Rascal was his undimmed delight in what may have been the first real home he ever had.

For this little rescue dog, home was at once a playground and a sanctuary. He turned bed making into a wrestling match with the covers. He turned laundry folding into a game of keep-away, and then a game of tug of war.

But even more than he loved erupting into play, he loved settling into ceremony. At our house, the workday was obliged to begin with lap time, coffee and a book, and to end with lap time, peppermint tea and a book. If I ever tried to skip one of these sacraments, sitting down too early at my desk or staying there too late, he would lick my feet until I remembered where I was supposed to be. The fourth and fifth good things about Rascal were the way he turned household tasks into games, and happy times into rituals.

Really, could there ever be a sweeter way for a dog to tell his person, “It’s time for our walk” or “I need to pee” or “You forgot to snuggle with me while you drink your coffee”? Sweetness was the sixth good thing about Rascal.