A Girl and her Dog Who Was Too Much

by Donna Poole

Once upon a time in the land of Not Far Away there lived a baby girl with huge brown eyes and light brown curls. Before God sent her to earth, he told the angels, “I give everyone a gift to take down with them. I’m going to give this one something extraordinary. It will bring her great joy, but it will also break her heart.”

The angels stopped cooing over the big brown eyes and looked at God astonished. “Why would you give her something that will break her heart?”

God smiled sadly. “Because the world needs it so much.”

And so, he kissed the cheek of the baby, put his own hand over her heart, and sent her down to earth with an extraordinary amount of love for her family and for all his creatures great and small.

The baby was born into a family with three much older siblings, and she adored them. As each one went off to college, it broke her heart. She missed them terribly and didn’t want to be alone in her room. She begged her mom to let her have a cat, a dog, a horse, and an elephant. She didn’t get any of those, but her yard was full of wild, mangy barn cats with no one to love them. She sat in the grass and tamed each one. Her lap was often full of cats and kittens, and when each one died, her heart broke again. The cats belonged to neighbors, not to her, but her mom told her that because of her they died happy. They died knowing they were loved, and that is something not everyone gets to know.

The little girl did want one thing that wasn’t alive. Some of her friends had American Girl dolls, and she adored them. She never asked for one though, because her dad was a pastor of a little church and didn’t have much money. She was a strange little girl. She never asked for anything, and saved every penny, nickel, and dime she got to buy something for her parents or her siblings.

The girl’s mom knew she wanted that doll, and she scrimped and saved until she finally had enough money to buy Molly or Samantha, the dolls the girl had longed to own for so long.

The problem was it had taken so long to get the money that the little girl wasn’t so little anymore. By then she was thirteen. And when her mother told her she could choose her doll, she didn’t get the ecstatic response she’d expected. Instead, she got a small, hesitant smile.

“Oh, honey, are you too old for the doll now?” The mom felt like crying. This girl who loved and gave so much had outgrown the one thing she’d wanted.

“Oh, no, Mom! That isn’t it! I’d still love the doll, but there’s something I want more!”

She showed her mom an advertisement in the paper. Purebred AKC registered Golden Retriever puppies for sale! With papers.

“If I could get a puppy Mom, I could love her, and train her, and when she was old enough, I could breed her. I could sell the puppies and save money for college!”

And so, the mom, dad, and girl traveled an hour from their country home to the city to look at the puppies.

The girl took one look at one of the puppies and the puppy flew into her arms. Only after she was sitting on the floor cuddling the puppy did the women selling it confess that the puppies were not AKC registered and didn’t have papers.

“But I’m sure if you did research you could get papers. I promise you the puppy’s father is from a long, impressive line of registered dogs.”

Sure, lady, and you’re lying through your dentures the mom thought but didn’t say. Instead, she sat on the floor next to her daughter, who would always be her little girl, even when she was an old lady. “Honey, you won’t be able to breed her and sell her puppies. You won’t be able to make money for college.”

“I don’t care, Mom. I love her! Please, can I buy her?”

The mom and dad didn’t know much about dogs, but they knew the woman was asking too much and had placed a misleading ad. They tried to get her to come down in price. The woman might have been a crook, but she was a crafty one. She saw the love in the girl’s eyes for the puppy and the love in the parents’ eyes for the girl. She had her fish on a hook, and she wasn’t budging.

And so, the puppy who was too much came home with the girl who some might say loved too much, but she was just doing what God made her to do. She named her puppy Cassey. Cassey was a golden alright, but the retriever part was a joke! She never returned a single stick anyone threw for her. She’d run after it, but then she’d be in too much of a hurry to run back to love the person, especially if the person was her girl.

That puppy grew up to be the most lovable, worst specimen of a golden you ever saw. Despite years of training at Dog 4-H Cassey never learned to do anything right except love her human. Everything else she did too much of. She ran when she should walk. She bounced when she should stand still. She misbehaved at every 4-H dog show, but everyone loved her, and she loved everyone.

At one show the girl’s brother determined she was going to have a chance to win. He took the golden and ran her all over the fairgrounds until she was exhausted. And onlookers were amazed in the show. Cassey was standing, not running, or bouncing. She was behaving! She didn’t have energy left to misbehave. Then came the final event of the show, the long stay.

“Sit, Cassey,” the girl said, “stay.” and all the other dog owners told their dogs the same. Then the kids walked a distance from their dogs and stood in line.

By then most of the onlookers knew the girl and Cassey. There was collective breath holding. They were watching a miracle in action! Cassey was staying.

Cassey looked with longing eyes at her beloved owner. Then she dropped to the ground and army-crawled all the way to her, stood, leaned into her, and looked up at her with so much love. Onlookers laughed. Cassey didn’t get a ribbon, because the dog show didn’t give a best-in-class ribbon to the dog who loved most.

Back in 2013, when Cassey was twelve, her girl, all grown-up now, wrote this. “I don’t think goodbyes ever get easier. Today I had to make the decision to put down my baby. I got her when she was only four weeks old, and while we had twelve years together, it really didn’t feel like it was enough. I wanted so badly when I went to see her at the animal hospital today for her to jump up and wag her tail, but it took everything in her just to sit up. She laid her head in my lap like she used to when she was a puppy and licked my hand. I wasn’t going to stay while the vet put her down, but when I went to stand up (after crying all over the poor dog) she tried to follow me and gave me the most pathetic look when she couldn’t. So, I sat back down, held her, and she put her head in my hands. Then she was gone. I’m so glad she isn’t suffering anymore, but I’m heartbroken that she’s gone.”

The girl’s mother watched her sit with her dying dog and cried out to God, “It’s too hard for her. It’s too much.”

And God whispered, “Hush. That’s what love does. It does too much.”

I know this really happened once upon a time in the land of Not Far Away. Cassey died in 2013, and the mother is still crying as she writes this. Someday, God will wipe away all tears. Someday, dogs like Cassey and girls who love too much will never suffer again, but that day is not today.

And God understands the pain of those who love too much. After all, he does it too.

The end

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These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Four: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

I have six other books on Amazon as well, four fiction books in the “Life at the Corners” series, and two children’s Christmas picture books.

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