Remembering the first time you left me

 She'd only stayed with me for a while because my brother's new wife said she was mean to the kids.

I found that hard to believe, but I took that mutt in even if she did take up most of the couch. Oh, I didn't know what to believe. Actually, I was scared of Maxie.

Even a walk with her could be daunting. She could be a hot mess. I didn't know who she might not be friendly to. And God knows, I wasn't taking her to a dog park.

Still, she had me trained well. She knew when to go out. She could give me that look to let me know it was time for a snack. OK, we can see who was running my home now. She was.

But she was so loyal. We only slept together once together and that was too much. She had her bed next to mine. And after a while, we did a lot of things together. Watch TV, and read good books, and those walks got better. 

Naturally, she'd fend off any stranger who might approach me. 

Later, I would learn from the girls that they love Maxie too. That time she was sent away, she was just trying to protect them. She wasn't a bad dog unless she went round and round with a German Shepherd.

She'd been in a fight with a German Shepherd once. Both had ended up in the Emergency room. Maxie had the scars on her stomach to prove it. Of course, I never thought of her as a guard dog. She was a sneaky eater. Yes, it might be months later before I found the empty cookie bag. Maybe she had a lot of bad behaviors, but she was my companion.

And then it was suddenly decided that my brother's family wanted her back. "We're moving to Texas. There will be plenty of space for her to run." My brother said she'd gotten fat since staying with me. I thought it was muscle. We did our daily walks, sometimes twice. 

Honestly, I never expected her to leave this way. I was devastated. It was painful. I gave them her bed and all her toys. Of course, she'd eaten most of them.

True maybe she never loved me like she did my brother. You would have thought he was her first love the way she danced about and jumped on him with such energy. It was like I had been holding her back. And the girls were so happy to see her.

I cried when I called my mother about the situation. After all, she'd get to meet Maxie now. "What if I never see her again?"

She thought I was funny. I couldn't be that attached to an old dog like Maxie, but I was. Even my chest hurt with the emotional pain that something was missing from my life and it couldn't be replaced.

"You need to start dating again," she said I was just using Maxie as an excuse. Maybe she was right, but didn't she know how hard it was to meet someone these days? She told me it was time to get out there and take those walks without the dog. "You just never know who you might meet."

Now I was laughing. What kind of talk was that? And that's when I met Jake who remembered that fierce dog I had. "I thought she was going to eat me up." He shook his head. "She was very protective of you."

It made me smile. That was my Maxie.