What determines how or when we decide to get a dog?  Breed? color?, size?, a special birthday?, Christmas surprise?, the wag of a tail?, personality?, protection?, companionship?

She had been viciously attacked and abandoned.  Trust was very hard to come by.  It was not easy to be around strange people.  Maybe it was time to get a dog.

A coworker had a plan.  The coworker needed to find a home for a stray, abandoned dog.  A new “family” would begin.

Layla was the dumbest smart dog I ever met.  Layla was beautiful – short black shiny hair, about 40 lbs and perfectly formed for a mutt. Though she was scary at first sight, she was the most gentle of dogs. Her mixed breed (a chow mix) looked like a cross between a pit bull and black lab made her appear like she would take off your hand with any quick movement , yet she had no problem with children wanting to pet her.

I was new to her home, and it was her home.  Layla eventually knew that I was here to stay, but she really did not care. As long as I spoke gently, gave her food and let her out – we would live in peace. Layla was a few years old when I came on the scene, so she had established her own routine.  She was not a run and fetch dog, more like “hey, you threw it – you can go get it, leave me alone”.

When I first came into her life she was on a wire “run” in the back yard.  Every day when Peg and I came home from work,  Layla would have wrapped her line around the crepe myrtle next to the deck so her head was almost attached to the tree.  Repetition was not an effective training tool.  We finally fenced in the back yard giving her free reign of her kingdom.  Layla was a good companion and protector for Peg – I was to be endured. Don’t get me wrong,  Layla was ok with me being around, but she kept looking at me with that  “why are you still here?” look.  If I was “Timmy in the well”, she would go take a nap somewhere.  She had her own way of getting even with me for being in her realm.  She was constantly licking herself – LOUDLY – somehow she thought she was a cat in a dog’s body – it would drive me nuts – and she knew it!  I could not sleep when she started her routine.  Peg was oblivious to it all.  I would start by whispering to Layla to stop – she just got louder.  I would take a sock to bed to throw at her as soon as Peg would fall asleep – but she would not stop.  I started snapping my fingers at her, to no avail.  I snapped so much It sounded like a flamenco dancer was in the room.  She would look at me every morning with her doggy grin as if to say “so how much sleep did you get last night – huh?  By the way, while you are at work, I will be napping – have a nice day.”

Layla provided a few memorable moments that keep her legacy alive.  Not many dogs actually attempt suicide, or come back from the dead, but Layla was not a normal dog.

Peg answered the phone.  I could tell from her reaction that it was not a good call.  We were in Savannah on our first trip together when she got the bad news – Layla had run away.  Somehow in a blink of an eye she just bolted.  She was fast, and sneaky, a trait that would surface over and over. The dog sitter was mortified that it could happen on her watch – what should she do?  Since we were not due back for another day, there was not much to do but hope she came back.  When we got home we spent hours driving around the neighborhood calling her name – a gesture fueled by hope, but without result.  We hoped she was OK, that she would not suffer wherever she was.  She had suffered enough. Abandoned and roaming free before coming to Peg, it was obvious in her bearing and behavior that she had been abused enough as a puppy.

After Layla had been missing 3 days and 3 nights, Peg got a call – Layla was found. She was never very far away after all. There is a very large and old cemetery that abuts our back yard.  It is a very distinguished cemetery in fact.  It is quite historical, and has a section reserved for confederate soldiers. It is often busy, but at night is dangerous – not a place for a stroll, or a place to be lost.  Layla never cried out or barked when she was in pain or needed anything – a trait that would not serve her well. The caretaker had found Layla with her leash wrapped around several bushes that kept her bound up. Since she had been lost in the tombs for 3 days and then reappeared – we called her Jesus dog after that.

Layla loved the cemetery – every time she disappeared she could be found roaming the paths of the cemetery. She found a small hole in the wire fence along the back yard behind the forest of bamboo that has invaded the space between us and the cemetery.  We had to trick her into jumping through it one day just so we could find it to close it up.  Until we found it, we had lots of conspiracy theories as to how she always would escape to the cemetery.

Since she did not cry when in pain, her “suicide” attempt went temporarily undiscovered.  We had  decided to make the back deck wider.  This created a problem with Layla’s favorite hideaway “hole”.   You see, we had left out a portion of the deck’s lattice to form a “door hole” for Layla to get under the deck where she would hide – it was her safe place.  However, when I reconstructed the new deck , I put the “door” in a different spot.  I assumed it would be better for appearances and was just as accessible for Layla.  Oops!  Layla whimpered a bit that night and was not too spry coming up to the bedroom.  In the morning, as I went to pet her she finally let out a cry.  We figured out what had happened when we took her to the vet.  Layla apparently went running full speed across the yard and dove head first into her “doorway” as always to get to her favorite place.  Not exactly!  She ran into where the old “hole” used to be out of habit, and smashed the wooden lattice and punctured her chest with a piece. Attempted suicide we declared.

Layla gave us fodder for many more tales of wonder and woe after that one, but was always a great companion.  She would always, always be standing at the gate in the driveway when we pulled in with the car.  As we opened the gate and got out of the car, Layla would howl and prance around all excitedly like she just won the doggy lottery. She would lead us up the deck stairs to the back door acting like we had been gone for weeks, when it would be only minutes. She acted like she was the happiest dog in the whole world because her two best friends just came back home and she was letting us know she missed us.

She was a good friend. We miss her still.