Lucy Lucy Lucy

Everyone remembers Lucy. Lucy was a mottled pup with a cute face and awkward stubby legs. A mix of a Corgi and Australian Shepherd. My mom used to say that "nature didn't intend that dog" but I think she was an early "designer dog" not some mutt found in the street. I think two dog enthusiasts had a Corgi and an Australian Shepherd and bred them.

We got Lucy in the pound when she was about eight months old. She was already housebroken and the reason her owner left her there was because they were moving to an apartment that didn't accept dogs. Lucy was the dog that made me into a dog enthusiast. When I was 11 or 12 I signed up for some magazine called "Santa Clara Dog" and bought books like the "Dog IQ test".

Lucy was a very smart dog, sometimes a little too smart. Over the years, she learned different tricks. Some of them were ones my mom taught her, like sit, stay, come, and "say hello". But others were ones she learned as she tried to trick us herself.

One of the funniest tricks she pulled was shivering. One day in winter she was cold and shivering and my mom let her in. She learned that shivering meant she'd be let inside. So when it was hot in summer and Lucy was shivering, we learned that she remembered shivering let her in before.

I loved to play "Sneak" with Lucy, even though she won 98% of the time. I would try to creep through the backyard and catch her napping, but she'd almost always run up to greet me first. I think she lost a few times. Sometimes she'd jump up in shock and then be happy to see me... only once did I ever surprise her enough to get her to bark.

Lucy was a dog that lived a very long life. 10/14/93 (my guesss) to 6/29/09. Nearly sixteen years.

Lucy's death journal

She was a good dog, even though she often smelled. She had the bark of  a dog twice her size.