High Five & a Kiss

June 19, 2024

Just about every time I climb the stairs inside my house, if Annie went before me, I can count on her stopping at the top of the stairs, turning around and giving me her paw (High Five) then taking my hand quickly to her face for a quick Kiss, all in one swooping motion!!!

Does that ever make my day or touch a special place in my heart or make me smile warmly or gives me something to look forward to, every time. I often wonder where she learned to do this, who taught her, and how grateful I am that she knows how to!

To remind my readers, Annie was found outside of a supermarket, in the caribbean island of Trinidad & Tobago during my visit there with my Mom in the summer of 2022. She had been brought to a rescue center where I met her, promptly adopted her, and relocated her to the USA a few weeks later!

I’ve wondered who she belonged to before she was found wandering the streets. Did she run away from her home and just hadn’t made it back to her home before she was rescued? But then, why didn’t her owner claim her at the shelter? Could she have been left behind, heartlessly, by her owner who could not take her back to the country she was visiting from? These things I have pondered.

And Annie is so smart, intelligent really. I see it often but especially when I wash her up, with her brother Bustey several times a day, in my small powder room just off the entrance to our home: one of the things I do not compromise on in order to keep my animals inside my home. It is in this very small space, I sit on the toilet seat and lean forward towards them and they can only turn in one direction at a time because of the pedestal sink facing me and a wall and door on opposite sides closing in on them. There are many conversations with them along with some frustration, giggles and even laughter. Oftentimes, physical pain as well as I lean forward and downwards stretching to clean their faces, bodies, and paws.

Here is where Annie confounds me and impresses me: she turns around to make it easier for me to get to her body parts! And without me asking! I watch as she tries to turn, figuring out which way to position her paws, sometimes part of her ends up under Bustey; I keep up with her by cleaning away but so often in stitches of laughter! I sometimes will switch up the order I go in to clean her paws and it is so funny as she tries to adjust; because there is an order I usually follow.

I look at this little golden retriever mix and I am also amazed. I see her as a “survivor”, Lord only knows what she went through to survive on the streets. This I wonder especially when I watch her try to hide snacks throughout the house, holding on to them tightly in her mouth, as she climbs stairs, chairs, lifting blankets, etc. to hide them.

Even as I have faced challenges potty training Annie, having to go after her the many times she tried to escape, stopping her from chewing the furniture and windowsill, and presently trying to figure out why she is scraping the paint off the walls of our home; those High Fives and Kisses always seem to make up for them though!!!