“You have all the qualities of Peter Pan
I’d go far before I’d find a sweeter Pan.
I love your funny face
Your sunny, funny face.
For you’re a cutie
With more than beauty.
You’ve got a lot of
personality for me.
You fill the air with smiles
For miles and miles and miles
Though you’re no Mona Lisa
For worlds I’d not replace,
Your sunny, funny face.
I love your funny face
Your sunny, funny face. ”
You hear about dalmatians being puppies all of their lives
and Sera was the perfect example of this.
She was a comic without even trying.
She was our baby.
Dolly, Lady, Dexter, Millie
They were our best friends, our family, our companions, our very souls
But Sera was the baby.
At 12 years old, she was still our baby.
If someone was in her spot on the couch,
she would bark her high, shrill puppy bark until you moved that person (dog)
If she wanted in the house but was going to have to walk past someone who intimidated her,
she would bark her high, shrill puppy bark until you said “Sera, come in the house.”
or until you let her know that you were near, and she would come on in.
I was picking John up at the airport in Charlotte when he came home from a business trip.
Mary Dolde had told me about her litter of puppies,
so I talked John into going over “just to see them”
and we came home with Sera.
Dexter tested her by “pouncing” her when we got home.
She peeed all over herself and the floor.
He looked at us as if to say “she’s defective, take her back”
but, lordy, she was precious.
We had a feed/water bowl combo that you hooked an empty 2 liter bottle to upside down
and it kept the water bowl full. The food bowl had been chewed up and played
with so that there was just the hole on that side where the food bowl had been.
No matter how fast and furious puppy Sera was going, when she came to the get water
she would stop and very purposely put her front feet into the hole
so that she could get water out of the water bowl.
She was going to be our “foundation bitch”.
She had an incredible pedigree and was a wonderful specimen of a dalmatian
Sound temperament, sound body structure, intelligent, a wonderful dog.
When she started going in season, she would have a false pregnancy every time.
We hadn’t bred her, because we were doing rescue at the time and our consciences wouldn’t let
us bring more puppies into a world with all ready too many homeless animals,
but we were showing her and wanted, dreamed of breeding her.
Every time she had a false pregnancy, she attached herself to a different “puppy”.
She had sock puppies, a bedroom shoe puppy, a telephone puppy,
but the cutest puppy was a blonde haired, blue eyed Baby Tenderlove babydoll.
She was such a good mother, very protective and nurturing.
She would take her “puppies” outside, very gently lying them in the sun
Then, after about 15-20 minutes, she would bring them back in to her crate.
This would last for about 4 weeks, then she would wean them and be over it.
She didn’t have a mean bone in her body.
She was never defiant, never took up for herself.
She was the very definition of sweet.
She loved to play, she loved to eat,
She loved to be held.
She loved her head and ears rubbed.
She had an itchy spot right down on her chest toward her underarms.
Scratch this spot and her legs would go to town thumping the floor.
She would meet you at the door with a head butt
and would immediately start rubbing her head around and around on your legs.
She loved to go to the lake and play with Dexter.
She didn’t want to go into the water but she would run along the water’s edge barking.
She would get so proud of herself over her various accomplishments.
She couldn’t wait for me to get home one day to show me how she could jump the fence.
She met me at the gate, wanting me to follow her.
She jumped over the fence, then back, then over, then back.
Then she took off in her little rocking horse run
that she always did when she was particularly happy.
I, of course, called John at work who went to Lowe’s on his way home.
By the time Sera got back outside to show off her jumping abilities to her daddy,
He had built the fence up higher and she could no longer jump it.
Not one to stay down for long, she merely found something else to show him.
Another day, she and Domino had taken blankets out through the dog door.
They had a hole torn in one of the blankets, where Sera’s head was sticking through.
She was walking around the backyard like a queen.
Were they the least bit worried when I came home and saw the mess?
No, not them. They just wanted me to come join the game.
It never occurred to Sera or Domino that they should be in trouble.
In her later years, she didn’t change.
She was still cuddly.
She was still sweet.
She would still get happy and do her rocking horse run.
She wasn’t perfect because she could be stubborn and she had very selective hearing.
But she was about a perfect as any dog could be.
It was so hard to wrap my mind around the fact that she was an old dog.
Sera old? No, she is our baby. Just a puppy. Geriatric? No way!
We were so naïve again. Hadn’t we learned anything?
But we just didn’t think Sera would die.
Not Sera. She’s our puppy. She will have the chemo treatments and will be fine.
She will be fine.
Die? No, not Sera. She’ll be fine.
I still can’t get it. I know she’s gone but I just can’t believe it.
My baby, our baby, gone.
I hope she didn’t suffer.
I hope she wasn’t in pain.
I hope she is happy now.
I hope she is doing her happy run.
Happy to be with Dexter, Dolly, Lady and Millie again.
I hope, I pray that all of them are running, playing, sleeping in a pile.
All of them happy to be together again and waiting for us to come get them.
Waiting for us to get them so we can be a family together again.