The Mitz’s Tail

While Chris Ann had a bobbed tail, Mitzi had a foofy tail. As far as we could tell Mitzi was a Border Collie mix; she certainly had the temperament of a Border Collie – she was in charge. When Mitz was on yard patrol (walking around the perimeter of her yard) her fluffy tail would curl to the point of the tip touching her back. Inside the house sometimes you’d see a curled tail appear in the back of the sofa, moving from one end to the other until a dog made its appearance.  

“The Mitz” was a temperamental dog, while she could play with Chris Ann and Darby (at one time we had three dogs), she could also unexpectedly be mean to them; thankfully she had more good days than bad days and it was fun to watch her play with her dog sisters. I think it must have been her uncertain early childhood that caused her antisocial behavior – maybe we should have taken her to a therapist.

We had just moved to Richmond with Chris Ann, had talked about getting another dog and had decided against it, when I came home one Friday to find Chris Ann, Vickie, and a new dog. Vickie was working in downtown Richmond when the police came into her office with a dog who they had caught running the streets; they asked if they could confine the dog in the office until animal control arrived. Vickie, no doubt considering our recent discussion about getting another dog, and remembering that we had decided not to get one, thought it best to bring the dog home so we could reconsider our decision.

The challenge was that Vickie took a commuter bus to work and she could not take the dog on the bus to the commuter parking lot. Her coworkers located an unsuspecting soul in another department who lived close to the commuter parking lot and convinced him to give a strange woman and a stranger (and very dirty) dog a ride. Animal control was informed they were no longer needed.

When I was confronted with this new dog, recalling our recent conversation about not getting another dog, I said that she had to go. One dog was enough responsibility, two was one too many. As it happened it snowed on Monday so we couldn’t take the dog to the animal shelter and by Tuesday it was too late to disengage my heart (Vickie’s was already engaged) and we named her Mitzi – otherwise known as Mitz – or as we saw her character develop – “The Mitz”. As I write this it occurs to me that Vickie probably already knew that by Monday I wouldn’t be able to take the new dog to the dog pound – I think she may have been humoring me with her ready acquiescence to my plan to just keep the dog for the weekend.

Oh what a foofy fluffy curly tail The Mitz had.