Column: Savagemama

My Valentine Imogene

By Jennifer Savage, 1-30-08

It’s that time of year again, I suppose, that time of year for falling in love. Except this year my valentine walks on four legs and licks her butt. It’s true, I’m re-falling in love with Imogene, my yellow lab.

I think I’ve written here about how we met, how she picked me to be her mom seven years ago at a lab farm in Oregon. She licked me on the chin, at six weeks old, and I took her home. For months she peed in the house, chewed every pair of shoes I owned and wagged her way into my life. We went everywhere together those first few years including the grocery store.

She’s always had more personality than smarts and even as the former light of my life has, at times, been amazingly annoying.

When she was a puppy she ate the emergency brake in my old Toyota Corolla and the seats in Seth’s van. She ate cat poop everywhere she could find it, once dug a dirty diaper out of the snow long before we had a baby and, years later, was the inspiration for a cover on our compost because of her retrieving abilities where rotting food is concerned.

Imogene barks, at absolutely nothing, for the better part of most days. She roams our five acres, sniffing, pooping and rolling around in the snow, standing water in the field, the new grass, the leaves. We joke around that she is a guard dog but, in truth, she is completely ineffective at this. She barks when the UPS man drives up, then quickly wags her tail and jumps in his truck because he gives her treats. She can be bought with a morsel of food, a scratch between the ears. 

Once a year Imogene requires an at least $250 visit to the vet for something that is usually her fault – eating too much cow poop, sliding face first into a barbed-wire fence, jumping off the back porch too many times.

But we take her and pay her way because when I pretty much credit her with getting Seth and I together by waking him up every morning with a lick to the face and stomp to the stomach. We started talking over coffee then, all because of Imogene. And when I was weeks away from delivering Eliza and on bed rest, it was Imogene who watched movies with me. Both of us horizontal, both of us huge and lumbering. When Eliza was born it was Imogene who got in bed with us and licked our new baby, welcoming her to the family.

Admittedly, Imogene has taken a back seat since Eliza was born. And, unfortunately, I think she knows it. She keeps a low profile around our place these days and only gets on the furniture every other chance she gets.

But, lately, she and Eliza seem to be teaming up, forging a friendship independent of everyone else in the house. Eliza calls her “mo-mo” and hollers for her when she doesn’t see her in the house. She’s usually the first thing Eliza asks for when she wakes up in the morning. It’s our reason for getting out of bed, to go see “mo-mo.”

Eliza is starting to look at books and point out the elements she recognizes. Ball. Dawg. Hat. The other day, she was sitting in the living room, looking at books at the coffee table. When I looked a little closer I realized she was taller than normal. I stepped into the room thinking she must be sitting on a box that holds different shaped pieces but I saw that she was actually sitting on Imogene – right in the middle of her while Imogene slept.

Imogene raised her head when I came in as if to say “What are you lookin’ at?” Then she put her head back down and continued sleeping. Eliza kept reading as though it was the most normal thing in the world to sit on the dog.

This is why Imogene is my valentine.

She rolls with it. She lets the baby point to her nose, ears and eyes. She lets her pat her on the head and when Eliza bends down to give her kisses, she usually responds with a big lick that makes Eliza squeal.

Imogene has never been the sharpest tool in the shed but she has always been sweet and gentle and excited. Sometimes it seems like we could us a little more of all of those things in life.

So maybe for Valentine’s Day Imogene will get a new ball, which she will destroy in a about five minutes or a fresh bone that will keep her occupied for a few hours. Or maybe I’ll just let her sleep on the couch in front of the fire, give her a kiss on the lips and tell her how she’s once again wagged her way into my heart.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.