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Our lucky dog COMMENTARY By Ken Kingshill We found our Dalmatian, Lucky, in the front yard, early one morning 12 years ago, dumped in our yard by less caring people. It was just about a year after Disney’s latest offering from its “101 Dalmatians” franchise. He was in such distress and when we got him inside, he was in obvious need of surgery to correct trouble with his eyelids. We started calling him Lucky because of his good fortune getting discarded with us. We loved him. Successful surgery resulted in the most handsome face we’d ever seen, on any Dalmatian. After that, Lucky wanted to be the Alpha Dog of our family, but like other pets, he wasn’t quite sure how to go about doing it. So he lived his years being one of the guys, a follower, but he could also be quite an instigator when he wanted. Shortly after Lucky came to us, my wife began training to run marathons. She wanted one of the dogs to run with her and, after a few tryouts, settled on Lucky. For the next 10 years, Lucky set the pace. Our vet assured us that as long as he was out front leading the way, there was nothing wrong with the distance running. Although Lucky never ran an official marathon,
8 | September 28, 2010
he logged all the training mileage for several. Lucky never once lagged behind. But about six months ago, the arthritis pain became too much and he had to stop. His heart was still in it, but his joints wouldn’t let him continue. His 13 years, 91 in dog years, were catching up to him. Twice daily pain medications helped for a while. My sister-in-law in Colorado sent elk antler fuzz. Apparently, if you give the dog a pinch with his food, it helps control joint pain. That seemed to help for a while, although I’m not sure who it was helping: Lucky or me. Our seven-year old knew it was time: “Why don’t you do to Lucky what you did to Anasazi and Blue?” That was the wake-up call for us to make that difficult decision: to humanely end the long and productive life of our Lucky. In the end, it was us who were lucky that those uncaring people twelve years ago chose to drop off of their inconvenience at our house. City Councilor Ken Kingshill is a Westfield resident and Realtor. You may e-mail him at kkingshill@ westfield.in.gov.
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