Sally
Sally was a was a family pet from 2004 through 2011, adopted by the Reddicks while living in Tallahassee, FL.
Life
When Dana was five years old, her parents took her to a haunted trail for Halloween, because she liked them. However, she became so frightened at this particular one that she began having trouble sleeping at night, waking with night terrors and sleepwalking. After a couple of months of this, her parents Ro & Jon thought that if she had a dog that could jump on her bed and sleep with her, it would help allay some of her fears.
Dana thought it was a good idea, so the family went for a visit to the Tallahassee animal shelter to see about adopting. A Springer Spaniel had a litter of puppies just weeks old, and Dana was let into the pen with them to select one. There were about 8 beautiful, fluffy butterscotch-colored puppies, all jumping & yipping for her attention, playfully chewing on her shoes and climbing up her legs, but she instead waded through their excitement to a tiny, shivering lump of fur curled up in a stainless steel feeding bowl. This puppy looked nothing like the others, with black and tan mangy fur, a white stripe down her nose, and a hairless tail.
She picked up this tiny, sickly puppy and cradled it in her arms, and looked to her parents indicating this was the one she wanted. We glanced at the animal shelter vet who shook her head and whispered that this one probably wasn't going to live. It was the runt -- underweight, and full of worms, with no hair on its tail, looking as sickly and frail as can be. Jon & Ro tried to encourage Dana to reconsider and look at the other puppies that really wanted to go home with her. But she wouldn't be convinced. Instead she held the tiny dog tighter and said, "But this one needs me."
Having committed to adopt the puppy if and when it could be nursed to health, the animal shelter fostered the puppy out to one of its helpers, where she began a two-week course of shots, medicine, vitamins, several wormings, and manual feedings. Miraculously, the small pup came around to at least an acceptable level of health to be adopted, and the Reddicks took her home.
Dana named her Sally, after the patchwork character from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas animated film.
Within the first week at the Reddick home, Sally gained 5 pounds, and grew quickly thereafter. She was smart and playful, and it was hard to believe this was the same puppy from the shelter. However, it wasn't long before there were some noticeable problems. The vet noted that Sally's skull was not forming correctly -- that as she grew, it wasn't fusing in the right places. This eventually became a ridge on her head. Also, she was noted to run with a "bunny hop" -- the classic indicator of hip dysplasia, common in larger dogs. None of this seemed to deter Sally from being happy, but it did keep her from being able to jump, so she was never able to get onto Dana's bed on her own. She also was never able to sit up, as most dogs do, without falling over. However, she learned many other tricks very easily -- some within 5 minutes.
Sally's tricks included:
- Sneezing on cue
- Shaking hands/giving high 5
- Waving
- Growling on cue
- Rolling over (until her arthritis made it to difficult)
- Doing a figure 8 through the legs
- Lie down and crawl
- Barking on cue
Barking was not something Sally did much. She was a very quiet dog, so teaching her to bark on cue was difficult. In fact, it was the last trick she learned only several months before her death.
Fond Memories
- The Reddicks thought Sally was part Basenji, because they had had her more than three months before they ever heard her bark.
- Because Sally was not a barker, she had to figure a way to let her owners know she needed to go out. She developed the technique of standing up and shaking her head to make her dog tags jingle on her collar as her signal she needed to go out.
- After a lifetime of chasing squirrels and birds, Sally, much to her own surprise, actually caught a baby bird just a couple of weeks before her death. The bird lost a few feathers, but was otherwise okay. Sally was then jokingly dubbed "The Bird Killer."
- Because her owner Ro Reddick worked from home on the computer, the morning ritual was to feed Sally and then say "It's time to go to work, Sally." With that, Sally would lumber down the hallway to the computer room where she "worked" at sleeping all day, and guarding the door in hopes of keeping the cat out of the room. (It didn't work.)
- Sally loved squeaky toys, and knew the difference between her horse, monkey and squirrel toys. The Reddicks tried to convince Sally that the cat was a squeeky toy, however she was smart enough to know the difference.
Death
Some time on the evening of July 30, 2011, Sally laid down with her nose between her paws, and passed away.
She was buried in the evening of July 31, 2011 in the back yard of the Reddicks' home on Everholly Lane in Jacksonville, FL.
