Say Goodnight, Sydney (1992-2009)

Sixteen years ago our family made a new friend. We met her at the Guilford County Animal Shelter, where her previous owners had surrendered her, saying they "didn't have time for her." We gathered that much right away. She was filthy, her fur was atrociously matted in a tangled mess, and she was covered with fleas and fleabites.

But appearances meant nothing to this ten-pound combination of hope and tenacity. When the attendants brought her out for our inspection, she knew what she had to do. She stood up on her hind legs, and putting her front paws together as if to plead with us, danced around the lobby floor.

"Please, please, oh pretty-please! Take me home with you! I promise I will be a good girl and love you forever!" she said. If Cupid had shot an arrow straight through our hearts, we could not have been more smitten. So, home with us she went.

She kept her promise. She was a very good girl, and she sure did love us. She was a true-blue and trusted friend. She was steadfast and steady. Right up until the end. On Friday, February 13th, Sydney Oliver passed away. She died of kidney failure, a condition with which she had lived for the past year and a half.

Sydney was a Silky Terrier, a breed originally developed from a cross between a Yorkshire Terrier and an Australian Terrier, as a companion dog. That she certainly was. But as loving as she was to us, and to every person she ever met, she was also tough. She was a terrier, after all, a ratter. And even though she never killed anything (it was her late, great best friend Opal who had that honor, capturing and killing a vole - whose last sound was "eeek!") it wasn't for lack of trying. "Syd Vicious" was her nickname. Squirrels and chipmunks were her most abundant enemies, but she saved most of her animosity for cats. She hated cats. Especially this one:

Syd and Kitty

This one got the best of her. He swaggered up onto our back porch one day, sidled right through the open back door, and headed straight for Sydney. Cats are like that, I'm told. They can pick out a cat-hater from miles away. He slid over to Syd, and rubbed himself up one side of her and down the other. She was petrified, trembling with anxiety. How she wanted to put this guy in his place! But she knew she couldn't, because we would not have approved. She kept her promise. She was a good girl.

But that didn't stop her from giving him what for, from the inside of the sliding-glass door, once the cat was outside again.

Her killer instinct surprised us once. It was triggered in the summer of 2007, when we were returning to Greensboro from a trip to Florida to see friends before we moved to Colorado. It was late at night, and Sydney was asleep in the bed we had arranged for her in the well of the front seat (we know, not the safest place). The unmistakable odor of road-kill skunk suddenly saturated the car. Before we could open the windows to aerate, the sound of her ancestors rolled up out of the darkness: "Grrrrrrrrrrr, grrrrrrrrrr, grrrrrrrrrrr, rrrrrrrr." That musk meant something! It was a good thing for that skunk that it was already dead. Because if Syd Vicious had caught up with it, well, my money would have been on the dog.

In her younger days, Syd loved to chase balls. She ran after them at light speed. She was so fast, we couldn't even see her feet moving, she was just a blur of happiness and purpose. She loved chicken, peanut butter, luncheon meat, rice, peas, cheese crackers, barbecued ribs, ice cream, and fortune cookies. Syd had recently developed a fondness - almost a craving - for eggnog. She was disappointed when the seasonal supplies went off the shelves.

Syd especially loved sunbathing.

Sydney loved her daily walks. During this past year, when I was away at work, she would anticipate my return, which meant it was time for our walk together. I would come in the front door and she would be waiting for me on one of the living room steps. Halfway up the stairs was the place she sat. Lately, she would sleep during most of the day, but when her internal clock told her it was time for me to come home, she was ready.

She would run up and down the hall, stand on her hind legs, put her front paws together, and dance around. "Please, please, oh pretty please! I've been waiting all day! Won't you please take me on a walk with you!"

And we did. Because that was just one of the promises we made to her.

Goodnight, Sydney