deb roush

The reason I started this blog was to share tales of my life so that when I’m gone my kids will have stories to remember me.  Accurately. Yesterday, when I was cleaning house, I remembered this one and thought it might be good for the blog.

Once, I stole a dog. 

What makes this transgression even worse is that the best job I ever had was as the public relations director for the Toledo Humane Society, a 100-plus-year-old agency that handled animal rescues, animal cruelty cases, adoptions and much more good work. It’s also where I learned that animals, legally, are considered personal property.  You can’t just go take a dog from someone’s yard because you believe the animal is being mistreated. It’s the equivalent of, say, stealing a television set.

Fast forward to living in Little Rock 10 years later and driving to pick up my neighbor Lindsey’s son, Jayce, from school, which required traveling through a neighborhood best described as “The Hood.” Sorry, as my dad is popular for saying, “It is what it is.” Crossing the street in front of me was a brindle-colored boxer, and as she wobbled to her front yard, I noticed she wasn’t stable because she was emaciated. Her bony hip bones, bloody from fly bites, were exposed. Her ears, too, were cut, bitten and bloody. I had seen some serious cases of abuse working at the humane society, and this topped the list. I drove to school and pledged to myself that if that dog was still there after I had picked up Jayce, she was going home with us.

She was still there.

So while I explained to Jayce, my 9-year-old accomplice with no idea what the heck was going on, I leapt from the car, scooped the barely 20 pound dog in my arms, gingerly sat her in the back of my Isuzu Rodeo and sped off. Sweating, I drove my dog-stealing self, Jayce and the dog to the only place I could think of: My husband Terry’s office at Alltel in downtown Little Rock.

Here’s where it is important to note that in 21 years of our marriage, there has been one unequivocal truth: I am a rule breaker; Terry follows every rule. His nickname is Mr. Policy. One of my general guidelines, for instance, is that if there is no sign that says “No U-Turn,” I’m free to do one. That includes one on the interstate once. Terry needs a sign. And it needs to say, “Terry Roush, yes, you may do a U-Turn here.”  So when I drove the stolen dog to Alltel, then called him and dramatically yelled into the telephone that he, “IMMEDIATELY NEEDED TO COME DOWN TO THE MAIN ENTRANCE OF THE BUILDING!” I fully expected he might tell me to take Jayce home and drive that dog right back to where I found her.

Instead, he suggested I take her to our veterinarian immediately and pay for her to be treated. When he got home, he said, we would figure out our next move. That’s what I did. She needed IVs. She required meds. She was dipped for the thousands of fleas and ticks all over her body. The vet leant us a large crate, and I took her home.  When Terry walked in the door, he put her in the bathtub, then spent hours with tweezers, removing every tick and flea from her tired body. We tucked her in to the crate with a soft blanket and she slept, peacefully, for what seemed forever. Terry cooked the prescribed rice and whatever food she needed, and when she was up to it a couple of days later, we walked her.

Sneakily, I mean strategically, we strolled straight to our best friends’ home, Kim and Dan Rankin, who had a neighbor, Stan, whose boxer had died a year prior, and he and his wife still had not felt ready to replace her. By “happenstance,” they met the dog in the Rankin’s front yard and played with her for a few minutes. We told them that we would be calling the boxer rescue organization the following week. (We would have kept her, but our dog Jake started peeing all over everything to mark his territory once the “new” dog joined us.)

It was 6 a.m. the next day when Stan called, asking if they could adopt the boxer. They had been up all night thinking about her and couldn’t wait another minute to call. They came right over, and in our pajamas, we said our goodbyes. They named her Lilly because of her vibrant and beautiful brindle coat that reminded them of the flower. Stan rubbed vitamin E into her scars until they healed, fed her cooked rice and beef daily and treated her like royalty. She grew to be the most beautiful boxer who was taken on daily walks and had a better back yard than mine. (I asked him once if we could trade Jake for Lilly, but he said no.) Stan rode his bike by recently (it had been 10 years since they adopted her), and told us Lilly had passed away after a long, lovely life, and they now have a new boxer.

You might think I just wrote all this so the happy ending would get me off the hook for stealing the dog in the first place, but that’s not it at all. Well, partly it is. The moral of the story is about love and partnerships. This is just one example of hundreds where Terry, gentle and reasonable, has been there to guide me – the impulsive one – in the right direction. It’s one of many illustrations of us working together for the right outcome – where one of us has to go to “the other side.” There have been countless times, too, when Terry has prevented me from disastrous consequences by saying no. There have been occasions (admittedly fewer), where I have provided opportunities and challenges he has enjoyed. (Like the nine-hour adventure race I signed us up for where we came in ninth-place! But that’s another blog post.) As a side note, Terry will tell you the four scariest words that come out of my mouth are, “I have an idea ….”

It has been a decade since I stole Lilly, but if it happened again today, I’d do the exact same thing. And I would drive straight to Terry for help.