Editors Note: This column was originally published in the Oct. 18, 2023 issue of the Chronicle Progress.
We lost our Lily this weekend.
She came into our home in a coffee cup and went out in a shoe box. We laid her to rest in our pet cemetery. She is in very good company, but will definitely leave a sadness in our hearts for quite a while.
We picked up Lily at the Family Dollar in Delta around the first of December in 2011. We bought her from the nutty guy out of Richfield. He wasn’t really nutty, but he did sell nuts in the Delta area.
You know, the machines that you put a quarter in and you get a little handful of nuts? It was that guy. He and his wife brought her and her sister. Then we had to choose. We spent quite a bit of time deciding if we wanted the black one or the brown one.
We finally decided on the brown one and named her Lily. Her first time out on the town was shortly after we picked her up. We put her in our pocket and went to the Mi Rancherito for lunch.
Lily fit right in with our other pets; a lab named Xoie, and our cat Cicely. She bossed them around, cuddled the cat and sat on the dog. She wasn’t tall enough to see out the bedroom door, but if she sat on Xoie she had a great view.
In about 2016, Lily started her career here at the paper. We would send a cut out of her with different people and as they traveled to different places in the world. They would set the cut out in various places and take pictures to send back to us. We published a few of them.
When Lily turned 5, we dropped by the shelter in Sandy and found her a new bestie. We liked one that looked just like her sister with the black markings. She was dropped off the day before we arrived by someone who was moving and not able to take her with them. We couldn’t make up my mind, so we left and drove as far as Provo. We took the next exit and drove back to Sandy to pick up.
When we returned home Lily was quite put out. She was not impressed at all by her new sister. As a matter of fact, I am not sure she ever was glad we rescued Roxy. As the years went by they became best frenemies. Although if Roxy was to move in the night, Lily would turn into a full chihuahua attack dog.
At first, Lily loved our two-mile walks around Sherwood Shores. As the years went by she liked her walks better when I put her in her dog pouch. That made her eye level to most peoples’ waists. For her it was on top of the world. I think there were a lot of Sunday leisure drivers and goose gawkers who appreciated she no longer walked down the middle of the road and watched as people had to drive around her.
Lily loved little kids, but she did not like babies; especially when they were sitting on someone’s lap that she thought was hers to sit on. She fetched a ball, the extra small ones that are hard to find. When we traveled she required a ball and water dish close at all times. When the neighbor kids dropped by, or came out in the road, she would greet them with a snort and wait to be petted.
When Uncle Sid moved across the street, Lily became his dog also. We put in a little doggie door and she fit right through. She walked over every morning for coffee and if he wasn’t out of bed, she would let herself in, stand next to his bed and bark. She knew it was time to get up and liked it when he got up with her. If he didn’t want to get out of bed, he would reach over and put her in bed with him. They were known for taking quite a few afternoon naps together also.
I can’t tell you how many times I had to go over and put her back inside my fence so I could get to work. Some mornings Sid would just drop her back over the fence when she was ready to go home and the back door wasn’t open. Whenever he would leave for a trip, and especially after he passed away, Lily would still go over and make herself at home.
For a short time, we rented the place out as an Airbnb. We had one renter in particular that had a lot of the same characteristics as Sid. Lily especially liked him. It was a little weird knocking on the door, and asking if I could take my dog home now. But I did.
Lily passed away Saturday, a few hours after the eclipse on Saturday, Oct. 14. Her last family get together was watching the eclipse with Swazie and I. I like to think that by now she has found Uncle Sid’s door on the other side and is getting a few pets, and maybe even a little heaven jerky. Hopefully they have it there.
I have always been a dog lover. As a matter of fact, dogs are some of the best people I know. They are always glad to see us. They spend their lives waiting for us. They wait to go out, wait to go in, wait to go for a ride, wait to be fed. They are also among the best counselors ever. They listen and allow us to listen to ourselves.
We’re going to miss you, Lily. We hope to see you on the other side. I really am planning on a doggie heaven. I just hope I can remember all their names.
RIP, Lily Dutson!
