On Friday, we celebrated the Fifth Gotcha Day of our rescue dog, Katie Puppy. I always loved the sound of a gotcha day–more so even than an adoptiversary–it just sounds like “Hey, I’ve got you…and your life is going to change.” And so it did, for Katie Puppy and for the Owls.

Katie Puppy was pulled from the streets of some southern state, one that starts with an “A” and ends with folks who don’t care much about spaying and neutering their dogs. Not much is known about her very beginnings–she was a stray on the streets, no siblings came in with her, she was around 9 months old when she was selected…saved…from a shelter to be brought north on a truck with other lucky pups. First she spent some time with a southern foster family, though. The network of rescues, not only Katie’s (she is a Last Hope K9 Rescue alum) but many many others is heartening. The number of unwanted dogs put to sleep each year in the US is not (almost a million).

Katie Puppy came to meet us on the day of the Pink Pussy Hat March–or the Women’s March. We were just home from a very stressful and emotional day–anyone who went to the Boston event will know that the crush of people at the end of the speeches/beginning of the march was terrifying to those of us with smaller kids. We almost canceled the meet and greet. But then she arrived, with a volunteer, scared, small and very cute at 10 months old. Her name was Katy Perry–a name immediately discarded by an Owlet.

Katie is dog #7 for me in my lifetime. Each one has been different, and I have been grateful for the years I have had with each. Caju the brown lab perhaps my favorite–crazy for a ball, a giant linebacker lab, full of personality. And Haifa, adopted at age 8 from a lab breeding facility in Brazil, hard of hearing, chubby, clueless. Katie Puppy is by far the most companion–she goes every morning for a ride to school and then a hike, every afternoon a turn around the neighborhood. She is currently snoring, tucked in between me and an Owlet on top of a fluffy fleece blanket on the couch.

As Field School ‘s motto reads: “You Never Walk Alone” (yeah, there’s a soccer/football team with that motto too, I know) and with Katie I don’t. As most of my readers know, I walk the trails in Weston every single day, rain, snow, ice, mosquitos, EEE, every.single.day. Two years ago during the worst of the pandemic, Katie Puppy and I walked every trail in Weston on leash, as required by the emergency order, marking them off every evening with a yellow highlighter (I did that part–Katie’s handwriting is not good). I call her the WFTA K9 Ranger. WFTA is of course Weston Forest & Trail Association.

She has her faults–she has never met a culvert she hasn’t run into, dragging me with her if needed (and on leash). Yesterday she went so deeply into that water pipe in the Pine Street Forest off of Country Drive, I wondered if I would have to call the fire department. And what would I say? Idiot dog was after a moss bonker? Katie hates two neighborhood dogs with a passion, turning into a Tasmanian devil as she whips herself into a frenzy. She is also terrified of many people and large groups of dogs. She is not the smartest dog but she is the sweetest.

My Sunday gratitude is for my companion WFTA Ranger Katie Puppy, and for her Gotcha Day–when she got us and we got her.

And now, off into the woods.