BY MIMI BECKER

Community Columnist

Sometimes the better, and wiser, outcome is achieved just with delayed action.

It all started with a forwarded email from a friend who was passing along a request from another friend which was for another person. A button was needed. Not just any old button, but one which was lost from a lovely and favorite jacket. The email included a very clear photograph of the jacket with a match to the button which had been lost. 

The photograph clearly illustrated the size, 1 inch in diameter, and color, a lovely soft green, needed. I happen to have a LOT of vintage and other buttons. I replied I would search through my stash when I returned home.

But that wasn’t the only request the email contained.

The friend of the friend had another friend who needed to find a home for a dog. And that is where I very nearly made a big mistake.  There was no photograph of the dog, just a brief description allowing that it was smallish.

The email clearly indicated the dog was well cared for and was not in search of a residence through any mistreatment or sad life situation. Quite the contrary, the dog had been a wonderful companion to a person who had rescued him, but the owner was changing residences and the new arrangement did not permit the dog coming along.

We are down to one dog after having had three precious pets over the years. My husband actually floated the idea not too long ago that we ought to adopt another dog to be a companion to our solitary little girl.

As if the cat of just about the same size isn’t enough to entertain her. I was the dissenting opinion in that discussion, and rather forcefully if I may say. “No way!” were pretty much my exact words.

But here I was, melting at the idea that a sweet little pup, they are all pups to me until the day they go to dog heaven, would go out alone into the world to some random home after having had a comfy life with a very nice person. I can rationalize just about anything when it suits my purpose.

Really, this little guy would be well adopted even if I didn’t exist. I know the folks on the email chain.

Like a crazy person, I forwarded the email to my husband. Dead silence. Maybe he didn’t read the whole thing. The button issue surely wasn’t of interest, perhaps he thought it was a mis-send and didn’t read through to the bottom.

At home, I casually asked if he had seen the email about the dog. He had. He had also noted the dog’s name, estimated age and the fact that it was a rescue originally. We are both suckers for a rescue, original or second hand.

He didn’t actually throw cold water on my insinuated interest in the possible acquisition of another pet. He didn’t even mention that HE had wanted another dog and I put my foot down not just too long ago.

At that time, I had just had a series of sleep interrupted nights with our current little four-footed darling. She is 3 years old and acts like a 3-year-old human sometimes. She has the attention span of a gnat and responds to any noise or movement with unabated curiosity.  This isn’t so much of an issue during the day which is easy for me to say since I work outside the home during the daylight hours and the pup duties lie squarely on the shoulders of my husband.

I pay the price of dog ownership at night. Through snow, (which we have already enjoyed this season), sleet, (ditto), and rain, (all the time), I stumble out of bed, drag on an appropriate foot covering, struggle into a coat, (when a housecoat isn’t enough protection), hook the leash on her collar and take her outside to “do her business.”

She is a little dog and I can’t blame her for her tiny bladder. When she needs to go, she needs to go, or so she indicates.

What becomes less than fun is that she is interrupted in the execution of her needs by every noise, (the train couplings are very clear and loud at night), creature, (multiple stray cats lurk in wait everywhere), and smell, (there is no end to what she can sniff out in the grass). All the while I am roaming around with my eye on her, pleading with her to get on with it, so I can return to the comfort of my bed.

That is what I remembered when I said no to a new dog a few weeks ago. Yet, from the warmth of my cozy couch in front of a lovely fire and a sparkling Christmas tree, I weaken. My husband quietly comments that we have an awful lot going on in the coming weeks.  Maybe now isn’t the right time. He’s right, and I know it.

I’m not sure if the right button was found, but the dog does have a very nice new home. Just not ours.