I got Billy the dachshund from Craigslist. He was from Illinois and I met his mommy in St Louis at the Pet adoptions   at PetSmart on Telegraph Road run by my director Alice Dodge. She had Billy in her arms and he was adorable all happy, friendly, sweet and I had hoped to get him adopted that day. She realized what I had planned and said she would only give him to me if I kept him, so there I was with two dogs at home 200 miles away and now a third. I promised her and took him. I figured after awhile I could email her and get her permission. Billy was wonderful. He ran in the cemetery with the others and was happy. My puppy mill Jack Russell HoneyBee was not so happy. She’s a diva and so Billy began to take a back seat. He didn’t like it. They all went with me wherever I went 24/7 and at the midnight premiere of New Moon (I wasn’t going but saw the line) I walked Dolly Parton and HoneyBee with Billy around the theatre before going in to see Michael Jackson’s This Is It. Billy went right for the line of girls. He had this thing when he met people. He was overjoyed, they caught it from him, and when he felt that they were just the teensiest bit directing their attention elsewhere, he would leave. So he went through the entire midnight line for New Moon going from girl to girl for over an hour. They all oved him. And Bella saves Edward not Emmett BTW. 
 
As months went by Billy lost his enthusiasm and vitality, played games with me by hiding (he had done this with his ex mother. He had lived with a hair dresser all his life before she got him when the hairdresser died. He went into mourning and wouldn’t come out of it so her middle aged son gave him away. Now he was doing it with me and he got so apathetic I began to fear he was going to hunger strike himself to death. “Love me the best or I’m going to die on you.” I was sick too and depleted so my neighbor took Billy to take care of him. All of a sudden Billy started improving. Then he got better and better. I told my neighbor Ben that since Billy was choosing him I would honor his choice so he became Ben’s dog visiting me from time to time and glad to leave. Ben took Billy to his father’s sheltered workshop every week in Ava and Billy had them all in love with him. He was somehow allowed in stores where dogs were forbidden because they loved him, and lots of other exceptions were his rule. Ben moved to the country and on a property that had a group home for challenged children. One of these children was a so called autistic boy named Nick who was 13 or so. Billy began visiting everyday and especially to see Nick. Nick would sit on the couch with Billy in his lap and pet him hour by hour. The first word he ever spoke was “Bill”. And every morning it was “Bill, Bill”. Each time he ran his hand down Billy to pet him it was like the very first time, hour after hour. His attention to Billy never wavered for one second. And Billy knew it. Billy ate with him at the table, went to his home for sleep overs, rode in the family airplane, went in the boat for trips and was in heaven. Always it was Nick for him and always for Nick it was Billy. Early in the morning Billy would run up the hill, bark at the cattle, and bark at the door to be let in. In the evening he would go home to Ben to sleep and then leave again the next morning. For 2 years this went on. The caretaker had to get Billy written legally into the program so he could always be there and not subject to dismissal by a new employee on the grounds of complaint and illegality. You know the way people invoke the rules when it comes to their little power plays. 
 
Billy died about 6 months ago. He was 10. It was an accident and all of us who knew him wept. Nick went out the door every morning and called for Bill who did not come. Day after day. 
 
All you parents you have no idea what a difference a loving and loved pet can make. Please. I beg you. Forget the allergies, the dust, the hassle for the joy will make all the difference in your child’s life. And all the difference in one pet’s life.