Simba is a 13 year old Samoyed-Spitz mix that has been with our family since he was 3months old. When we first saw him at the shelter in North Carolina we knew he was the dog for us. He was jumping up and down yelping at us. I thought he was too nervous and questioned our choice, his eyes convinced me we had done the right thing. We filled out the necessary papers and waiting for the shelter to call us back. There were 3 people ahead of us on his request sheet. We were told if they changed their minds or didn't show up on adoption day he would be ours. I secretly prayed that the other families would change their minds. We drove to the shelter on adoption day, nervously chatting about 'our' dog. We would call him Simba. We had a collar and a name, surely he would be coming home with us. We entered the building and assumed our position on the line. It was an agonizing 15 minute wait. Finally, we reached the head of the line. We were greeted by a not-so-friendly clerk, who glanced at our paper-work, pulled out a stamp and said "check please". It was that simple, pay the man and he was ours. The other people on his adoption list had not come in that morning, so as fate would have it Simba was coming home with us.
We greeted him with such enthusiasm, you would have thought we just won the lottery. He was reluctant to come with us, but I had a plan. I had stashed a dog treat in my coat pocket for that initial meeting. Simba sniffed the treat but wasn't too quick to accept this offering from these strange humans. We led him to our car, helped him in and headed home. At the time my husband and I lived in an apartment in Charlotte, N.C. It was 3 flights of stairs up and Simba ran ahead of us, eager to see his new digs. It was a moment like no other we had experienced as a young couple before. We were a family, man, wife and dog. We giggled and made such a fuss over him in those first few hours, it was pure joy.
Over the next few weeks we undertook the task of training him to apartment living. We also had to train ourselves to be dog owners. We took turns taking him out in the middle of the night. This worked well at first, that is until we both were suffering from sleep deprivation. Eventually we trained him to go 'potty' before bedtime and we trained ourselves to remove his water bowl before 6 pm. We grew over the next few months into a power-dog couple. We took him to the car wash in our complex for baths every Friday. We made weekend trips to the local dog store to buy him a new treat or toy. We took him for drives in the rural countryside to see the cows. We bought our first house with him in mind. A house with a yard that he could play in was high on our list of priorities. We moved to a small town in South Carolina and took to the task of making a home.
It was during the years we spent in Clover that we all settled in as a family. Simba got to know the rhythms of our relationship and we got to expect an occasional lick on the face. We found ourselves putting little plastic sandwich bags on Simba's feet on the rare occasions that snow fell. You see Simba, the Samoyed, doesn't like the feel of snow on his paws. This, of course, is a contradiction to his breed who originally were sled dogs. We also came to learn that Simba is afraid of spiders. I wonder how much of that fear he learned from my husband. The two would run out of the room, husband yelling kill it, dog yelping 'help'. Hey what is wrong with this picture, isn't it supposed to be damsel in distress? It always amazed me at the fear a tiny spider could evoke in a dog that barked at everyone who came to our door. I never feared that an intruder would get passed Simba, but we might as well have put 'Welcome All Spiders' on our doormat.
We grew as a family with the arrival of our first child. Simba would sheepishly approach the bassinet and give a good sniff, then park himself at the nursery door to stand guard. He accepted this tiny new member of the pack without hesitation. He even stashed goodies in the cushions of the couch that he would offer up to the baby. It was a cute gesture, however disgusting the dried out shrimp looked. Again we found ourselves experiencing something new, being parents of the human sort. Simba had broken us in, trained us for this very moment. He stood tall like a peacock as if to say 'no problem mom and dad, glad to help".
We have since moved back North and have added 2 more children to the pack. Simba is old now and moves with hesitation. He no longer hides shrimp in the couch or requires plastic bags on his feet. Now he struggles down the back stairs to the snow covered yard, looking back at us as if to say "no problem mom and dad". I watch over him as he watched over our babies. He gave us such a gift as a young couple, the chance to be a family, we owe him so much. This may be the last Winter Simba struggles down the stairs, the last Spring he hides from spiders, but he will remain perfectly preserved in all the seasons of our hearts.
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