Mila

 

There was excitement in the air as neighbors greeted each other in the hallways or lobby of our apartment building. “Did you see the little dog?” “Someone has a dog!” “Have you seen the dog – it’s so cute!”

The second part of the conversation was usually something like, “I thought they didn’t allow dogs here.” More on that, in a moment.

When my wife Toni and I moved to coastal Connecticut two years ago to spend our golden years close to our daughter and two of our darling grandchildren, the apartment lease made it clear: dogs were strictly verboten. One cat, no dogs.

The timing of our post-retirement move was dependent on the lifespan of our two loyal and loving collies, who lived with us in Madison and patrolled our expansive back yard every day of their lives with us. We weren’t going to move until both dogs had “crossed the rainbow bridge,” as so many dog-lovers say. We figured that would be mid-2022.

Fate had other plans.

Our beloved Shadow passed away of a massive stroke in January of 2019, just before my wife retired. Shadow lived a full and happy 13 years and three months, which is just above average for a collie. Since Shadow and her “sister,” Sunny, had similar bloodlines, we figured Sunny would also live a bit more than 13 years – mid-2022, we estimated. Then, we’d sell the house and move to Connecticut, probably in the summer of 2023.

But, less than a month after Shadow passed, Sunny was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive form of cancer, and she passed in early February 2019. We were devastated. And suddenly, our timetable changed.

Here's one of my favorite photos of our wonderful collies, taken a few years ago. Sunny, on the left, is a purebred Blue Merle Collie, and Shadow, on the right, is a purebred Sable Collie - a Lassie look-alike.

So, here we are, in a very nice apartment, happily retired.  No lawn-mowing, no snow-shoveling, no landscaping maintenance. Plumbing on the fritz? Send a note to Michael, the building super, and it’s fixed the same day. Free to enjoy all our favorite pastimes, free of chores that became tedious as we got older.

But the lifestyle we chose would also be free of dogs – a major trade-off for us. 

Dog-less, until the late fall day that I looked out my office window and saw the most darling little dog, on a leash held by a young woman. The dog was carefully examining with her nose the shrubbery that adorns the north lawn of our building. After she’d completed her nasal inquiries, her “mom” led her – to my amazement – up the sidewalk and into the lobby!

Could the dog be a visitor? Certainly not a resident, given the proscription against canines in the lease. I mentioned the dog sighting to my wife, knowing she’d be curious, too. Over the next couple days, I saw the cute little dog several more times. My wife and I would immediately report sightings to each other, if we happened to be in a different room in our apartment when the dog was sighted.

There are about 60 residents in our building, and I’d estimate that more than half are retired. The younger people are professionals, working from home. They must have good jobs, because this place isn't exactly "affordable housing." So, the hallways and common areas tend to be quiet. It was just a couple days after I first spotted the little dog that when I encountered fellow residents, after the standard greetings, we’d mention the little dog.

I guess it’s a commentary on the status of being retired, that conversations with residents of a similar age tend to center on the weather and similar mundane things. The people who live here respect each other’s privacy, one of the many things we like about living here. So, something as novel as a cute little dog apparently living in our building rapidly supplants the weather as the prime conversation topic. A lot of our new neighbors are also former dog owners.

One morning, while down in the lobby to retrieve our mail, I encountered a woman who said she’d actually petted the little dog. This is headline news! I took the elevator back to our apartment and immediately reported this scoop to my wife. “She PETTED the dog?” my wife said, plaintively.

The mystery of the little dog would be solved the very next morning. Five or six mornings every week, my wife spends an hour in the apartment building’s gym, walking, exercising, working out. That particular morning, on her way down the hallway to the elevator, my wife encountered our friend, Jeri, who had befriended us immediately when we moved in.

Jeri is of a similar age, retired, but she puts in a half-day of work every weekday, keeping the common areas of the building vacuumed, polished, and sparkling clean. For this, she gets a big break on her monthly rent. Since Jeri’s routine takes her to every part of the building, she knows all the residents and just about everything that’s going on.

She explained to my wife that the little dog – Mila is her name – belongs to a young couple who just moved in. They both work from home. Mila is a therapy animal. Jeri explained that the young couple had to jump through a bunch of hoops with the New York City company that owns our building, filing paperwork from their doctor and therapist, attesting that Mila was more than just a pet.

Mila's "mom" explained that Mila is an Australian Shepherd. Mila looks just like the dog pictured at the top of this post.

My wife got to meet Mila a few days later, in the lobby of the building. Toni was returning home after running some errands, and she was coming into the building as Mila and her “mom” were heading out. Toni told me about meeting Mila, petting her, and talking with one of Mila’s owners.

My chance to meet Mila came a few days later. We’d just returned from grocery shopping and were dragging the groceries into the building when Mila and her “mom” came out of the building. Mila was very excited and happy to interact with us. She sniffed my hand, putting my scent into her memory banks, and then soaked in some serious pets from me. Her coat was, as advertised, soft and fluffy. She's a happy, peppy little dog.

A few days later, we discovered that Mila and her people live on the same floor, at the other end of our wing of the building. It may seem silly to people who have never had a dog as a pet, but we are happier now that we know there’s a dog living just down the hallway from us.