The day began like any other. I woke up. I had been sick the night before. The dogs had been sympathetic. Heidi, my little mutt, seemed to be having trouble with her legs. That wasn't surprising. She was over 14 years old.

Bodhi, who was a few months younger, already had spells of unsteadiness and falling awkwardly, but getting up in good spirits and without a damaged ego. Bodhi had no ego and he was always content as long as he was well fed and his feet were dry and warm. If only we all could be like that.

Heidi was a bit small from my point of view. She was a squat, compact, 35 pounds when full grown. Her nose was slightly off center, twisting to one side, and that deviation in her septum made her susceptible to snoring. When exhausted she snored louder. She had triangular ears that were slightly tipped. She was a tricolor with a slight dash of white on her chest.

I like bigger dogs, but Heidi chose me. On a dark summer night, my ex-husband and I came driving home when I spotted something circling in the dark shadows. It was a small puppy. The vet would later guess-timate five months old. I was naive then. I didn't understand that living a few houses down from a park meant a constant stream of dumped dogs, cats, and rabbits. That would signal the beginning of each summer I lived in that neighborhood.

As I said, I was naive and thought surely someone had lost this dog. I put ads in several papers and even had to pay for one due to a misunderstanding. We already had two dogs - both collies. My dog, Laddie, adored this new puppy. When we finally let her out to play with the collies, Laddie would roll over on his back and let Heidi pounce on him, her legs too short to touch ground on both sides. She produced an amazing array of sounds - growls, snarls, and sharp little pay attention barks.

That was after I made the decision to keep her alive. Soon after we had rescued her, she collapsed. We rushed her to the vet. He said he wasn't sure. He thought she might have been hit by a car and she also might have parvo. We could spend $500 on her and he wasn't sure if she would pull through. My ex-husband left it up to me. She did pull through, although we did have to work on her great fear of cars.