My brother and I had been asking for another dog for almost a year when my parents finally said we could go to the shelter. It was time to get Riley, my other dog, a playmate for the few years that he had left with us.
When we got to the shelter, we were amazed at how many dogs were actually there. The shelter’s website listed around 30 dogs, but there had to be more than 50 available for adoption at the shelter. We just walked the aisles, trying to see which dog responded best to us, and found Lola.
She was a small dog: a pocket pit-bull, black and white, with a spot of mange on her forehead. But she was also the dog that actually looked overjoyed to see us, and when we played with her, all she wanted to do was kiss us and snuggle.
When Riley and Lola met, they were a little uncomfortable at first but soon warmed up to each other and became buddies at the shelter. My family and I talked about the adoption for most of the night and decided that she was the dog for us. The next day, I went to the shelter and adopted her, but we had to wait a week for her to get spayed.
Finally, it became time to bring her home! And once we got her home, we discovered her weirdness.
She sat on her knees, with her paws behind her. She just sat naturally, like it was no big deal that she was on her knees, like no other dog we had ever seen before.
We all freaked out a bit at that point. Was something wrong with her? Did she need to go to the vet? So I took out my phone and Googled what she was doing. And discovered nothing.
When we took her to the vet for her shots, we showed the vet a picture we had taken of her sitting like that. The vet was dumbfounded. She had never seen anything like that before, either. She said that if Lola was not in pain, then it was fine, and that my dog was just weird.
Months later, Lola still does the same thing. She seems to have no bones when she sits or flops down on the floor.
Once, my dad saw her on the floor and freaked out because her body was in a J-shape, with her front legs behind her head and her back legs curled around her. It was weird, and kind of disturbing, but we love her anyways because she is a great dog despite her apparent lack of bones and contortionist abilities.
To this day, whenever I show people the way that my dog sits, they are stunned. They all make pretty much the same face, too. Everyone asks if she’s okay, and I say “Yep! That’s the way that she normallysits.”
Nobody believes me at first, until I show them the other pictures that I have of herin contortionist positions. My dog is weird, but we love her all the more for it.
This column is open to student submissions about anything weird in their life that they would like to share with the students of Capital University. Submissions should be around 500 words in length, and please include an image of your subject. Send submissions to: chimes@capital.edu.
Photo taken by Ellie Johns
