Our dog loves shoes

Late one evening last February, my wife Jilda and I heard scratching at the front door. We both looked up from our reading to listen. “There it is again,” Jilda said.

The watch on my wrist showed 9:30 p.m. Stepping to the windows by the door, I flipped the porch light on and looked out. Nothing. The outside thermometer read six degrees. A ribbon of frost had formed around the outside edges of the window.

Before sitting down, I heard the scratching again, so I turned and opened the door. A tiny shivering Yorkie scooted in and in the blink of an eye was sitting on the couch next to Jilda.

She grabbed a throw to cover the tiny critter, while I stepped to the front porch to see if anyone was in the yard or walking past on the road. There was no one.

That night the little dog slept bundled in a blanket in front of our fireplace.

We were sure we’d seen her at our neighbor’s house so the next day I stepped over to talk to them. Even though they’ve lived across the road a while, I didn’t know their name or phone number, but I left a note in their mailbox explaining that the dog had spent the night with us.

That afternoon, it warmed and we both had errands, so I put the little Yorkie out, commanding her to go home. Returning a few hours later, she was sitting on the arm of the couch wagging her tail in greeting.

I called Jilda at work to ask if she’d let the dog back inside. She said she hadn’t. The mystery deepened.

It was still daylight, so I put her out and watched through the window as she ran around the house. Stepping to the back door, I saw her crawl under the garden gate, and scamper through the yard before scooting through the doggie door we had installed for our collie Caillou. As it turns out, the neighbors were willing to let us have her, which is fortunate because that little mutt had wiggled her way into our hearts.

We named her Taz.

She behaves better than any dog we’ve ever owned. I thought she’d picked our house at random to survive the frigid night, but soon realized there were other motives at play.

One day I noticed her curled up on a pair of Jilda’s tennis shoes. When I leaned over to move the shoes to make room for her nap, she let out a low guttural growl that said, “Step away from the footwear, mister.” I’d heard that same sound from Jilda once when I impertinently tossed a pair of her expensive shoes into the closet.

To say my wife Jilda loves shoes is like saying the surface of sun is toasty. When she walks into high-end shoe stores her eyes glaze over and she tends to drool slightly. I discovered that Taz shares that same lust for shoes.

During the first few days of her visit to our house, Taz went on a discovery tour. She found Jilda’s shoe closet and later that afternoon she was in the living room with a pair of leather sandals. She wasn’t chewing them, only licking the soles and smelling every centimeter of the expensive Italian leather.

Taz quickly bonded with Jilda and often on weekends, you will find them on the couch looking through shoe catalogs. Ooooo, look at these boots Taz.

The pup will lick the pages and look up as if to say, “Will these fit us?” I retired from my full-time job a few years ago to write, but Jilda still works. While running errands recently, a friend asked her why she continued to work. Jilda pointed to the bumper sticker on the back of her Volvo, which reads, “Will work for shoes.”

Tazzy supports her decision 100 percent.