Before I write anything else, you need to understand something: Roxy and I are a package deal.
I adopted her a little over four years ago from Petey and Furends, a women-led nonprofit here in Washington, D.C. When her foster brought her to my patio for the first time, Roxy's leg was bandaged — a melon-sized tumor had been removed the day before. The patch on her back was almost completely bald, the skin eaten away from flea bites. She was in rough shape.
For the first three months she lived with me, Roxy didn't wag her tail. Not once. Her foster had kept her for six months before I got her, and the tail had barely moved then either. Then, slowly, it started to move a little when I offered her a snack. She is, to put it gently, extremely snack-motivated. She hates the cold. Loves sunshine. Prefers not to be snuggled. She carries herself with a kind of dignified crookedness that I find very relatable.
Now her tail wags all day when I'm around. While I'm at work, she naps. This is the full scope of her ambitions, and I respect that deeply.
Tonight I cut her nails for the first time. I'd been trying to get a groomer appointment for a month and eventually gave up. The last time I tried cutting them myself — when I first adopted her — I nipped her. Just barely, just a little. But Roxy is nothing if not dramatic. There was howling. There was a withdrawal of trust that lasted, and I'm not exaggerating, years.
Tonight she was lying on her side. I grabbed the industrial dog shears and just did it — snipped the ends of her little crooked toenails. She didn't flinch. And I could tell immediately, watching her walk afterward, that she was relieved. No more tap-tap-tap on the sidewalk.
Four years. That's what it took. And it was worth every single day of it.
