January 18, 2020

Finding Angel

As I often refer to my dog, I thought you might find our story interesting.

I wrote this article seven years ago. As I didn’t have subscribers in those days and only had a website, the chances are you didn’t read it at the time. But as I often refer to my dog, I thought you might find our story interesting. Even after all this time, I confess I still find the kismet aspects that had to align themselves in order to bring my dog and me together rather astonishing.

Our tale begins in June of 2012. Yvonne and I had just had our second dog, Duke, put to sleep a few months earlier. He had been a Maltese, just like our earlier Sammy. Because each time it had somehow been decided that I would be the one to take our dog to the vet for the fatal injection, I decided I had to put my foot down. No more dogs, I told my wife. There was just too much grief involved in losing them. But that’s an easier vow to make than to keep if you love dogs.

So Yvonne and I had begun to talk about what kind of dog to get in the unlikely event that I ever changed my mind. As usual, she said it would have to be small and white just like the other two. I insisted that it would have to be female.

Understand, I have nothing against male dogs, although I still get the willies when I recall taking Sammy, our first dog, to the vet to be neutered. The operation is bad enough, but the real shock was having the vet summon us from the waiting room by attaching our last name to the dog’s first name. You see, Sam had been my father’s name, and there was something definitely unnerving about having “Sam Prelutsky” summoned to be neutered. It was like something out of a Greek tragedy or a French farce.

In any case, the reason that I indicated a preference for a female dog was because both Sammy and Duke seemed to have a streak of cat in their makeup. It wasn’t that they’d hiss or scratch or hide under the sofa. They just struck me as slightly aloof. Duke, in particular, had a way of ignoring you if you came home after several hours away, as if to let you know that if you could get along without him, he was only too happy to return the favor. He would actually turn his back on me.

Admittedly, I had no way of knowing if this was a trait common to all Maltese dogs, but I had a hunch that a female would be more understanding of my real or imagined failings and more affectionate.

But, as I say, I had made up my mind that I would never again put myself in a position where I would have to put a dog out of its misery, no matter how painlessly I knew it could be done. Painless, that is, for the dog, but not nearly so painless for me.

Once again, man plans and God laughs. One day, my wife and I were leaving the house, and a woman I didn’t recognize was across the street attaching a flyer to a telephone pole. As we made our way to my car, she crossed quickly and headed us off. I looked around for something I could use as a weapon. This is, after all, Los Angeles.

“Have you lost a white dog?” she asked.

“We did,” I replied, “but I suspect not in the way you mean.”

She explained that she’d found a dog wandering around without a collar. She’d been putting up notices all over the neighborhood and checking with the pound, but no luck. She said it was a friendly dog, but she worked fulltime and would feel guilty keeping it locked up all day.

My wife asked her what the dog looked like. It was small and white.

I asked its gender. It was female.

Yvonne and I looked at each other. I suggested we follow the woman home and check out the animal. She lived about eight blocks away, proving she really had gone all out to find the dog’s owner.

Needless to say, we took the dog home with us.

When my wife asked what we should name her, I never even hesitated: “Angel. What else?” It’s probably worth mentioning that I was writing the script for “Angels on Tap” at the time.

One day, about six months later, while walking Angel, a neighbor from up the block came rushing outside and asked me if this had been a lost dog. I acknowledged she had been, and wondered what had prompted the question, fearing it was her dog and she wanted her back.

“Well, just about every weekend, my husband and I go out on our boat. This one Saturday morning, when we came outside, I saw a little dog walking up the middle of the street. After giving her some water, I told my husband he should go out on the boat himself because I wanted to keep the dog. He insisted I go with him. He said if the dog was still around when we got home Sunday night, I could keep her. Naturally, by the time we got back, she was nowhere to be found. I’m just so relieved to see she’s found a good home.”

I was also relieved. I was afraid I was going to have to lie and say we had found Angel, sure, but on the other side of the hill. No way this could possibly be her dog.

Now, normally, I’m not what you’d call a religious guy. But when you realize the odds of Angel, a small, white, female dog, winding up with us — considering the fact that the woman who found her worked fulltime and couldn’t keep her; the fact that this other woman had to go boating; the fact that we came out of our house at the exact moment that the first woman was standing where she could spot us; even the fact that little Angel had somehow been able to survive for some length of time on the street — it’s difficult not to see our coming together as anything less than a small, but actual, miracle.

The only drawback is that Angel clearly spent so much time fending for herself that on our walks, she insists on grazing on grass, leaves, twigs and just about any other plant life she comes across. Old habits clearly die hard.

No matter how often I tell her those bad days are over and she’ll never have to scavenge again, I don’t think she entirely believes me. I suspect she heard a rumor that I had once in a weak moment sworn off dogs. Or possibly, like people who lived through the Great Depression, she can’t shake the fear that more bad days are always lurking just around the corner.

Angel has now been with us close to a year, and I think it’s safe to say that she is the second greatest dog in the world. Second only to your own, of course.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.