Surfer Girl

Marissa and Surfer Girl

I was a very quiet and shy as a child. I hated talking to people I didn't know and didn't make friends easily. When I was eight years old my family found out that my father had cancer. I knew that it was bad, but I had no idea at the age of eight what that meant. I did not realize that he would die. I did not realize I would grow up without a father. At that time it was just something my family was going through and I had to appear strong. I don't even know why. But I rarely ever cried about him being gone and I certainly did not want to talk about how I was really feeling, not even to my mother. Everything from then on was bottled up inside me. I had no best friend to share my secrets with. That all changed one rainy Mother’s Day in 2000. It was a year after my father had passed away and we as a family were trying to figure out what to do with ourselves and what lay in store for the future. We went to the mall for some rainy day shopping and I of course was drawn to the pet store. The dog that this caught my eye was this solid brown puppy that my mom told me was a Chocolate Lab. She told me then that she and my dad had been thinking about getting a dog and that Labradors were a breed that were considering before he got sick. Well I took that to be fate calling my name! This puppy was sitting there in the cage just calling to me. After about 20 minutes of playing and cuddling with her I knew, just knew somewhere in the pit of me, that this was supposed to be my dog. I looked at my mother with a look of pleading that she says will never again, and we returned home not with just a few shopping bags but a puppy and all the accessories we needed. The puppy whom we named Surfer Girl for her love of water started off as the family pet, but Surf had other plans! As a young dog with tons of energy and a family where my sister and I were in school all day Surf found her way into a lot of trouble. She would escape from almost any crate or fenced area that we put her in, she learned to open cabinet doors and get into the trash, as well as how to turn door knobs to escape from a room and even how to open the refrigerator and freezer doors to help herself to our groceries. There was no exact day that I can pinpoint it too, but sometime in the second year of owning Surf she became my dog; and with ownership came the responsibility of everything she did. I suppose most kids, like my sister, would have been fed up with cleaning up after the refrigerator raids and the not so pleasant after effects of the raids that ended up on some carpet or another. Not me. I was not giving up on her. She was mine. I thoroughly enjoyed spending my time training her and taking her for walks. I taught her dozens of tricks that she enjoyed showing off. As Surf's seemingly endless energy started to ever so slightly fade with age my confidence soared. I was attending 4-H meetings with Surf and meeting people that cared about their dogs and training just as much as I did. I was finally able to make lasting friendships and Surf enabled me to do that. My daily conversations started to revolve around Surf or anything dog. I started reading anything and everything about dogs I could get my hands on. By high school some could probably say I was dog-obsessed! Surf not only was a confident booster for me as I went on to take leadership positions in both 4-H clubs and school clubs, but she was my confidante. I could tell her anything in the world and she wouldn't tell a soul. If I was upset she knew when I needed my space or needed her next to me for support. I could tell her how I was feeling without the questioning that I would get from a friend or family member. She never got mad or angry with me, and was never disappointed in me. It may seem strange but I have conversations with her. Of course they are one sided, but it is almost like she is the voice of reason. She is my conscience. If I ask her a question or opinion I always know the right thing to do, even if I choose not to listen. From very early on I always felt that my father had picked Surf from heaven and placed her on this earth just for me. I felt that she was my connection to him and that sometimes she would give me these looks of such human expression that it had to be him in there somewhere shining through this big brown dog. I realize know that most people might just say, "well sure she's a special dog to you but--," and although I realize how unscientifically possible it is, I still hold onto this notion. Two years ago another tragedy struck our family. My 16 year old cousin Laura whom I was very close to was tragically killed in a car accident. My family and friends all pooled together for support, but again I held in my feelings of pain and anger. I didn't want to talk to anyone not even my best and closest "human" friend, but I did talk to Surf. Surf was there for long walks of the beach for silent thinking and to catch my tears when I cried. She was there to listen to me vent about how unfair life is and how God shouldn't take such young lives away from our family. She was there to remind me though that God works in mysterious ways and that she was given to me so that I could deal with the pain in my young life. Today at the age of ten Surf still manages to get herself in trouble and act like a puppy again, but she is also still there for me when I need her. Being away from her to go to school is so hard, but it makes our joyful reunions that much more special. In the past ten years she has helped me grow from a 10 year old child afraid to even talk on the phone to someone I didn't know, to a now young adult in college studding Animal Science. Surf is my inspiration for my career goals and I often think how my life might have turned out differently if we hadn't gone to the mall that dreary Mother's Day. I know for a fact that I wouldn't be sitting at this desk at the University of Vermont five hours from home if that little ball of brown fur hadn't come home with us that day. One of my favorite quotes is from the Broadway musical Wicked. It says "I've heard it said, that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn. And we are led to those who help us most to grow if we let them, and we help them in return. Well I don't know if I believe that's true, but I know I'm who I am today because I knew you." If I could change just one word I would omit the word "people" and replace it with "dogs." Everything else about this quote represents how I feel about how my dog Surfer Girl changed my life. And to finish with another quote from the same song, "I do believe I have been changed for the better; I have been change for good."