Phyllis Blackshaw Now Has Something to Live For: She’s Maddie’s Mother

Meet Maddie Blackshaw.

Phyllis Blackshaw hadn't been without a whippet for 26 years. She had her first one for 11 years, and lost her second one in the summer of 2007 at the ripe old age of 15. Phyllis had visited my husband's studio, and had met my whippets, so she called wondering if I knew of any older whippets available.

"The problem is," she said, "I'm 87 years old, and I do understand why no one wants to sell me a dog. But I have a lot of love to give, and maybe there's an older whippet who needs to be loved?"

I posted about Phyllis' plight on a whippet Internet group. Maybe I could find a 10- or 11-year-old dog in need of a home. I thought of myself in Phyllis' shoes, and cried myself to sleep.

An only child, Phyllis had a magical marriage to a husband whom she adored, but he had passed away years ago. And then she had lost her only child, a son of whom she was so proud, way too young, to cancer.

Her grandchildren live far away. And her sweet Zipper, her whippet who had been through it all with her, who lived a blessed 15 years, could live no longer and was gone. Oh, it was too, too, horrid.

Enter Maddie. Maddie lived with her breeder, Paula, in West Virginia. She had earned her Championship, and was spayed. When Paula read about Phyllis, she sent me an email. "I think I have the perfect dog."

I worried. Maddie was only eight. She had spent her whole life in a house full of dogs. Would she be too much for Phyllis? Would she freak out being an only dog? How would we get her here?

Phyllis' dear friend drove to Cincinnati and met Paula just to get Maddie. I should have never worried.

Maddie and Phyllis adore each other. Maddie is so gentle. Neighbors take her on long walks every day. I went to visit a week after Maddie arrived to see how things were doing.

"Oh, she just snuggles so close in bed and we keep each other warm," Phyllis beams. Maddie wagged and smiled and circled adoringly around her. "And you know, when I get my cane, she waits for me to get the door open and she lets me go through first. And she tells me when it's time for her dinner!"

I sat on the couch, listening to Phyllis talk about going off to college ("my parents wanted me to be able to take care of myself if something happened to them") in New York, and seeing her first whippet. And I watched Maddie lying under her new human's chair, listening as intently as I was to every word. "She's perfect, you know. She gives me sweet kisses and isn't she so beautiful?"

Yes, she is indeed.

A year later on one of my visits, I looked at this lady's beautiful face, so animated and happy. Radiant. And I saw the same radiance mirrored in Maddie's expression. As I stood to leave, I remarked how wonderfully I thought everything had turned out.

With her hand resting on Maddie's head, Phyllis says, "Well, you see, I really didn't have anything to live for. And now I do. I'm Maddie's Mommy, and I can't stop smiling. She saved my life."

Rock on, Maddie.

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