Frisky Lemieux  8/1/88 - 4/9/02

Frisky – Our Beloved Pet

Greg and Bev Lemieux

Frisky brightened up our lives for the past 13 years. We picked her out from the Humane Society when she was 6 months old, or rather she picked us out. She came forward from the other dogs to lick our hands through the gate. We fell in love with her on the spot.

When we took her home with us, we quickly found out she was named Frisky for good reason. She was so hyper. And she loved to chew things – including our clothes and furniture and even one remote control. The vet kept telling us she’s going to  get over it in six months to a year – but it was more like two years before she stopped that habit.

Still, she was adorable. She used to curl up in a little ball to sleep. We’ll always remember her pointy ears, that would pop up anytime she heard a noise and would sink down anytime she got caught doing something she shouldn’t be doing.

At first we kept her in the garage at night, but one night it was colder than expected. Poor Frisky curled up in her little bed the next day, weak and shivering. We hugged her and promised if she got better, we’d never put her in the garage at night again. She recovered, and from then on, she stayed in the house with us at night. We got a crate for her to stay in – somewhere she could go if she wanted to be alone. We had a fence put in our big back yard so she could run around free. We even bought her a doghouse once in the back yard, but eventually the elements took their toll on it and we had to destroy it. We wonder what Frisky must have thought as she watched us through the sliding glass door dismantling her little house.

We remember trying to clip her toenails once. She kept fidgeting and we nicked the nail down too far and it started bleeding. She wasn’t in pain, but she ran around the house bleeding from the nail, staining the floors and the rug. From then on, we let the vet handle that duty.

Frisky was our security blanket. We were never afraid to open the door with her there to protect us. She was a great watchdog – even better than we could have imagined. One night she was in the back yard and kept barking. We went out to check and found she had cornered a weasel in his hole. We distracted her so the weasel could escape – we were afraid she might kill it. The weasel ran off under the fence and never came back.

She was a loyal dog and we were never afraid she’d run away. She loved to come up to us at night and lick our feet. At times we wished she would stop doing that, but now we know we’re going to miss that.

She was a basset mixed with a German Shepherd. She had a big Shepherd head on a little basset body. So she had to have a couple of knee surgeries over the years and a special diet in her later years so that her little legs could carry her big structure. But she was worth every penny we spent on her.