<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/smae.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-348" title="smae" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/smae.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="491" /></a>
<h5 style="padding-left: 210px;"><em>Maeve cuddling up with our Very Scary third grader.</em></h5>
We've had our dog, Maeve, for more than a month now. A week or so ago, as we were headed out for a walk, we passed by my next door neighbor, Jane, who was sitting on her porch.

"Look at her!" Jane said. "She positively <em>prances</em>! She looks so confident, like she owns the world."

Jane is a hard-core dog lover, and even teaches some training classes. I was pleased that our neighborhood canine expert could see Maeve's progress.

"Yep," I said, "she seems to have settled into her life with us."

"She's acting like that because she knows she's loved," Jane continued on, all matter-of-fact. "She's been taken care of before, but she's never been <em>loved special</em>, like you love her."

<em>Loved special.</em> As soon as she spoke the words, I knew Jane's theory was true. <strong>Being loved special was life's magic elixir. It had finally worked its way into Maeve's bloodstream, becoming a part of who she is.</strong>
<h4>The rough puppy months</h4>
Maeve, who is probably about eight months old, was born at a puppy mill in Indiana. From what I understand, puppy mills are typically places where many dogs are kept and bred in poor conditions, without concern for the health of the mothers, just for the purpose of making money off the puppies. All but three states—Pennsylvania, Missouri and Indiana—have regulations against them.

Maeve was rescued from this puppy mill by someone from a no-kill shelter. The details are fuzzy because we never spoke to the person who made the rescue. I always picture a masked bandit who swoops in, maybe on a white horse, scooping up neglected dogs and riding with them into the sunset. Something tells me it wasn't quite such a dramatic rescue, though.

After the rescue, Maeve lived in a shelter or some sort of kennel for a few weeks, before moving in with a foster family; she lived there for a couple of months, before moving in with us. Somewhere along the way, she was called Kelsey, which struck me as a name no one we hang out with would ever give their child, but I really don't think it negatively affected her.

When Jason and I first met Maeve, in her foster family's home, she was very sweet and docile. She was also tentative and maybe a little sad. <strong>Life had been unpredictable and hard for her. She didn't quite know where she fit into the world.</strong> I imagine she found ways to cope, and learned to not expect much from her little life, but she certainly wasn't able to reach her full potential.

The dogs at her foster home were her close companions, but she wasn't so sure about the high-energy, loud little boy who also lived there, and whose friends often came over for light saber fights. We were warned in advance that the pup was tentative around kids, but she wasn't the least bit aggressive. Anyway, our three girls are very mellow and great with animals, so we weren't concerned.
<h4>A new chance with a forever family</h4>
<strong>During her first couple of weeks with us, a variety of things worried Maeve:</strong> People riding by on bikes. Street cleaners and recycling trucks. The basement stairs and the unknown world that awaited her at the bottom. Most of all, Maeve was worried about children. Particularly children under the age of 12 who made loud noises and unexpected sudden movements.

When I tried to walk her by a yard where kids were playing—even if we stayed on the <em>opposite</em> side of the street—she began desperately pulling at her leash, begging me to turn around and take a different route. You can imagine how traumatic the morning walk to school was for her, with kids hopping out of cars, calling to their friends and charging noisily to the front doors of the school.

But even the most careful, slow-moving, calm children sent Maeve slinking into another room, ears back, tail down. When it came to our three girls, she was fine around 12-year-old H, only slightly worried about 11-year-old Q, and did everything she could to avoid 9-year-old S.

<strong>I can admit it now: I was a bit worried.</strong> <strong>And stressed.</strong> Maeve seemed like the perfect dog for Jason and me, but we got a dog in the first place because of the kids, not because we felt a burning need to care for and worry about yet another living creature. And S was starting to develop a complex because the dog didn't seem to like her, no matter what she did.

One day, when we were in the back yard playing with Maeve, and I felt we were starting to make a tiny bit of progress, the neighbor boy came over and ran thundering up and down the slide on our climber, waving some sort of sword. I thought Maeve was about to go into cardiac arrest. Where was the doggy defibrillator?
<h4>Patience + love + consistency.</h4>
But time is a balm. We worked hard to muffle the many startling things about life. <strong>Our main technique was taking all the nooks and indentations where worry and fear might otherwise settle in Maeve, and filling them with love and affection.</strong> With all of the family-wide snuggling we did on the sofa and the bed, Maeve right at the center, there was little time for her to focus on imaginary or past fears.

And then, suddenly, it seemed to click for her: "This is my family—my forever family," as animal shelters like to say. <strong>Somehow she knew all five of us were ultimately focused on what's best for her, and that she could trust us, and feel secure no matter what was happening around her.</strong>

Now Maeve prances, as Jane said, head and ears up—even when we walk by the line of cars depositing kids at school in the mornings. She's curious, rather than worried, about every new thing she sees and hears. And at the end of the day, when Saskia comes running up the sidewalk toward us, often with several little friends in tow, Maeve wriggles and whimpers for joy.

<strong>Now that I think of it, being loved special probably has the same affect on all of us. </strong>