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antique store, and the owner had a really sweet little dog, a small black miniature Brussels griffon. They have squashed-in faces and wiry coats and are really nice, very affectionate dogs. I admired the dog, said how cute she was, and we left. And the next day the antique dealer called me, sounding excited, and said, “She’s on her way to you, she’ll be here in two hours.” Who will be here in two hours? I wasn’t expecting anyone. He rapidly explained that his dog had a littermate, a sister, who had never found a home, came from Ohio, and he had had the breeder send her to me as a gift.
What?
Did I want a dog?
No!
Now what was I going to do? The dog was on a plane, on its way to me, and I thought it was an incredibly presumptuous thing to do. How could he send me a
dog
without even knowing if I wanted one? We already had a flock of dogs!
    I was furious, but feeling somehow responsible for this unwanted gift, I went to the airport and picked up the dog, determined to give it to someone else or send it back. I picked up the crate and looked inside. The dog I had admired was small, cuddly, perfect, even beautiful. And when I opened the crate, I found myself looking at a gargoyle with fur. The poor thing looked at me with worried eyes. She was much bigger than her sister and noticeably overweight, and she had a massive underbite that made her look like a bulldog. It was a classiccase of the beautiful sister (I had met) and the ugly one (I had just received). I felt so sorry for the dog, and she arrived with the name of Greta. But she was even sweeter than her sister. She looked embarrassed to be there, like an uninvited guest.
    I took her home, and John laughed when he saw her and said, “Now there’s a face only a mother could love,” and I bristled. What a mean thing to say about my dog!! I had to take several of the kids to the orthodontist that afternoon, and took her with me, and the minute he saw her, the orthodontist looked at her with fascination. “Ah! She has a class-three malocclusion. If she were a human, I could fit her with braces for that.” Great.
    I don’t know what happened, but beautiful or not, I fell in love with Greta that day. I had managed to avoid dog-love for thirty years by then, even being married to one of the major dog lovers of our time and living surrounded by a gazillion dogs, but Greta had my heart instantly. And she turned out to be one of the greatest dogs I ever had, and surely one of the dogs I loved most. She had just a wonderful loving nature, despite her funny looks. And one of her other sisters came to me a year later, when her owner died, Cookie. But Greta remained my most beloved dog. She lived to be thirteen, and had a terrific life with us. She became the queen of the house—after all, she was Mom’s dog. So I became one of the dog lovers too.

    My beloved dog Greta (with the class-three malocclusion underbite)

Danielle Steel
    But everyone knows that, just like people, not all dogs are perfect, and there have been a few lemons in our lives. Sweet Pea remains on the debatable list. And in the No Good Deed Goes Unpunished category, John’s mother passed away two years after we were married. She had had a standard dachshund named Trixie who was fourteen years old, barked incessantly, and was unfriendly, but John insisted we take her, and he said, “How much longer can she live at fourteen?” I decided he was right and agreed. The answer to that question was: nearly forever. She lived to be twenty-one and spent seven years barking in my house.
    And many years later, when I remarried, I gave my new husband the dog of his dreams: a Rhodesian ridgeback, a splendidly beautiful, graceful, but enormous creature. Ridgebacks are trained to chase lions in their native South Africa and run like the wind. But they are also one-man dogs, and this one had some sort of personality disorder, and like Sweet Pea, he did not like me, protective of his owner perhaps and possessive of