This is the day Lady Luck found Holly

Wow! If only you could hit the big one. The big kahuna! Seven come eleven, you hit the Lotto, and now you’re going to be rolling in big bucks. You beat the million-to-1 odds and pick the right numbers, and life couldn’t be sweeter. Pure happiness roars through those old sluggish veins, like the last day of school when you’re pulling out of the school yard on the bus with dust flying. It feels so good to be alive.

But let me tell you what really is beating the odds. And where happiness can never be measured by “big bucks.”

A lonely dog lies in a cold metal cage surrounded by other desperate dogs that long with all their unwanted hearts for a home. What are their odds? A billion to 1? Remember, they don’t get to buy Lotto tickets.

Lady Luck came walking in, wearing a baggy sweat shirt and old jeans, on a cold April morning. She walked down the bare concrete aisle and looked into the faces that looked back. With tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat, I knew I could pick only one.

At the time, I hadn’t thought about it at all. I only knew I had lost my dear old Chubby dog and I needed another.

But their need was greater. For some, Lady Luck never would walk down their aisle.

I told the woman at the Humane Society that I needed an old dog that just wants to lie around. Show me the oldest hound you’ve got, because I don’t want my squirrels being chased. A big old lazy mutt that will lie next to me in bed at night, whose weight I will feel curled up behind my legs. A dog that won’t run through my freshly barked flower beds and trample my hostas. And won’t hit the fence at a dead run when the mailman walks by. (We’re talking about an old fence with wobbly wooden posts.)

I was looking for mellow yellow. Well, that was The Plan. Yep, mellow yellow.

There in the second cage down the left side of kennel No. 2, Lady Luck shone upon the skinniest, boniest yellow dog I had ever seen. Her ribs were poking through her skin. Hipbones were sharp, and every vertebra could be counted.

But her eyes were big and brown. I forgot to notice the long, lean racing legs. I missed the absence of a gray muzzle that would have spoken of “old and lazy.” So much for The Plan.

Her name is Holly.

“I thought you were going to get an old dog,” my husband said as I let Holly out of the car and she tore off at a dead run through the flower beds.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” I said.

She ran like a gazelle! Covered 200 yards in four strides. The squirrels have never forgiven me.

Her belly is full of Alpo, and her gold hair covers my quilt on the bed. She sprawls on the hot deck and sunbathes. Her ribs no longer poke through her soft yellow hair. There are grass stains on her feet.

And pure happiness shines in her eyes.

Mine, too.

I didn’t realize until today that I was the elusive Lady Luck everyone pines for while buying a lottery ticket at the checkout stand, hoping against the odds to win a million bucks.

With the flip of a wrist, I unlocked the door of a cage and gave the pure joy of the last day of school for the rest of her life to a little yellow dog.

I gave Holly a home.