JERICHO, Vt. (WCAX) – At the South Burlington Dog Park, it’s a place for dogs to run free, and for humans to reflect on what pets mean to them.
Liz Schick is a doting dog-sitter. “I love all my grand-dogs,” she said. This week, she’s taking care of 16.5 year 16.5-year-old Lula. “Lula is greatly loved.”
The Super Senior has a handful of dogs she sits for. Lula is her oldest. “I love them all, I really do,” she said.
But truth be told, her favorite dog that she’s owned was her last — Chloe. They both were there for Larry, Schick’s husband, as his health declined. “She was with me through the ordeal. Luckily, we were able to spend the last four or five days with him at the respite house — which was just wonderful,” she said.
Larry died shortly after that, leaving a big gap. “We sort of waited for him to walk into a room… And after six or seven months of that, she and I said, you know what, we can’t do this anymore,” Schick recalled.
She sold her condo in Colchester and the two of them moved to Essex. “This is where all my doggies are. This is Chloe when she was a puppy,” Schick says, pointing to a photo. “Her toes were always painted; she was so elegant.”
But a year later, Chloe passed away. “For the first time, then, I really was lonely. It was {the first time} in 55 years that I had lived alone,” Schick said. “I was really stressed. So, anybody with a passing dog, I would stop, I’d give treats.”
A new puppy would be too for the now 84-year-old. And an older dog, she says, would most likely need expensive vet bills. Plus, the thought of another dog dying was too much. That’s when Schick thought of dog-sitting. “You take care of it, love it, and then you give it back,” she said.
Along with dog-sitting, she found the time to self-publish a book, “Dogs I Have Known-Briefly or Well”
Reporter Joe Carroll: Is this another stage in your life?
Liz Schick: Absolutely… it wasn’t so much as therapeutic, it was fun.
Reporter Joe Carroll: “‘A Mature Woman’s Adventure…’”
Liz Schick: Yes, I didn’t want to say old lady!
Schick writes about what her dogs have meant to her. “It serves as a reminder that it’s never too late to find a renewed purpose,” she said.
Back with Lula — who can have a hard time navigating the steps — Schick sees it as a metaphor for all of us. “We collapse a little bit, but we keep going — that’s guts,” she said. “We’re not going to give up.”
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