[Parents: Lucy Stolzenburg & Mark Welch]

Freida was just a twinkle in my eye when I began lobbying for her. I was missing Alice, who I had found as a six-week-old dirty rag on my apartment doorstep in the early 1990s. Alice was a small poodle mix, and she and I moved from Denver to Dripping Springs so I could marry a Texan. She had been gone about a year, and I wanted another small dog. Ten pounds was the target.

Our vet had a Rags to Riches program, pulling dogs out of the Uvalde animal shelter, rejuvenating them, and advertising them for adoption. Driving down 290 West, I’d see a new dog name on the marquee and think “hmmmm.” One day I saw Ginger Rogers and made a quick left turn into the parking lot.

Ginger Rogers totally lived up to her name—she could dance for a treat, and if she’d had heels, she would have done it backwards. I was in love.

But there was a roadblock. My husband was not on board for another small dog. We had three dogs already: a basset hound we’d found at the beach, a gorgeous clown of a golden retriever we’d rescued from a family who just didn’t get it, and a hunting Lab who couldn’t retrieve anything but the neighbors’ peanut butter and cat food bowls. Not to mention the bird and the cat. I kept hearing “No, no, no,” but my heart was set on Ginger Rogers.

Ginger did come to live with us, and we changed her name to Frieda. No dog in our home ever had the ability to entertain itself the way this ten-pounder did. She climbed trees in pursuit of squirrels, sat for hours in front of holes waiting for unsuspecting reptiles, kept buzzard flyovers to a minimum, earned the nickname Miss Circuit of the Americas for her ability to circumvent the outside of the house at top speed, and played tug-of war with a pit bull over a coral snake. She could sing a terrific soprano when the big dogs howled, and she survived running with a sounder of thirteen wild hog babies. We had her for thirteen years, and when she passed this spring, we cried for days.

But my fondest memory of Freida was the day I brought her home, anticipating resistance. My husband walked in after a day at work, took one look, and got down on hands and knees, exclaiming, “Whose little dog are you?! You are so cute!” It was the beginning of a perfect relationship.