It's time again for Utah StoryCorps, everyday people sharing their stories at the StoryCorps recording booth in Logan.
KENDRA PENRY: My name is Kendra Penry.
ALLEN CLUTTER: My name is Allen Clutter.
KENDRA PENRY: Our family was three. We are now two, because about two and a half weeks ago, we lost our adorable little puppy Kiko.
ALLEN CLUTTER: How did you get Kiko?
KENDRA PENRY: Well, he was staying with a colleague of mine who couldn't have dogs. And she thought she was pet sitting, but wasn't true, the owner had left him, and another friend looked at him and said he was in too rough a condition to take. And I looked at him and just thought he needed to be loved. So, took him and amazed at how willingly he went in with me — jumped right in the car. Six months later, the same person that passed on him the first time thought I'd gotten rid of him and gotten a new dog.
ALLEN CLUTTER: He had this debonair sense, the way he carried himself, that he appeared that to us he was always in a tuxedo, a white tuxedo with black tie. He always dressed to the nines and he always looked like he had somewhere important to be, anytime he was walking with us. It didn't matter. He had this certain prance, where was he just like, "I'm not the biggest dog, but I'm the best dog, the proudest dog to finally have a family."
But he hated water, absolutely hated water. Any time I had to put him in the bath, where he constantly wanted to jump out. So I just started picking him up, picking him up and taking him in the shower with me, which always resulted in me taking another shower afterwards, because I was covered completely in his hair. And so was the shower.
KENDRA PENRY: He always wanted to just be wherever we were 'cause he loved running and he loved being with us. And he would run his heart out. He helped us see the world in a new way and just slow down. And I think more than anything, just a reminder to get outside every day. Can't can't count the number of people that know Kiko and that know me as being with him — rather than him being with me.
ALLEN CLUTTER: Every military trip and every deployment, before I left I would sit down and talk with him about it. I would tell him the same thing over and over again, that I'll be back, I'll be home, count the days and I'd count on his little paws.
He got to the point where you didn't need to walk him on a leash. But he still wanted to be on the leash because he knew that that tied him to us. Every time we went to get him out for a walk, or to get him ready. All you had to do was asked him, "Hey, you wanna?" and his ears would perk up.
You could be like, "Hey, you want to go get a bath?" But he'd be like, "No, I don't want to do that. That sounds horrible. But what else you got? Give me another choice." And when we always asked him, "Hey, you wanna go for a walk? Wanna go outside?" It was like, somebody had turned a dimmer switch on, went all the way to the max and then turned another switch and made that light bulb twice as bright as it possibly could have been.
Definitely is my best friend.
KENDRA PENRY: Well, thanks for chatting with me today about him. Makes it a little bit easier to process losing him when we can talk about it.
Support for Logan StoryCorps comes from Cache County and from USU Credit Union, a division of Goldenwest.
