For seven years my father, who was not yet old enough to retire, has been battling colon cancer. Now he was dying. He could no longer eat or even drink water, and an infection had forced him into the hospital. I sensed that he hated being in the hospital, but he hardly complained. That wasn't his way. One night when he had no luck summoning a nurse, and tried to reach the bathroom on his own, he fell and gashed his head on the night stand. When I saw his wounded head the next day, I felt my frustration and helpless anger rise. Why isn't there anything I can do? I thought, as I waited for the elevator. As if in answer to my prayers, when the elevator opened, two dogs greeted me. Dogs? In a hospital? Personally, I couldn't think of a better place for dogs, but I was shocked that the city laws and hospital codes allowed it. "How did you get to bring dogs here?" I asked the owner, as I stepped in. "They're therapy dogs. I take them up to the sixth floor once a week, to meet with the patients in rehab." An idea grew stronger and stronger as I walked out of the hospital and to my car. My dad had bought a springer spaniel named Boots for my mom for a Christmas present a few years before. My mother had insisted that she wanted a dog, and it had to be a spaniel. My dad had explained this to me when he asked me to go for a ride with him to pick out a puppy. When he picked up a wriggly kissy puppy, I saw the tension ease from my father's face. I realized the genius of my mother's plan immediately. The dog was not for her; it was for him. Brilliantly, she asked for a spaniel so he could have the breed of dog he'd always wanted, and never had, when he was a boy. By then, all of us kids had moved away from home.a So Boots also became the perfect child my father never had. She was an eager, loving and obedient pal for him. Personally, I thought she was a little too obedient. Boots was not allowed on the bed or any other furniture, and she never broke this rule. Sometimes I wanted to tell my dad when he was at home lying on his sickbed, "Call Boots up here! She'll give you love and kisses and touch you like I'm too restrained to do...and you need it." But I didn't. And he didn't. And Boots didn't. Instead, she sat near his bed, watching him protectively, as the months rolled by. She was always there, a loving presence as his strength ebbed away, till he could no longer walk or even sit up without help. Once in a while, he got very sick, and went to the hospital, and she awaited his return anxiously, jumping up expectantly every time a car pulled up to the house.I decided that if I could give my dad nothing else, I was going to give him a few minutes with his beloved dog. So I went back to the hospital and asked a nurse about it. She told me that if I were to bring his dog in, she would not "see anything." I took that as a yes. Later that day, I came back for another visit, bringing Boots. I told my dad I had a surprise for him in my car. I went to get her, and the strangest thing happened. Boots, the perfect dog, who was as impeccably leash trained as she was obedient, practically flew out of the car, yanked me across that snowy parking lot to the front door and dragged me through the hospital lobby. She somehow knew to stop directly in front of the appropriate elevator (I could never find the right one myself). And even though she had never been anywhere near that hospital before, when the elevator doors opened at the fourth floor, she nearly pulled my arm out of its socket as she ran down the hall, around two corners, down another hall and into his room. Then, without a moment of hesitation, she jumped straight up onto his bed! Ever so gently, she crawled into my father's open arms, not touching his pain-filled sides or stomach, and laid her face next to his. For the first time, Boots was on my dad's bed, just where she belonged. And for the first time in a long time, I saw my father's broad smile. I knew we were both grateful Boots had broken the rules and finally obeyed her own heart.