Lucinda deserves an obituary. She was an unforgettable little dickens.

Not even 20 pounds, such a mix that no breed dominated, the dog that appeared last Thanksgiving and didn’t make it quite a year, left an indelible mark on my soul. I think it was her athleticism, the ability to jump into bed beside me before anyone could stop her. She was a spooner.

In less than a year she demolished two sofas and started on a third. Once I came in from a short trip and it looked as if a Mardi Gras parade had marched through the living room. Beds, pillows, anything soft and pliable was at risk.

She often made her way to the middle of the dining table, cat-like, when nobody was around. Instinctively Lucinda knew she needed to be up high, the better to protect herself.

At night she slept in a pink crate without protest but made up for that confinement by tearing about all day at warp speed.

She was not a beauty. Other than a perpetual puppy face that caused us to be surprised when, upon her arrival, the vet pronounced her already a year and a half old, she was put together of odd parts. She had short legs, long body, pop eyes, brindle and white and brown and black color, beautiful little teeth that sometimes refused to be hidden by her mouth.

And, yet, she charmed you. She licked and kissed and when exhausted curled up in a comma pose so tight you’d swear she couldn’t weigh four pounds. All 19 pounds of her was alive and percolating. No catlike naps or slovenly dog ways. She was at it, about it, living flat-out.

I know everyone else is writing about the sad state of our union. Latest reports say “social media” – don’t you hate that term – bogus news reports that shaped the presidential vote may have come from Russia.

Russia.

I imagined families all over America in Thanksgiving food fights, split as evenly about presidential choices as they were dark or white meat. I know in my family it’s an even divide.

But I can’t focus on the nation. It wouldn’t do any good. As my old newspaper friend from Bogue Chitto, Miss., used to say, “You can’t ruin a ruint.”

We’ll see who celebrates when Medicare vanishes and Florida is halfway underwater. You can deny truths only for a short while.

Right now I’m caught up in the visceral loss of Lucinda, who made me smile every day she was on this earth. I can’t say that about any politician.

She brought energy into a household with two old dogs and two old people. To paraphrase the late Leonard Cohen, we ache in the places that we used to play. Lucinda was youth, well-represented.

Lucinda cut her paw about two weeks before she disappeared. When we took her to back to the vet to get the stitches removed, kind Doc Gina said Lucinda already had taken out her own stitches. Nothing slowed her down. Until it did.

Three dogs went out last week as they do every morning. Only two came back for breakfast. We searched, of course, but never found a sign of Lucinda.

We blame the coyotes, those sneaky, vicious, voracious and starving creatures that prey on the weak, the small, the injured. Sorta like some politicians.

Rheta Grimsley Johnson’s most recent book is “Hank Hung the Moon … And Warmed Our Cold, Cold Hearts.” Comments are welcomed at rhetagrimsley@aol.com.