LUCILLE AN OLD GIRL WITH A SPARK

SHE USED TO BE CALLED LUCY. But when her jet-black face began showing flecks of gray, the 14-year-old Labrador/ blue heeler mix took on a more mature, distinguished moniker: Lucille.

“She’s such a grandma,” says her owner, Allison Thomas. “It just seems to go with her look.”

Lucille has been there for just about every significant life event: Thomas’ marriage to her husband, Scott, three moves around North Dallas and the birth of their now-7-year-old son, Hudson.

Before Lucille came along, Thomas “was never really a dog person,” she says. Then one day, an acquaintance found a 6-week-old stray puppy in a Blockbuster parking lot.

“He brought her over, and there was no way we could turn her down,” says Thomas, who was living in a townhouse with Scott, her fiancé at the time. “We just had to take her in.”

There was a bit of a learning curve, but Thomas fell in love with Lucille in about a month. These days, Lucille is “getting up