She’s turning a page in life, with help from many

Monday afternoon wasn’t a particularly good one for Nancy Haacker. She was having flashbacks, the kind that creep up on you without warning. “Something must have triggered it,” she says. “I’m not really sure.”

Today promises better things.

Today gives her one of those moments that life sometimes grants -- when other people’s kindness lets us turn a page once and for all. In the grand scheme of things, it’ll be a tiny moment, but one that will be enshrined in Haacker’s memory for the rest of her life.

It comes by way of a Tustin cop and many other people -- including a middle school teacher and her students -- all of whom realized the trauma Haacker, 74, felt when her poodle and beloved family pet, Wolfgang, was ripped away from her and killed on the front lawn by two renegade pit bulls.

That happened at 6:30 a.m. June 6, and it was over in a flash. The two pits, on the lawn, then the porch, then knocking Haacker down, then snatching Wolfie as Haacker shielded him beneath her body.

“I never got off the porch,” Haacker says. “They were on me immediately. I thought, ‘Oh my God, they’re after my dog.’ ”

They bit her hands and wrist and carried Wolfie away. They were later caught and have been euthanized.

“It happened so fast, he really didn’t suffer,” Haacker says. “But while it was horrible, I’ve accepted it and tried to go on.”

Lots of times, people do that alone. But even with family to console her, strangers intervened.

Kim O’Malley, a teacher at nearby Columbus Tustin Middle School, assigned her students to write notes to Haacker. That helped ease their fears, because the school was on alert while the dogs remained on the loose during the school day.

But it also did wonders for Haacker.

She says she’s not “a crier,” but reading the children’s notes from her hospital bed showed otherwise. “The children wrote notes expressing their feelings,” she recalls. “One wanted to come over and give me a hug to make me feel better. A couple others said God will see you through. I thought, what a wise teacher to do that. She took what could have been a really unpleasant, disturbing situation for the children and turned it around into a positive thing. I will keep their notes forever.”

And then there’s the cop. Nine-year veteran Rick Hudson answered the call and helped Haacker into the ambulance. Cops often talk about how the crimes involving children are the ones that bother them the most.

But this one hit Hudson, too. Instead of moving on to other duties, he found time to stay in touch with Haacker. He told her the department would like to get her a new dog. “I was overwhelmed at the thought,” Haacker says, “but I said that would be nice.”

So Hudson took up a collection, gave Haacker the money and sent her off to find a new dog, right?

Not quite. First, he found a breeder in Santiago Canyon. He picked up Haacker and drove her to look at dogs. The minute she held a 9-week-old white miniature French poodle, she knew he was the one. She couldn’t take him home that day and was told to come back Sunday, which was Father’s Day.

“Sunday was Rick’s day off,” Haacker says. “And he’s a father. But he took me up Sunday morning to get the dog.”

And that brings us to today. This is the day Haacker will go to Tustin police headquarters and publicly thank the department and others for taking the time to care about her. Her son and granddaughter will go with her. She probably won’t give a big speech or be especially teary-eyed.

No one will doubt what she’s feeling, though.

A former teacher with a master’s degree in psychology, Haacker also knows it’s time to move on. “My whole focus is on something new,” Haacker says. “This little puppy. That’s good. I need to do that.”

Hudson knew that. So did Kim O’Malley and her students. So did the people at the hospital, who helped her with her initial grief. Aside from family, keeping her company will be her new dog, whose name is

“He has two names,” Haacker says. “Joey Hudson.”

The surname is a tribute to Hudson himself. And “Joey” is derived from a colloquial term she found in the dictionary that refers to cops in general as “Joes.”

“It means good guy,” Haacker says. “A good neighborhood cop.”