Dog Stories by moon

Dog Stories
by
� moon_grace

If a person is lucky, really really lucky...they will have a few good dogs in their life time.
This is my way of thinking, and I have been pretty lucky with a lot of dogs.....

April was a fine tan shepherd who loved me. She never pitched a fit or offered to bite when
I was learning to walk and fell all over her. I was playing under my mother's feet while she
was trying to cook one night. "Diane! Come get this baby out from under my feet so I can
cook!" Diane, who had been watching Quick Draw McGraw was not happy as she rushed
into the kitchen and jerked me swoooooosh! off the floor. Was a good move for someone
who was trying to run back to the tv with a fat baby dangling in front as she ran... however...
the baby SCREAMED in anger. Up came the dog and gone was the seat of the big sister's
pants. Yup, gotta love her. hehehehe.

Sampson was a disgusting but loveable English Bulldog. Disgusting? Yeah, if you ever
lived with one..YOU KNOW what I mean. They have a problem with slobber and gas daily
(trust me on this one.) And, if that was not enough-- We went on a "real" vacation that
summer to the lake for almost a whole week. So, of course, he had to come along. A few
days out, we were all standing on the pier watching my dad and grandpa catch fish and
someone decided, hey, the dog looks hot. Poor thing! Let's put him in and let him swim
a little. Well.......they picked him half up and thew his fat carcass into the brown water of
the lake. He sank. Water was so brown, we couldn't see him. Finally, after waiting and
waiting and waiting and waiting..... My brother had to dive in after him. NO, we didn't
KNOW that bulldogs are like the tyranasaurus rex of dogs..they can't swim with those big
bodies and little arms!

Molly was an overgrown black lab born to a mother who was what my husband called a
"singles mom." She wouldn't nurse her young. We would take the mom and both of us
would tackle her and throw her down and while one held her down, the other would quickly
throw up the puppies to her. After a couple of days, she devised a million ways to get away
from us and we became the bottle feeding brigade. So, Molly, the only puppy who we
didn't find a home for, stayed. Since she had been bottle fed, she sort of grew up eating
what we did. Whenever we ate, it was easy for me to throw her a bite or two. I had no idea
how ingrained this "tradition" was to her until the day I was at the backside of the farm
picking blackberries. Now, everyone knows, you can't pick berries without sampling here
and there...so, I was stuffing me and the bucket as fast as I could with my trusty Molly
beside me. Looking down, I had to stop in mid chew.... There she was, lips curled back in
a sort of macabre sneer picking blackberries off the bushes and trying to keep the thorns
from sticking her lips. Sheesh...she should have barked or something, I would have picked
her a few if she had TOLD me she would eat them!

She was a brave and gallant dog who had huge paws and had wagged her tail across my
leg and actually cut the skin with it more than once. We called her "The bionic tail." One
day, I was outside gardening and tending to plants. I had just come up with the hoe from
the garden and was tweaking at the houseplants I kept around an old oak tree in the yard.
She kept jumping on me, batting me with her tail...I was so mad, screaming at her, "GO
AWAY!" But NOOOOOooooooo, she got worse, jumping on me with her 50 pound body
and about knocked me over. It was then I saw him, the copperhead on the other side of the
potted plant all curled up with his head flat and ugly. Before I knew it, the hoe was in my
hand and I was chopping and chopping and the adrenalin was flowing. I remember, I said, "Ok,good dog" walked into the house and said, "I just killed a copperhead..then I calmly
walked to the bathroom and threw up. I am not much on killing anything, not even a snake.

Pippin. What can you say about a little black ball of fuzz that grows into a medium sized
dog who's only joy in life is to run like the wind and make you run after her for miles at a
time? I loved her. She who saw me through the end of high school and into a very, very
bad first marriage. Who was my constant friend that walked with me back and forth to the
corner store knowing there was chocolate to be had (ok, so she was a little chub, I admit it.)
She had a way. If you were sitting on a pillow or anything soft, she was there, by your side, pushing and nudging until moments later the score was DOGS- ONE pillow....OWNER-
ZIP. When I left this marriage, I took her with me. We were both of us in and out of
places back and forth, not really any place solid to land, until I met my present husband
and we both, me and Pippin, we were home. It was summer of the year and hot. We
worked so hard fixing up that old house with NO air-conditioning. Some week-ends, we
rebelled against the house that held us hostage and threw the tent in the car and went
camping. She was not allowed to go a lot of places then so she would stay at my mom's.
Until the day, she decided running was still a good thing. My poor mother. She couldn't
chase her. So, being the resourceful person she was, she jumped into the car and prowled
the neighborhood. Eureka! At last, she spotted the dog! My mother, who had been trained
by the Bulldog in our youth who also liked to run away, was well armed for the occassion
and the dog came running and bounded into the car at the sight of the piece of bologna
being waved like Old Glory out the window. All was well and right with the world-- Until
my brother came home. "Hey mom! Did you get a new dog?" "NO, that is Pippin."
"Well, I hate to tell ya this. Dog is black and got the same fuzzy hair, but ah...that ain't
Pippin." My mom- the dog-napper. Pippin was found later and never invited back for the weekend.

We had a good neighbor, he was young and single and quiet. He loved animals and he lived
in the garage apartment out back. I was so happy when he said he would look after Pippin
while we were gone. We were going to New Orleans. It was time to meet my mother-in-law. Mardis Gras was great, even if it was a shock to a young girl raised in the Bible Belt.

On the way home, I kept feeling this nagging feeling something wasn't right. I couldn't
shake it. Finally, finally, home sweet home. I went in and there on the ironing board I had
left up in my haste to leave, lay the phone number of my mother-in-law's in New Orleans.
No one had to tell me. I knew. Later, the young man came over and told me. She was doing
well and the last few days, she had seemed kind of slow and sad so he had taken her into
his home at night and kept her thinking she was lonely. On the morning of my journey
home, he had awakened and she was gone. He had buried her for me and set up a little
cross in the back yard. There are moments when you hurt too bad to cry. When all left is
an unfathomable silence that even tears can't penetrate and I was in that space. It was a
rite of passage I was not ready for and still mourn today, 20 years later, from time to time
when I think on it. Life rushes us along, jobs and houses change, kids come along and
one day...you stand in a pet shop and it's you against your whole family as you realize the
battle was lost before it began. Home you go with a chihuahua. A ratty tan chihuahua that
the kids call Taco off a commercial. He ain't a dog. I know..I could step on him and that
would be it. I throw him food, but I don't like him. The day we thought he was gone and
the others gave him up for forever, it was me who got in the car going from door to door, neighborhood to neighborhood to look for any kind of movement that resembled a tan rat.
I came home. Out he came bounding from the back of the house where he had SLEPT the
whole time! I threw him a piece of a hot dog..but he's NOT a dog and I don't like him.
Not much.

moon_grace.