Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul (16 page)
Read Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul Online
Authors: Jack Canfield
Copper could still fly. I should have known better than to doubt his soaring spirit. And once he landed his new “aircraft,” he wheeled back up the ramp and took off again, as elated by his accomplishment as the Wright Brothers must have been.
Copper flew up and down that ramp with his wheels spinning behind him for almost three more years before he escaped the bonds of Earth once and for all.
Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant
April afternoons are warm in suburban Philadelphia, and the temperature inside a parked car rises quickly. Ila, my two-year-old daughter, was strapped into her car seat, pink-cheeked and sweaty. D’Argo, my ten-month-old chocolate Lab, was bounding from the front seat to the back, barking and panting. Helpless, I could only stand and wait.
They had been locked in the rented truck for fifteenmin-utes when the police car finally pulled into my driveway.
“No spare key,ma’am?” the young officer asked. The only key I had was attached to the remote door lock control, which was lying on the driver’s seat, along with my purse, the after-school snack for the older kids, my book, the mail and the dirty dry cleaning. I had tossed everything onto the seat, buckled Ila into her car seat and shooed D’Argo into the passenger side, closing doors as I went. Just as I reached the driver’s side door, I heard the clunk of the door locks. D’Argo was standing on the driver’s seat, tail wagging and his oversized puppy paws on the remote.
“It’s a rental,” I explained. “The agency doesn’t keep spares, but the agent is trying to get a new key cut. He said he’d send it right over.”
One hand on the nightstick in his tool belt, the officer circled the truck, trying all the doors, tugging at the lift gate. D’Argo trailed him from window to window inside. They came face-to-face at the front passenger window. D’Argo, his nose pressed against the window, wagged his tail and drooled, leaving large globs of spit and nose prints on the glass.
Two more officers arrived. After a quick briefing, the older, heavier officer took a long metal tool with a flat hooked end from the trunk of his squad car. He wedged it into the gap between the driver’s side window and door and slid it slowly in and out, trying, unsuccessfully, to jimmy the lock. Then he attacked the keyhole with a screwdriver, succeeded only in making a few gouges in the metal and gave up. “These new cars, like Fort Knox,” he muttered. “Sorry, ma’am.”
I called the car-rental company again. They were “still working on it,” my friendly rental agent said. I pressed my face against the window, shading my eyes to see through the tinted glass. D’Argo had flopped down next to Ila’s car seat, his long body stretched out across the seat and his big brown head resting in her lap. Ila’s face was flushed and shiny. Drops of sweat rolled down her cheeks and her blond curls were dark and matted against her forehead. Ila looked up into my face.
“Mommy! Uppie!” she said, holding up her arms. Her wide blue eyes leaked tears.
“Mommy will get you out as soon as she can,” I said, straining to sound calm and cheerful. Her face crumpled.
“Mommy! Mommy! I wan’ you!” she wailed. She twisted and strained against the car seat, crying harder, legs pumping, arms reaching. D’Argo jumped into the front seat and joined in, baying with a low, guttural moan.
Fidgeting with his nightstick, one of the officers turned to me.
“We could break a window,” he said, giving the front driver’s window an experimental tap. D’Argo flinched, hair rising across his back, but didn’t back away.
“The baby’ll be okay in the backseat, but I’m afraid I’ll hurt your dog, ma’am.”
“We can’t wait for the key anymore,” I said, “we need to get them out.” The men looked at each other.
“Like I said, ma’am, we might hurt your dog.”
“I don’t want you to hurt him either, but they’ve been in there too long.”
The younger officer pulled his nightstick out of his tool belt and walked around to the passenger door. D’Argo met him at the window, barking and howling.
“Can you call him? Get him away?” he called.
“D’Argo! D’Argo! Come!” I yelled, banging frantically on the driver’s side window. D’Argo stopped barking and looked back, but stayed where he was. The policeman raised the baton, then hesitated, looking through the window at D’Argo and then at me.
“Do it!” I yelled.
He swung down hard, smacking the glasswith the nightstick. D’Argo leaped back. The nightstick thudded against the window again. D’Argo vaulted into the backseat.
“D’Argo, off! Getta offa me, D’Argo!” Ila screamed, but her voice was muffled in D’Argo’s chest. The dog was standing over her car seat, covering her with his body. She beat her fists against his side and kicked her feet at his legs, but he would not move.
Suddenly, there was a loud crack as the nightstick splintered. The three officers stood together, staring at the pieces of the broken baton, then looked up at me as I came around the truck. I ran for the toolbox in the basement and grabbed the sledgehammer, the heaviest tool I could find. I handed it to the younger officer, who started pounding on the window. The sound was deafening. Ila was still screaming, punching and kicking frantically at D’Argo, who stood squarely over her, his back to the action at the window. His large body covered her small one almost completely.
The glass fractured suddenly with a crackling sound. One more blow from the sledgehammer and the window shattered. The officer reached in and unlocked the doors. I wrenched open Ila’s door and D’Argo flew past me. There were shards of glass everywhere on the backseat and floor, but none in the car seat. I fumbled with the buckle, unlatched it and pulled Ila out. She was flushed, warmand sweaty, her T-shirt soaked through and her hair plastered to her head in ringlets, but she was not hurt. I squeezed her tight and sank onto the ground, both of us sobbing. I sat there for a minute, hugging her. Then I looked for D’Argo. He was twisting and lunging, trying to get away from the older officer, who was holding him by the collar.
“He’s not hurt,” he said, struggling to hold on, “but I’m afraid he’ll run away.”
But I knew he wouldn’t.
“It’s all right,” I said, “you can let him go.” D’Argo flew straight for us, wormed his big head between Ila and me and licked both our faces until we were laughing instead of crying.
M. L. Charendoff
E
very dog is a lion at home.
H. G. Bohn
The veterinarian’swords came as no surprise. “I’ll dowhat I can, but I’m not optimistic. Call me tomorrow morning.”
I smoothed the black fur on Yaqui’s head and ran my fingers across the small brown patches above his closed eyes. His normally powerful body was limp, and I could barely detect any rise and fall in his rib cage. Turning away, I reached for Frank’s hand, leaving our shepherd-cross companion stretched out on the polished steel surface of the examining room table.
I barely remember the drive home. Lost in worry, I didn’t realize we had reached the turnoff to our ranch until I heard the frantic barking of the dog we laughingly called “Yaqui’s Great Enemy.” From behind his front-yard fence, Yaqui’s Great Enemy, who guarded the house at the crossroads, dashed back and forth, waiting for Yaqui’s reciprocal challenge. When greeted with silence, he bounced to a standstill, stared at the car, then trotted off toward his den under the porch.
After Frank left for work I wandered about the house, picking aimlessly at chores. Yaqui’s pal, Simba, a hefty mastiff, padded quietly after me, stopping every so often to gaze up at me with questioning eyes.
Dinner that night was subdued as we reassured ourselves that Yaqui would pull through. Both Frank and I privately chastised ourselves for what had happened.
Six months earlier, we had moved onto a ranch in the foothills of the Pine Nut Mountains in western Nevada. Our dogs, who had been used to the confines of backyard suburban living, thrived in their new freedom, spending their days sniffing around the barns and corrals. Often, though, we found them standing by the fence that surrounded the ranch buildings, looking out across the pastures. Yielding to their entreating eyes, we would take themfor walks, letting themprowl through the sagebrush, following tantalizing scents and animal trails. In time, we all became familiar with the sparse desert landscape.
Although we made a conscientious effort to keep the gates shut, occasionally we found one open and the dogs nowhere in sight. But even when they were gone for hours, we rarely worried. There was almost no traffic, and because they were big dogs, we believed them safe from coyotes and mountain lions.
One evening in early December, Simba returned alone. We called into the darkness, listening for Yaqui’s answering bark, but all we heard were the echoes of our own voices. A dozen times during the night we rose to check the circle of light on the porch, but the dawn arrived as empty as our spirits.
For three days we searched. At first we drove for miles along the ranch roads with Simba beside us in our old Suburban, hoping she might give some sign that Yaqui was nearby. Then, as gray clouds moved in from the west and temperatures dropped into the low teens, Frank and I saddled up our horses. We crisscrossed the brush-covered slopes and picked our way through boulder-clogged draws, looking for recent tracks or signs of blood.
On the second afternoon, while we scoured the upper limits of the foothills close to where Red Canyon sliced into the mountain front, we thought we heard his voice, but when the wind settled, the countryside was still. Only the rhythmic sound of Simba’s panting broke the silence.
By the morning of the fourth day, snow was falling steadily. Frank stared out the window as he dressed for work. Neither one of us wanted to verbalize what we were thinking. Then as he picked up his jacket, he called out, “Come on, let’s check the road to Red Canyon one more time.”
Straining to see, we eased the Suburban along the barely discernible dirt track to the top of the slope. There, in the eerie silence of the swirling snow, we sat for a moment. Both of us sensed the search was at an end.
Just as Frank slipped the car into gear, Simba whined. I turned around as she leaped up and pressed her nose against the rear window. She pawed at the glass, her tail waving. It batted against the backs of the seats and stirred the air above our heads. Staring at us, the huge dog tipped her head back and emitted a long, low howl.
No more than twenty feet away was a black shadow, struggling out of the gloom. Clamped firmly on his right front paw was a large, steel jaw-trap. Behind the trap, attached by a knotted strand of barbed wire, trailed a thick, four-foot-long tree limb. The wood was gouged with teeth marks and the wire crimped where desperate jaws had torn at the rusty surface, exposing slashes of fresh steel.
All three of us piled out of the Suburban. Simba licked her friend’s face. Joyfully, she romped away from him, then returning, she bowed her greeting, challenging him to play. But Yaqui only stood and shivered. Cautiously, she approached him again and sniffed at the paw that was swollen beyond recognition, engulfing the metal teeth.
Frank grabbed the trap and stepped on the release mechanism. The rusty hinges refused to budge. He stamped harder on the lever and the jaws scraped opened. Yaqui sank to the ground, whimpering softly as we pried his foot loose.
Scooping up Yaqui’s emaciated body, Frank laid him gently in my arms for the trip to the veterinary hospital. >When we approached the main crossroads, Frank slowed,
A
cquiring a dog may be the only opportunity
a human ever has to choose a relative.
Mordecai Siegal
“I think he’s spending too much time with the kids.”
©2003, Randy Glasbergen. Reprinted by permission of Randy Glasbergen.
He was a street dog of indeterminable pedigree. Not too big, but scrappy.
He found my husband on St. Patrick’s Day, 1988. A New York City police officer, Steve was patrolling the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. The skinny blond dog with the white stripe on his face and stand-up ears he never did grow into, fairly leaped into the patrol car through the open window.
I got the call that afternoon. “Can we keep him?” My big strong husband sounded like a kid.