Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul (27 page)
Read Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul Online
Authors: Jack Canfield
Gretchen and I continued reading together for the whole following year. My reading definitely improved, but it was third grade that was the turning point of my life. That year I became the best reader in my class. My third-grade teacher understood that I was a bright child who had a learning problem. She told stories about people like me who struggled successfully to learn despite obstacles.
Although I appreciate everything my teacher and parents did for me, I feel I owe so much to that little “mound of dirt” my parents bought me on my seventh birthday. Persistence and determination were only a part of the story. The runt who would never be a show dog taught me that love is a healing and nurturing soil in which a broken spirit can grow whole once more.
Paula Gramlich
T
here is only one smartest dog in the world, and
every boy has it.
Louis Sabin
It had been a very long night. Our black cocker spaniel, Precious, was having a difficult delivery. I lay on the floor beside her large four-foot-square cage, watching her every movement. Watching and waiting, just in case I had to rush her to the veterinarian.
After six hours the puppies started to appear. The firstborn was black and white. The second and third puppies were tan and brown. The fourth and fifth were spotted black and white.
One, two, three, four, five,
I counted to myself as I walked down the hallway to wake my wife, Judy, and tell her that everything was fine.
As we walked back down the hallway and into the spare bedroom, I noticed a sixth puppy had been born and was now lying all by itself over to the side of the cage. I picked up the small puppy and lay it on top of the large pile of puppies, who were whining and trying to nurse on the mother. Precious immediately pushed the small puppy away from rest of the group. She refused to recognize it as a member of her family.
“Something’s wrong,” said Judy.
I reached over and picked up the puppy. My heart sank inside my chest when I saw the puppy had a cleft lip and palate and could not close its tiny mouth. I decided right then and there that if there was any way to save this animal, I was going to give it my best shot.
I took the puppy to the vet and was told nothing could be done unless we were willing to spend about a thousand dollars to try to correct the defect. He told us that the puppy would die mainly because it could not suckle.
After returning home Judy and I decided that we could not afford to spend that kind of money without getting some type of assurance from the vet that the puppy had a chance to survive. However, that did not stop me from purchasing a syringe and feeding the puppy by hand— which I did day and night, every two hours, for more than ten days. The little puppy survived and eventually learned to eat on his own, as long as it was soft canned food.
The fifth week after the puppies’ birth I placed an ad in the newspaper, and within a week we had people interested in all the pups—except the one with the deformity.
Late one afternoon I went to the store to pick up a few groceries. Upon returning I happened to see the old retired schoolteacher who lived across the street from us, waving at me. She had read in the paper that we had puppies and was wondering if she might get one from us for her grandson and his family. I told her all the puppies had found homes, but I would keep my eyes open for anyone else who might have an available cocker spaniel. I also mentioned that if someone should change their mind, I would let her know.
Within days all but one of the puppies had been picked up by their new families. This left me with one brown and tan cocker, as well as the smaller puppy with the cleft lip and palate.
Two days passed without my hearing anything from the gentleman who had been promised the tan and brown pup. I telephoned the schoolteacher and told her I had one puppy left and that she was welcome to come and look at him. She advised me that she was going to pick up her grandson and would come over at about eight o’clock that evening.
That night at around 7:30, Judy and I were eating supper when we heard a knock on the front door. When I opened the door, the man who had wanted the tan and brown pup was standing there. We walked inside, took care of the adoption details, and I handed him the puppy. Judy and I did not know what we would do or say when the teacher showed up with her grandson.
At exactly eight o’clock the doorbell rang. I opened the door, and there was the schoolteacher with her grandson standing behind her. I explained to her the man had come for the puppy after all, and there were no puppies left.
“I’m sorry, Jeffery. They found homes for all the puppies,” she told her grandson.
Just at that moment, the small puppy left in the bedroom began to yelp.
“My puppy! My puppy!” yelled the little boy as he ran out from behind his grandmother.
I just about fell over when I saw that the small child also had a cleft lip and palate. The boy ran past me as fast as he could, down the hallway to where the puppy was still yelping.
When the three of us made it to the bedroom, the small boy was holding the puppy in his arms. He looked up at his grandmother and said, “Look, Grandma. They found homes for all the puppies except the pretty one, and he looks just like me.”
My jaw dropped in surprise.
The schoolteacher turned to us. “Is this puppy available?”
Recovering quickly, I answered, “Yes, that puppy is available.”
The little boy, who was now hugging the puppy, chimed in, “My grandma told me these kind of puppies are real expensive and that I have to take real good care of it.”
The lady opened her purse, but I reached over and pushed her hand away so that she would not pull her wallet out.
“How much do you think this puppy is worth?” I asked the boy. “About a dollar?”
“No. This puppy is very, very expensive,” he replied.
“More than a dollar?” I asked.
“I’m afraid so,” said his grandmother.
The boy stood there, pressing the small puppy against his cheek.
“We could not possibly take less than two dollars for this puppy,” Judy said, squeezing my hand. “Like you said, it’s the pretty one.”
The schoolteacher took out two dollars and handed it to the young boy.
“It’s your dog now, Jeffery. You pay the man.”
Still holding the puppy tightly, the boy proudly handed me the money. Any worries I’d had about the puppy’s future were gone.
Although this happened many years ago, the image of the little boy and his matching pup stays with me still. I think it must be a wonderful feeling for any young person to look at themselves in the mirror and see nothing, except “the pretty one.”
Roger Dean Kiser
A
good dog never dies, he always stays; he
walks beside you on crisp autumn days
when frost is on the fields and winter’s
drawing near, his head is within our
hand in his old way.
Mary Carolyn Davies
We had gathered from our distant homes to be with my mother as she kept her heartrending watch at my father’s bedside. He had suffered a series of strokes at Thanksgiving, lingered through the holidays and was loosening his tenuous hold on life as the New Year dawned. The stages of our grief had been punctuated by moves from a hopeful bed in the ICU, to a bargained-for stay in a long-term ward, and a final spiral downward to the cold, cruel equations of a move to hospice. Dad’s strong body had become a skeletal frame, silent and unmoving, as his essence fled. His stroke-destroyed and disintegrating brain had left him flaccid and limp.
There had always been a dog in my parents’ hearts and home; the one at the time was an elderly golden retriever named Randy. We used to call him “Dad’s right knee” and marvel at the precision and military bearing of those two impressive males as they marched their deliberate path around the neighborhood. Dad always walked with one glove on; Randy proudly carried the other one for him. After the walk, Dad would hold his hand out and Randy would return the glove to him and be rewarded with a stroke on his golden forehead. His immense, feathered plume of a tail swept grandly back and forth as his eyes radiated love.
Randy’s laundry-sized basket of toys sat next to my father’s chair, and each evening Randy would lovingly place each treasure in his mouth and repeatedly offer them to my father to be admired. By bedtime, both the toys and my father’s lap were liberally bedewed with saliva. My father called it liquid diamonds, laughingly proclaiming that Randy was giving him jewelry again.
When Randy developed arthritis and could no longer climb into the van for trips around town, my father built him a ramp and carpeted it to match the van’s interior. He installed a bed in the back with a built-in water bowl and they resumed their jaunts. Randy had special water in the refrigerator waiting for those trips. “Car water” my father called it. Pity the visitor who accidentally tried to drink any of Randy’s water; he was soon set straight by vigorous complaints from both Randy and Dad.
After my father’s stroke we took turns sitting in Dad’s chair, trying to interest Randy in his toys. But he just fixed his eyes on us, mutely demanding to know where Dad was. A dog who had always taken an avid interest in all food, his rotund form was melting from round to slender as he waited for his person to return. His fire-kissed hair carpeted the floor and sunset was in his eyes. Inconsolable and stolid in his grief, he was willing himself to death before our eyes. We kept promising Randy he could go see Dad, and he’d look at us as if to say, “When?” He missed Dad with every fiber of his being.
As the hospice allowed pet visits, we were determined that Dad and his right knee would be together again. The day Dad was moved to hospice, we coaxed a reluctant Randy away from the empty chair he guarded and loaded him into my parents’ van for the trip across town. Randy insisted on carrying my father’s glove in his mouth. After checking to see if Dad was in the van, he collapsed in the back and softly moaned. Even though I kept telling him we were going to see Dad, he just lay there and never even looked at his car water.
By the time we got to the hospice, the van’s dog bed was covered with grief-shed hair. It took all my powers of persuasion to get Randy to reluctantly leave the vehicle that smelled of his beloved master’s Old Spice aftershave for the illness-imbued odor of the hospice entryway. It was obvious he knew he was in death’s waiting room. Lagging behind, he dragged himself down the hall, head drooping and plume-like tail dragging.
As I turned the corner into the main hallway, the end of the leash froze behind me. Then a whimpering golden streak with upturned nose began dragging me rapidly up the corridor. Randy was heading for his master, his massive tail no longer dragging, but sweeping frantically from side to side. He lunged around the door and into my father’s room. I lost the leash and Randy headed immediately for the right side of the bed to rest his large head next to my father’s limp hand. He dropped the glove next to Dad’s hand and stood looking at the still form on the bed. I moved forward to take the glove and spare Randy the impossible wait for a caress that could never come again.
Suddenly, Dad’s heart monitor shrieked an alarm. My knees gave out, dropping me to a sprawl on the floor and I watched in amazement as my father’s long fingers twitched and moved, coming to rest on Randy’s head. Randy sighed deeply, happy once more.
Over the next few weeks, Randy’s daily visits held together the lingering remnants of Dad’s warm spirit. Every morning Randy would prance down the corridor carrying Dad’s glove and tenderly place it on the bed. Then resting his head next to Dad’s hand, he waited for the caress that never came again. The nurses commented that Dad rested easier with Randy beside him. In the evening, Randy would hesitantly accept the glove from us and then go home to guard it until the next day.
At the end, we gathered in a circle at Dad’s bedside and read the Prayers for the Sick. My mother’s strong faith held grief at bay, allowing only love to stay. My father’s last breath was accompanied by a deep, low moan from Randy. The family huddled together in misery and then reluctantly prepared to leave the room for the last time. Through tear-filled eyes, I saw Randy pick up Dad’s glove and carefully carry it out of the room without being asked.
As we walked down the hall, Randy’s eyes looked up and followed something only he could see as it vanished into the light. His tail wagged as he gazed, his silky golden head bobbing under an unseen caress.
Carol M. Chapman
B
lessed is the person who has earned the love of
an old dog.
Sydney Jeanne Seward
For as long as I could remember, Ivan had always been at the door when I came home, wagging his brown tail in greeting. Tonight when I walked in after my classes, he wasn’t there.
“Ivan?”
Silence was my only answer.
Then my mother appeared from the kitchen. “Ivan is not feeling well, Lori. He’s downstairs in the family room. He’s getting old.”
“Old? Mom, he’s only eleven or twelve.”
“Fourteen,” Mom corrected. “He’s been with us a long time.”