Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul (35 page)

When I pulled into the Reynolds’ driveway, there was no containing him. Three teenagers ran out of the house, and when I opened the car door, the dog bounded out and raced to them, whining and yelping in his excitement.

As the dog licked them, they looked himover. Suddenly, one of the boys yelled, “It’s him, it’s him! Look, here’s the big scar he got over his eyebrow when he went through the sliding glass door.”

I stayed a few minutes longer, watching the entire family hug and kiss the old dog, now rejuvenated by joy. They proceeded to run into the house with him.

Backing out of the driveway, I thought again of that morning so many years ago when I had first helped the lost boxer find his family. I went home happy, knowing I had been part of a miracle—for the second time in one dog’s life.

Rosemarie Miele

The Promise

Y
ou become responsible forever for what you
have tamed.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

For the past twelve and a half years, I have been an animal control officer (ACO) for Polk County, Iowa. In this profession, you learn early on to toughen your skin, otherwise the stress and emotional drain that come with this job will bring you down. There have been a lot of dogs over the years that I would have loved to take home and make a part of my family, but in this line of work, it’s not realistic to believe you can do that with each one—there are just too many dogs in need of good homes. Still, there is always that one that gets through your defenses. For me, that dog was Buddy.

Buddy was the most elusive dog I ever encountered in my years as an animal control officer: I spent an amazing sixteen months trying to catch the big black dog.

I first received a phone call in November 2002 from a lady who said, “There is a dog lying in a field near my home. He has been there for a couple of days, and it is supposed to get really cold tonight. Could you try to catch him?” I told her I would head out there and see what I could do.

As I drove up to the area, I could see that the dog was lying on his side next to a small hillside that served as a sort of break from the cold wind. I got out of my truck with a leash in hand and walked toward him. The dog was asleep and did not hear my coming, so as I got within twenty feet of him, I whistled because I did not want to startle him. He immediately got up and started barking at me. Then he turned and ran away, into the middle of the snow-covered field where he lay down to keep a watchful eye on me. I knew there was going to be no catching him that day, so I left to answer another call that had come in.

That night it did get very cold. I just couldn’t keep my mind off the black dog and wondered how he was doing out in that large, cold field all alone.

The next morning I headed to the Animal Rescue League of Iowa. This is where the county sheriff’s department houses the animals I pick up, and it is the largest animal shelter in the state. I wanted to check the reports to see if anyone had called in saying they had lost their black dog. I hoped that someone was looking for this dog, so I would be able to ask the owners to come out to the field; I figured if it were their dog, the dog would come to them. There were no such lost reports.

On my way home that night, I couldn’t help but drive by the field. There he sat, right in the middle of it. Again, he wouldn’t let me get close to him or come to me when I called.

We played this game for a few weeks. I would get calls from different people reporting that a black dog was sitting in a field. I could not get this dog out of my mind, and even on my days off, I would drive by the field to leave food and see if I could get a look at him. He was always there, usually lying right out in the middle so no one would be able to sneak up behind him. I tried over and over to gain his trust with no luck. I could not get closer than a hundred yards from him—too far to use a tranquilizer dart. If I tried to come any closer, he would get up, bark and move to an adjacent field. I wondered sadly what could have happened to this dog to make him so fearful of people.

Finally, I spoke to Janet, one of the animal-care technicians at the Animal Rescue League. She had a reputation of being able to get close to dogs that would not let anyone near them. I told her about the black dog and asked her if she would try to catch him. She agreed, and she did try—to no avail.

It was now late December and the nights were very cold, dropping to ten or twenty degrees below zero. The woman who had called me originally about the dog continued to call, checking in to see what I was doing to help him. I assured her I had been trying to catch him and that I was leaving food for the dog. At this point I told her I was pondering a way to set a live trap to capture the dog. Privately, I worried how he would live through the nights given the bitter cold temperatures of Iowa winters.

The weeks passed. I checked on him regularly, driving by in the morning on my way to work, cruising by during the day and making my final round on my way home at night. It was odd—just seeing him out there made me smile. I was thankful he had made it through one more night and was still alive.

Janet and I talked constantly about this dog. A live trap hadn’t worked. We simply could not come up with a way to catch this dog. One day we decided that we would take some shelter out to the fields, line it with blankets and put some food beside it; perhaps he would use it. We got an “igloo” type of doghouse and went out to the field to set it up. The dog watched us intently but wouldn’t come near. That was the day that I named the dog Buddy. Looking at him, I made a promise to myself and to him: “Buddy, if I ever catch you, I’m going to adopt you and show you what ‘good people’ are like.”

We went through the rest of the winter like this, as well as the following spring and summer. One day Buddy just seemed to vanish. No more sightings, no more concerned calls about him. I continued to think about him, fearing the worst: that he had been hit by a car and was no longer alive.

That fall, however, I received a call about a black dog standing by the road close to the field where I had first seen Buddy. I couldn’t believe it. It had been seven months since I had last seen him, but I immediately hopped into my truck and drove to the area. There, standing by the road, was my friend Buddy. He looked just as he had the last time I saw him. I stopped my truck and got out. I tried to approach him, but as usual he started backing up and barking at me. This time, however, when I turned to walk away, instead of turning and running, he just sat down. He was letting me get closer.

We started the game all over again. I kept leaving treats for him in the same spot. This went on for months until one day he did something he hadn’t done before—he slept next to the spot where I had been leaving his treats. I decided I would leave a live trap for him on that spot along with some barbecued pork. When I went back first thing the next morning, it looked like he’d tried to get the food out by digging around the trap, but he was nowhere to be seen.

I tried again the next night. This time I put a slice of pizza in the trap, hoping it would do the trick. I couldn’t sleep that night and rose early to go check the cage. It was still dark out, and as I approached I heard Buddy bark. I figured he had heard me and was already retreating, but as I squinted my eyes I could make out the outline of a black dog caught in the cage of the live trap. Overwhelmed with relief and joy, I started to cry. Then I called my wife. “I got Buddy,” I told her. “I got him!”

Buddy growled at me as I loaded the cage into my truck and drove to the Animal Rescue League. As I drove in, Janet was just coming into work. I yelled to her, “You are never going to guess who I’ve got!”

Janet replied, “Buddy?” and started to cry.

9
DOGGONE WONDERFUL!

M
y idea of good poetry is any dog doing
anything.

J. Allen Boone

“Do it again! Make her talk in that goofy high voice.”

©2002 Pat Byrnes. Reprinted by permission of Pat Byrnes.

Canine Compassion

A rather unusual overnight guest stayed at our home recently. When I was asked to provide overnight accommodations for a rescued dog being transported to her new home in Boston, I readily agreed. Though I was a tad worried that my own two dogs might not like this new intruder in our home, I wanted to help and figured I could manage if it became a problem.

The visiting dog’s name was Meadow, and she was an extremely sweet old canine soul. She had been rescued from an abusive animal-hoarding situation, and a kindhearted person had agreed to adopt her, even though she was a special-needs dog. Poor Meadow had suffered some type of severe head trauma before being rescued, andwhen our guest arrived at my front door that afternoon, her acute neurological ailment was painfully obvious. She teetered precariously on four wobbly thin legs, and her aged, furry brown face incessantly wobbled back and forth, as if she were suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Immediately, I thought of the great actress, Katharine Hepburn, who had also suffered from Parkinson’s. Katharine Hepburn had not allowed her illness to get the better of her, and obviously, neither had this sweet old girl.

As Meadow gamely tottered into my unfamiliar living room, she heard my two dogs growling, snarling and scratching incessantly at the inside of the closed bedroom door upstairs. Stopping, she peered nervously in that direction. I was afraid that the getting-acquainted canine ritual that was coming might be extremely painful for our already stressed overnight visitor. While I contemplated the best method to introduce my two dogs to our special guest, they somehow managed to pry open the bedroom door themselves. Before I could stop them, they both came charging down the steps with only one thought in their collective canine minds: the urgent need to rid their home of this unwanted intruder. But then, instead of witnessing a vicious canine attack, I witnessed something truly remarkable.

Suddenly, both my dogs stopped in their tracks on the long wooden stairway and gazed wide-eyed at the quivering, wobbly-kneed stranger below. Instantly, they instinctively knew that this new guest of ours was not a threat to anyone. They came down the stairs and stood looking at the unfamiliar dog. Blanca, my tiny female Chihuahua/spitz mix, who can be quite mean to other female dogs at times, approached Meadow first. She slowly walked up to our elderly visitor, sniffed her and quickly planted an affectionate kiss of greeting on Meadow’s tremulous left cheek. I was immediately reminded of the kisses I, as a child, had lovingly set on my aged grandmother’s quivering cheek so many years ago. My large male dog, Turbo, soon followed suit—although his wet slobbery kisses on Meadow’s chin were much more exuberant than Blanca’s had been. After all, our overnight guest was a female. I was delighted that my dogs had so readily accepted our guest, and I felt a little sheepish that I had been so worried about it.

Soon it was afternoon nap time, that part of the day when both my dogs always find a comfortable piece of furniture to do their snoozing on. Today, however, they had other plans. They both had watched in silence as Meadow wearily plopped down on the blanket I’d set out for her on our cold living-room floor. They seemed to know that our special guest could not crawl up onto any comfortable bed or sofa as they so easily could. To my utter amazement, my two pampered pooches immediately plopped down on the blanket next to her, one on each side. And soon three tired, newly acquainted canine comradeswere dognapping and snoring away onmy living-room floor—together.

I was extremely proud of my two lovable mutts that afternoon, but there was more to come.

When bedtime finally arrived, my two dogs sped upstairs to their usual cozy spots in our bedroom: Blanca perched next to my pillow, Turbo at my wife’s feet, gently mouthing and licking his beloved teddy bear, just as he does each and every evening before falling fast asleep. As I was about to crawl into bed myself, Turbo suddenly jumped off the bed with his teddy in his mouth. Curious, I followed him out of the bedroom.

There he stood in the dark, at the top of the long staircase, silently gazing down at our overnight guest below. After several seconds Turbo silently carried his favorite teddy bear down that long flight of stairs. He slowly approached Meadow and then gingerly dropped his prized possession next to Meadow’s head, as if to say,
This
teddy comforts me at night; I hope it does the same for you.

Our canine guest seemed to sense how truly grand a gesture this was on Turbo’s part. She immediately snorted her thanks and then, quickly placing her wobbly head on the teddy bear’s plush softness, she let out a loud contented sigh. As my generous pup turned to head back upstairs to bed, he stopped abruptly, turned around and looked back at Meadow once more. Then he walked back to her and plopped down on the floor at her side. My gallant Turbo spent the entire night huddled there with Meadow on the cold living-room floor. I know that our overnight visitor, somewhat stressed and frightened in yet another strange new place, must have been extremely grateful for both his noble gift and for his comforting overnight company.