When we finish, Beau jumps to his feet, his eyes sparkling and his large tail waving wildly. It’s time to eat or play. Or go to work with Larry. Or have some other kind of wonderful fun.
To our delight, that skinny, worried dog has become an exuberant and devoted companion. Beau knows that life is good when you live with people you love.
Carol Kline
A Christmas for Toby
On Christmas morning, 1950, my parents gave my sister, Alyce, my brother, Chuck and me a black Lab puppy named Toby. I was seven and the youngest.
Toby, just two months old but large for his age, bounded out of his carrying cage, a red ribbon around his neck. Excited, he wagged his mighty tail wildly, and before we knew it, he had knocked over the Christmas tree. Ornaments went flying in every direction. Then Toby’s tail got wrapped in the wiring. He dragged the tree across the floor and proudly presented it to my mother.
Mom stood stock-still, squinted her eyes and opened her mouth wide, but no sound came from her. She just stared at Toby through half-opened eyes as his tail continued a vigorous thumping against the wood floor. With every thump, more ornaments fell from the ravaged limbs of the tree, landing in shattered, colorful piles. Finally, Mom opened her eyes wide and yelled, “The tree is ruined!”
“No, Mom. We’ll fix it. It’ll be like new, but with fewer ornaments,” I said soothingly, fearing she would banish Toby from the family. Mom stood motionless as Alyce, Chuck and I untangled Toby’s tail from the wiring. I held the squirming pupwhilemy brother and sister reassembled the tree and propped it up against the wall in the corner of the living room.
Dad tilted his head from side to side. “Doesn’t look too bad,” he said as he rubbed his chin. “It’s really not leaning all that much. Could have been worse. Toby’s just excited, Mother.”
We all studied the tree, forgetting about Toby, whom I had lowered to the floor.
“What’s that sound?” Mom asked as we surveyed the room.
“Toby’s in the packages!” Chuck shouted. He pointed to the stack of wrapped Christmas presents. “He’s tearing the ribbons.”
I grabbed Toby again and took him outside to save him from himself—and the need to look for a new home.
A year passed. We all survived the loss of at least one shoe to Toby’s teething. Despite his mischief making, Toby became a belovedmember of our family. He grewto be the biggest black Lab anyone in our town had ever seen.
A few days before Christmas, Toby became ill and we rushed himto the animal hospital. The veterinarian thought someone had poisoned Toby during one of his unauthorized outings.
I began to cry. “Can we see Toby for just a few minutes?” I sniffled. “He’ll be so lonely without us, and it’s almost Christmas.”
“Sure,” he said. “But be careful not to excite him.”
We stood around Toby’s kennel. He looked much smaller than the mighty dog we so often caught gliding over the fence. His eyes were sad. His breathing was loud and unsteady.
Dad stuck his large hand through the cage’s meshing so he could touch Toby. Tears filled all our eyes when Dad said, “You’ll be all right, boy.”
Toby lifted his head for a moment, and then dropped it back with a heavy thump against the floor. I heard that thump all the way home as we rode in silence.
The next day, when the bell rang signaling the end of class at Park Hill Elementary, my third-grade schoolmates rushed from the building into the cold December air, eager to start the Christmas holiday. I trudged in silence behind, neither feeling the joy of the season nor wanting to talk to anyone.
My walk home was filled with thoughts of happier moments when Toby would run to meet me at the end of the driveway each day after school. He’d jump up to lick my face, forcing me to the ground as he tugged at my coat sleeve. Toby only released his grip so he could carry my book bag between his powerful jaws as he marched to the door. He never asked me about my grades or if I had been chosen for the school play. And he never cared if I wore the latest clothing craze.
When I entered the house, I found everyone sitting around the kitchen table. No one was talking. Their heads were bent, their eyes directed at the center of the empty surface.
I dropped my book bag. My eyes stung. “What’s the matter? Has something happened to Toby?”
Mom stood and walked to me. “No, dear.” She circled her arms around me in a comforting hug. “Toby’s alive. But we have another problem. It’ll take a family decision. Take off your coat and come sit with us.”
I did as Mom instructed, but worry didn’t subside. “What’s the problem, then? I mean, what could matter if Toby’s okay?” A sour liquid rose into my throat.
Dad took my hand. “The vet says that Toby will need to stay in the hospital for another few days.”
“That’s not so bad. Why’s everyone so unhappy? Will he be home for Christmas?”
“Slow down.” Dad raised his hand. “Let me finish.” He got up from the table to get a cup of coffee from the pot simmering on the old gas stove. He took a sip and turned to us. “The vet isn’t positive Toby will recuperate. If we decide to leave Toby in the hospital, we’ll have to pay a large bill. There’ll be no Christmas presents.” He took another sip of the hot brew before he added, “We can’t afford both. You know, there really is no Santa.”
It had been a long time since I believed in Santa Claus, so this news didn’t come as a surprise. “I knew that. But, I still don’t see what the problem is.” I looked at Alyce and Chuck, who had said nothing. “You two can’t want presents instead of Toby. It wouldn’t be Christmas without him. We’ve got to try.”
Alyce wrapped her leg around the chair leg. Chuck rubbed the worn spot on the tabletop and spoke first. “I was hoping for a new bike . . . but, it wouldn’t be any fun riding it if Toby wasn’t following, barking to make me go faster.”
Alyce kept her head lowered toward the empty table. “I really can’t think of anything I would want more than Toby,” she said.
I jumped from the table. “It’s settled then. Tell the vet we’ll do whatever it takes to give Toby a chance.”
The next two days crawled by. Then the day before Christmas, the vet called to tell us that Toby was going to be okay and was ready to come home.
“Hooray!” I whooped. “We get Toby—again—for Christmas.”
For the first time in nearly a week, everyone laughed. Then we all piled into the family Ford. Unlike the silent trip when we left Toby at the hospital, we chattered all the way there, each sharing a favorite Toby story. A few of the more memorable tales brought a scowl to Mom’s face, especially the one about last year’s smashed Christmas tree.
Though the ride to the hospital seemed interminable, the minutes before Toby’s arrival in the waiting room seemed even longer. Finally, the door swung open and out walked Toby, wearing a red ribbon around his neck. He was slower than he had been last Christmas, but he had the same mischievous glint in his eyes.
We all rushed to Toby, hugging and kissing him. His mighty tail thumped in happy response. Mom leaned over, and holding Toby’s face between her hands, whispered, “Merry Christmas, Toby.”
Tekla Dennison Miller
Blu Parts the Veil of Sadness
A black-and-white border collie came to our house to stay, Her smiles brushed life’s cobwebs away.
Only Blu knows of her life before she was tucked into a small space with wired walls labeled “Animal Shelter.”We had been without a dog for a couple of months when Blu’s telepathic message, “I need a loving family,” reached the ears of our teenage daughter Christine.
At the time, our family of six had a home in the country. Our small acreage bordered the Plateau River outside of Casper, Wyoming. Resident pets included an assortment of aquarium fish, laying hens and a few silky chickens that resided in the chicken coop. The 4-H bunnies nestled in their hutch. A Manx cat, dressed in dolls’ clothes, often accompanied our younger daughters during their imaginary adventures. And last
but not least trotted Smokey, our two-year-old quarter horse.
Into our Wyoming Noah’s Ark came Blu. Needless to say, she was overwhelmed. To hide from the confusion of her new surroundings, Blu sought an invisible cloak in a variety of shapes. She took cover beneath the chicken coop, under the hay manger, the water trough or the loading chute—anyplace where she was in the shadows of the activity but could observe our day-to-day routines.
Her behavior gave us clues to the abuse that she’d endured before coming to our home. It left her cowering whenever a hand was raised to pat her or voices were too loud for her sensitive soul. Yet as the weeks dissolved into months and our calendar pages went out with the trash, Blu’s demeanor changed. She progressed from following us during chores to romping out front as our leader. When someone approached her with a hand for a pat, Blu no longer cringed or slunk away. Instead, she sought affection from us. If we didn’t acknowledge her when she came near, Blu would nudge our hand until she received the hug and loving words she now enjoyed.
She trotted alongside Smokey when the girls rode him bareback. Blu’s herding instincts were displayed when she gathered stray chickens and drove them back to the coop. After playing tag with the cat, Blu’s impish smile was reflected by anyone observing her play. At the close of day, Blu rested at the bedside of one of our daughters. Like our children, she listened with rapt attention to their bedtime stories. The beauty of her canine soul touched our lives in many ways. Then one cold evening, she showed us her remarkable capacity to love.
That year, eleven-year-old Joanne and her sister Kathy were each given a calf to raise for their 4-H projects. Morning and evening, they faithfully made sure there was fresh water in the trough and food in the bunker for their calves. When the colder weather arrived in late fall, they made straw bedding inside the calving shed.
One evening the cold stiffness of winter hung icicles off the barn roof and wrapped a blanket of snow across the meadow. I had just put dinner in the oven when Kathy yelled from the back porch.
“Mother . . . hurry . . . Joanne’s calf is hurt!”
Zipping up my jacket, I ran to the barn, where I found Joanne sitting on the snow-covered ground. Blu lay close to Joanne’s side while the calf lay across her lap, legs stiff. Blue wool mittens off, Joanne’s one hand cradled the calf’s head, the other clamped nostrils shut while she blew puffs of air into the calf’s mouth. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “She’s barely breathing, Mommy.” She blew again into the calf’s mouth. “I found her lying here . . . all by herself. I don’t want her to die.”
“Honey, she could have been kicked by another cow. You need to understand that she may have injuries inside beyond our help.”
“I know.” She wiped the tears trickling down her cheek.
“Let’s get her to the house where it’s warm.” I carried the calf. Blu followed close to Joanne.
Only the kitchen clock marked the passage of time while we worked on the calf. Blu kept her vigil just paw steps away from Joanne.
The calf’s labored breathing slowed . . . stopped.
I hugged Joanne close. “I’m sorry, honey.”
“She was too little to die. Why . . . ?”
The sadness on her face was like a blow to my chest. I gulped for air. My mind whispered, Oh honey, I wish I could protect you from death . . . but I can’t. I felt so helpless.
I said, “Injuries from an accident don’t always heal; sometimes the animal or person dies. And for a little while, we cry our sadness.”
Kathy took her sister’s hand. “I’ll share my calf with you.”
“That’s okay . . . I don’t want another one right now.”
My vision blurred while I explained to Joanne that when an animal or person died it was only the end of a tangible life, that her dad and I believed life was ongoing for the soul. Before my words were out, I realized that there would be time later for us to talk about our spiritual beliefs, to help Joanne build the personal strengths that would ease her through other losses. Just now, she was an inconsolable little girl, and I didn’t know how best to help.
As I watched, Blu crawled across the floor and put her head in Joanne’s lap. Blu nudged her hand until fingers moved through her black-and-white fur. Slowly Joanne bent her neck and kissed the top of Blu’s head. The dog raised her head and looked into Joanne’s eyes. No words were needed in those quiet moments when unconditional love touched Joanne’s bruised spirit. She hugged Blu and whispered, “I love you, too.”
Filled with wonder, I witnessed a black-and-white border collie—who was once afraid to love—part the veil of sadness from my young daughter’s heart.
Margaret Hevel
The Haunted Bowl
It’s not much to look at. Just a big old cream-colored bowl. You know, one of those old-fashioned crock bowls with a shiny glaze except on the bottom and around the rim. It’s thick and heavy with short vertical sides. For almost thirty years that old bowl has occupied a place on my kitchen floor. It came from Jackson’s Hay and Feed, one of those tin-roofed feed stores, the kind with a dusty wooden floor, the pungent aromas of alfalfa and bags of feed, and the sounds of cheep-cheeping fuzzy yellowchicks in an incubator. At $4.95 it represented a major investment for a college student drawing $90 a month on the GI Bill.
Today, it came out of the cupboard where it was stored after Cheddar, my dear old yellow Lab, had to be put down. It had just seemed too big to feed the puppy—until now. The puppy, another yellow girl I named Chamois, is growing fast. Now, at almost eighteen weeks of age, she’s ready for the bowl. She’ll be the third Lab to eat from it.
Swamp was the first. For thirteen years Swamp ate her meals from the bowl. Now as I look at it sitting on my kitchen floor, I can see Swamp as clearly as if she were here. She liked to lie on the floor with the bowl between her front legs when she ate. Her last meal came from that bowl; a special food for dogs with failing kidneys. She’d been on it since September. The vet told me she had about four months left so I started looking for a puppy.
Swamp rode with me out to a farm on a windy Kansas prairie. The farmer had about ten kennel runs. On one side were Labs and on the other were pointers. He said, “I don’t usually sell ’em to people who don’t hunt.” I confessed I was not a hunter, but Swamp worked her magic on him and soon we were driving home with a precocious yellow puppy we named Cheddar.
The bowl got Cheddar into trouble. She tried to eat from it when Swamp was holding it between her paws. A quick growl and a snap of Swamp’s powerful jaws and we were racing to the vet’s for a couple of stitches on her nose. I hadn’t thought of that for years. Now with the bowl sitting here on the kitchen floor, it seems like yesterday. And, as if it were yesterday, I again experienced the sharp pangs of grief felt so many years ago when we drove Swamp to the same clinic and said good-bye. That night Cheddar ate her first meal from the bowl, and for the next fifteen years it was filled for her every morning.
Cheddar’s technique was different from Swamp’s. She’d walk up to the bowl, get a chunk or two in her mouth and walk away as she crunched the kibble. Then she’d circle back for another bite. She always ate half the food in the morning and the other half just before bedtime. It was a pattern that never varied.
That old $4.95 bowl is probably the only thing I still own that was mine thirty years ago. It has served us well, and tonight Chamois will eat her first meal from it. I wonder if she knows how valuable it is and what it means to me. I wonder if she knows it’s Halloween and that her meal tonight will be served in a haunted bowl: a big old cream-colored bowl haunted by the ghosts of Swamp and Cheddar—and a thousand poignant memories. Will she know as she eats that a black ghost will lie down and wrap her front legs around the bowl and that a yellow ghost will grab a bite and then circle back for more? Will she see the tears in my eyes before I turn away and stare into the past? Or will she just devour the food, lick her chops and wag her busy tail?
John Arrington
You Have No Messages
We were visiting our daughter when we adopted our Boston terrier, Tad. An adorable puppy, just three months old, he became the family’s center of attention. Each morning, as soon as he heard my daughter Kayla moving around downstairs, he had to be taken down for playtime before she left for work. When she came home from work, we had him waiting for her at the door.
After three weeks we left for home. On the drive, we let Tad talk to Kayla on the phone each night. Once home, every time we called Kayla or she called us, we always put Tad on. He scratched the phone and listened intently and tried to look into the phone to see her.
One Saturday, Kayla called while we were out. She left a message. Tad was standing beside me when I pressed the button to listen to the message. He listened to her talking and cocked his head, grinning at me. I played it again for him.
A few days later, I was taking my shower when I heard the answering machine come on and Kayla leave a message. I thought it was strange when I heard her message repeat and the machine announce, “End of messages.” A few seconds later Kayla’s message began yet again.
Wondering what was going on, I climbed out of the shower, wrapped a towel around myself and headed into the living room. There stood Tad, listening to the answering machine. I stopped and watched. When the message finished, he stood up with his feet against the edge of the low table, reached over with one paw and slapped the answering machine. The message came on again. He dropped back on the floor and listened happily.
I told him “no,” and distracted him from the answering machine while I erased the message. A few days later I was in the kitchen when I heard, “You have no messages.” I headed for the living room. Tad had started the machine again. I watched as he cocked his head and looked at the answering machine. Then he stood with his feet on the edge of the table and tapped the button again: “You have no messages.” He walked around to the other side of the table and repeated the process with the same results. This really irritated him. He returned to his first position, took both paws and began slapping and clawing the answering machine. It repeated: “You have no messages.”
Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul Page 4
