My Very Good, Very Bad Dog

by Amy Newmark

  Hot Tub had been with us only a month and already we were in trouble with the law. Maybe we weren’t meant to have a dog. She wouldn’t let me use an umbrella. She barked at our neighbors. She chewed our furniture. She puked on our rugs.

  She summoned the police.

  How could we keep her out of trouble? What other mess would she get us into? Should we reconsider the whole thing?

  The next day, when I bought dog kibble, I chose the small bag.

  But we’d underestimated our dog.

  Just three nights later, in the middle of the night, a low growl woke me up. I had never heard that sound before, from either the mellow Hot Tub we’d once known, or from Hot Tub the Wonder Puppy.

  “Do you hear that?” I hissed to my husband. The growl grew louder. We got out of bed and crept toward the disturbing noise.

  As soon as Hot Tub saw us, she started barking her familiar high-pitched puppy bark. But beneath it, she was still growling. Her tail stood out behind her at an angle, like a flagpole. The hairs on the back of her neck were raised.

  Hot Tub was staring straight at the closed laundry-room door. On the other side of that door sat our compact washer/dryer, and beyond that, the back door. Was that a rattling sound coming from our back door?

  My husband flung open the laundry-room door.

  AAACK!

  I couldn’t help the scream. In the window of the back door, I saw the dim outline of a face, peering in at us.

  I shrieked again, this time with more feeling. The intruder fled, disappearing into the darkness.

  For the second time in three days, the police visited our house. They inspected our back door and concluded we’d interrupted somebody breaking in. They said an armed intruder had been reported in the area. He had vanished, and they didn’t expect him to return to our house. We were lucky to have such an alert dog, the police told us.

  Needless to say, Hot Tub the Wonder Puppy, stayed.

  For the next fifteen years, Hot Tub taught us what we needed to know about living with a dog. She graduated from obedience school, helped us make friends with the neighbors, survived multiple emergency veterinary visits and one serious illness, traveled with us to parts near and far, and in the end, trusted us to know when her time had come. And during all that time, in Hot Tub’s home, no neighbor passed by unnoticed, no nighttime intruder entered, and not a single umbrella was allowed to unfurl.

  ~Christy Mihaly

  Quiet Devotion

  Fun fact: Helen Keller was the first American known to have an Akita, which was given to her when she was on a speaking tour in Japan.

  I look at my grandchildren laughing and playing, and I think of Nago, our first dog. These precious children might not be here, playing on the floor, if the 150-pound Akita had died at puppy-hood of parvovirus like the veterinarian expected. If Nago hadn’t survived that ailment, I might not know the darlings who bounce about me with enthusiasm. But he didn’t die. He grew into the great beast that watched over my own toddlers twenty-some years ago.

  I could never say that Nago was an affectionate dog — not like those smaller creatures that dance about one’s feet and nestle onto laps like an extension of their human companions. He was aloof — content to lie on the mat by the door and study my offspring through their seasons of growth and development. He was certainly alert — ever ready to put another dog in its place if it drew too near to his charges — but he wasn’t one to seek out the nuzzling and stroking and petting of the human hand. If my children overstepped protocol and reached for a shaggy hug, Nago simply relocated to another part of the house.

  My children grew, and Nago’s sense of responsibility to them deepened. He joined in their backyard play as much as he was able — chasing a ball and then trotting off to watch from a vantage point. He joined us on our walks to the bus stop each morning and waited with me in the afternoons as the long yellow vehicle disgorged its occupants. In the hours between watching our children, he slept. His internal clock seemed to be set to the school-bus schedule and minutes before we would leave for the bus stop, he would rouse himself, give a good shake and meet me at the door. It was as though his heart beat to the piping voices of the three little girls in his care. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he would put his own life on the line for them.

  I remember the March morning well that Nago showed the full extent of his devotion. The day had dawned frosty. The previous day’s spring melt had hardened into sheets of thin ice, hidden in the dark hues of the gravel road. We left for the bus stop, our breaths steaming the air and our children’s chatter cutting into the stillness. Nago trotted alongside me, his eyes scanning the ditches and returning to the children every so often. We crossed the main intersection and settled at our station fifteen feet west of the stop sign.

  I never noticed my middle daughter’s gradual meander to the dust and gravel at the roadside by the stop sign where she decided to draw in the dirt. I was intent on looking to the west to see if the bus was on its way. I didn’t notice the pickup truck and its cargo charging up the hill behind me. I hadn’t seen the black ice on the crest of that hill. But I did see Nago leave my side and bolt for the road’s edge.

  Some say that emergencies happen in slow motion. Others say they flash by in brief seconds. I can’t begin to place what happened next into either category other than to say that while the events unfolded with lightning speed, my reflexes locked as though mired in molasses. Nago, however, seemed to move with the fluid grace and speed of a wolf.

  A local farmer, preparing for the upcoming season, had decided to move some of his equipment from one property to the other. Hitched firmly to the back of his pickup truck was an aging fertilizer spreader. I assume he wanted to get the thing moved before the traffic began to clog the town’s main corridors and he chose that early hour to do so. As his truck crested the hill toward the intersection, he began to brake — and discovered the black ice locked into the pitted surface of the road. In my frozen state, I watched the towed piece of machinery jackknife, swinging around toward the stooped form of my daughter, who was still drawing her masterpieces in the dirt.

  And then Nago was there, slamming against her six-year-old body, shoving her out of the path of the truck and into the ditch. My daughter clung to his fur, her legs making twin tracks through hoary grass as he dragged her. The dog that lived his life shunning the hands of children now offered his back and side as a lifeline while he did what came naturally to him.

  The sounds of gravel churning, brakes screeching and a motor groaning silenced in the aftermath of the moment. There was a brief hesitation as we stood there in shock, and then we all moved fast. I bolted for my daughter, wrapping her in a hug and pulling her back with her sisters. Nago trotted at my side again as though nothing had happened. The truck driver pulled into the parking lot next to us and dropped his forehead to the steering wheel while a bus driver from another district school looked on — horror and relief clearly etched across her face.

  We gathered around Nago and petted him as much as he would allow, and I wondered if he understood what he had done for our family. The moment of electric excitement that could have ended in tragedy rolled past, and I watched my children step up onto their bus. Nago and I meandered home, I walking slowly, absorbing all that had been and could have been, while Nago chased imaginary rabbits in and out of the ditches.

  Nago died two years later, on the anniversary of his heroic rescue. It was as though he wanted me to know that he understood what he’d given me. I still tear up when I think of what could have been. My children raise questioning eyes, and I can only shrug or pretend the tears are not there. And when I look at them and my grandchildren, I remember that heroic dog who avoided too much human contact but went full force into action when required.

  ~Donna Fawcett

  The Biggest Dog on the Mountain

  Fun fact: Dogs are social animals. Wild dogs live in family groups of dogs called packs, but pet dogs consider their humans part of their
pack!

  We liked hiking together. Today, we were looking for a trail over Wallace Mountain in northern Georgia’s Chattahoochee National Forest.

  “It’s been over an hour,” said Jesse, my nineteen-year-old son. “Do you think the trail still exists?”

  We had explored several paths in the new terrain with no luck. We pushed through weeds mid-calf high for us, but neck-high for our rusty-brown dog, Shadow, as she scrambled through the brush.

  “Hang in there,” I responded. “It’s easier to find an old trail now in the wintertime with so many leaves down. It hasn’t been rough so far. Okay to keep going?”

  Jesse nodded, and we continued. Once in a while, he would call Shadow back when she veered off after a scent. She was the size of a large housecat, her face shaped liked a Beagle but with small, floppy ears inviting a gentle scratch. Always content to curl up on the couch beside one of us, she had the build of a boxcar, no longer slim and bouncing with energy. Outside, though, she came alive and raced circles around us, always returning when commanded, wagging her tail like a feather duster. We carried her red leash with us but seldom had to use it.

  Suddenly, we heard what sounded like many dogs barking in the distance, an unusual sound in the wilderness around us. Curious, we climbed the ridge, which provided a view down into the valley and to the opposite hillside, dotted with farmhouses.

  “Oh, no. Look, that front door is opening….” Jesse said as he pointed to the nearest house.

  His words stopped as we watched the farmhouse transform into a dog factory, spewing first a German Shepherd, then a black Lab. Small dogs, big dogs, brown dogs, and dogs I can’t even describe poured out as if on an invisible high-speed conveyer belt. The hounds hit the ground, sniffing the air and turning to face us. Their barking rose to a frenzy. With menace in their tones and unity in their strides, they descended down their side of the mountain. Jesse shot an alarmed glance at me before turning to call in a firm voice, “Shadow, come here; stay.”

  I patted the pockets of my flannel shirt, feeling for the pepper spray, so small it would never work against so many animals. Grim now, I turned, surveying the nearby brush for a potential weapon. I grabbed for a branch, but as I tightened my grip, the rotten limb crumbled, useless. I heard Jesse scrambling through the dry leaves on his own search for protection. With the help of adrenaline, I broke off a decent-sized bough from a nearby tree.

  “I’ve got one. Did you get one?” I rushed to Jesse’s side.

  “Almost,” he said as he pulled and twisted. “Yes,” he said, staggering backward with a broken branch.

  “Dad, where’s the leash?”

  The barking intensified. My mouth went dry. Instead of answering, my brain was scrambling to remember how to survive a dog attack. Was it “make yourself big and loud”? No, that was for a black bear. Maybe it was “don’t look them in the eye”? I glanced over at Jesse, his lips pinched tight. Our eyes met fearfully and then there was a mutual nod of resolve.

  The pack emerged from the dell, still at a distance, but barreling straight toward us. Shadow stood at Jesse’s side on alert. She began to growl. I juggled my weapons and worried about Shadow, wondering why I hadn’t put her on the leash at the sound of that first bark.

  But it was too late. The dogs in the lead were now close enough for us to see that most of them were three times larger than Shadow. Their deep growls rumbling, they ran straight for us. Jesse swallowed hard and looked at me.

  Shadow’s back fur rose and she started to walk straight toward them, her low serious growl growing, reverberating from the back of her throat.

  “No, Shadow, no,” I commanded. The three of us could face them together, but she would be no match for even one attacker. What had I gotten us into? My stomach clenched tight in fear. I could taste the bile in the back of my throat. How could we possibly save ourselves and our beloved dog from this enormous pack?

  Our usually obedient dog took the time to turn her head my way one last time, as if to shrug and say, “Well, yes, you’re my master, but…”

  And she continued to advance toward danger, stopping directly in front of the team of angry dogs. They halted in their tracks.

  Jesse whispered, “Oh, no, standoff time.”

  Shadow bolted toward the largest snarling mongrel. Jesse inhaled loudly, and I clutched my tree branch. Ready to step forward into the fray, we froze, astounded, as the entire mass of dogs turned tail and fled.

  Amazed, we kept pace as our twenty-five-pound pet followed the bunch back to the edge of their homestead. Still on guard, I worried the dogs might turn on Shadow when we got to their home turf. Oddly, the dogs had already disappeared.

  “Maybe they’re embarrassed,” Jesse said, with a huge sigh of relief. “Come on, Shadow, let’s go.”

  The three of us climbed back to the crest, through stubborn laurel thickets and dense brush. I felt almost shaky with relief. We chose to hike a dirt road back to the cabin and soon came across a man trimming trees. He waved as we cut through his private homestead. It seemed so calm and neighborly, so normal and peaceful after our harrowing brush with the horde of mountain dogs.

  Back at the cabin, Jesse and I couldn’t stop petting Shadow as we told Mom and Tricia about our miraculous and brave dog.

  Jesse said, “You just can’t imagine how Shadow stood them down. She went right for the leader of the pack. And to think we were worried about protecting her!”

  Tricia patted the new loveseat. “I guess you’re allowed up here now, Shadow.”

  Nobody said a word about her shedding hair where it didn’t belong. In fact, we all crowded around and petted her, while Jesse and I kept repeating the mind-boggling story over and over, adding more details with each round. With each telling, I realized how incredible the encounter had been, and how fortunate we were to be home safe and sound.

  “Oh, I need to get something for her.” I went to the kitchen to get her a heaping plate of dog cookies with her favorite topping of peanut butter, plus a fresh bowl of water.

  I like to think I saw a gleam in Shadow’s eye as she ate the peanut butter. Her status of loyal family hero went down in history forever. And Shadow’s photo remains front and center on the living room wall to this day.

  ~Dale Keppley

  Dynamic Duo

  Fun fact: In 1876, the Great Dane was named the national breed of Germany, where it was developed in the 16th century.

  Courage comes in all shapes and sizes. I’d always known that, but I’d never thought of my skinny, sleepy dog or my lovely, unpretentious, multi-talented wife in terms of life-saving bravery. So I was amazed at the story this stranger was recounting.

  “Is that your dog?” the gray-haired, middle-aged lady asked, as I answered her knock on my screen door. Komomai (“come here” in Hawaiian), our shiny-black, floppy-eared Great Dane, lay reclining in the sun. He lifted a lazy head, managed a sniff, and returned to sleep mode.

  “I wanted to come by your house and thank you because that dog and the lady with him saved my life yesterday. I was snorkeling at Mahaulepu Beach, and without them I would have drowned.”

  The azure waters that look so appealing along the secluded beach have strong currents. On Kauai, we know that swimmers can be carried beyond the reef and out to sea before they know it.

  “I asked around at the Big Save in town, ‘Anybody know who has a giant black dog?’ and everybody knew the dog and where you live,” my visitor said.

  We were a common sight while driving around our country town with Komomai riding shotgun, head sticking out above the top of my little Datsun.

  As she continued, I remembered my wife Sandy saying something about swimming with the dog and helping a lady while at the beach.

  “I’m a missionary to Japan back home on furlough. I had forgotten how strong the current is at the beach and I’m out of shape. I should have known better, but I was snorkeling by myself, got tired, and realized I was too far out. I tried to swim back and got a cramp. I star
ted floating on my back, calling and waving for help and praying. I thought I was going to drown.

  “Then I heard a holler: ‘Just grab his collar, and he’ll pull you in.’ I saw this lady swimming toward me, pushing through the surf, with a giant dog at her side.”

  The grateful woman recounted how she grabbed hold of the dog’s collar as he swam with powerful strokes, towing her to shore. After hugs and tears of gratitude, she departed.

  “Sandy’s not trained for lifesaving. Great Danes aren’t really known as water dogs,” I puzzled to myself. “How did she get the nerve to pull off a dangerous open-ocean rescue?”

  Upon her return from work, I exclaimed to my wife, “Some lady came by today and told me to tell you ‘thank you for saving my life.’ I didn’t realize you are a hero. What happened?”

  “It was mostly Komomai,” Sandy explained modestly. “I was at the beach by myself with the dog. I saw this lady snorkeling and heard her calling for help.

  “I looked up and down the deserted beach and realized I was the only one who could help. I was scared and couldn’t decide what to do. I can swim, but you know I don’t have any lifesaving training. I know how easy it is for a panicked person to drown or drag down any would-be rescuer.

  “In a flash of inspiration, I remembered how we played with the dog in the water as a puppy and how you taught him to tow you in while you floated on your back holding his collar.

  “I called Komomai and got him to swim with me out to the lady. I could tell he knew what to do and wanted to go. His eagerness gave me the courage to try the rescue.

  “As we pushed through the surge and current to approach the floundering lady, I remember thinking, ‘Lucky I brought Komomai; he’s a better swimmer than I am.’

  “When we reached the lady, she was in a panic, so I didn’t want to get close enough for her to grab me. But I knew Komomai could handle it. Treading water just out of her reach, I calmed her down and told her to trust the dog to pull her in. She grabbed the collar and didn’t let go. The rest was easy.”