A Cup of Comfort for Dog Lovers

by Colleen Sell

  A few weeks later, my neighbor had her daycare kids out in her yard when I brought Natasha out for a potty break. The daycare kids rushed to the fence and poked their hands through, asking to “pet the bear.” By that time, I knew Natasha wasn't a vicious dog, so I brought her over to meet them. She immediately turned broadside to the fence and leaned in, so that there was room for all the little hands to pet every inch of her, from head to tail. They petted her and poked her and prodded her — all the while, her tongue lolled out in grin and her eyes were half-closed in ecstasy, loving every minute of it.

  She was eighteen months old when we brought her home. She's nine now, and she's been the best dog we could ever hope for. Vicious? Not even close. But she is protective. She'll bark and bounce at the window when a strange adult enters the yard, just like she did in that garage all those years ago. Logically speaking, letting that man put her in my van, after witnessing her initial behavior, was a dumb move. But it turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to our family. If I had judged Natasha's book by its cover, we would have missed out on one of the best canine companions a family could ever ask for.

  ˜Brenda Kezar

  Sweeter Than Ice Cream

  The pleasant small town of Urbana, Ohio, was, and still is, so tiny that almost everyone in town knows everyone else in town. As a matter of fact, long-time residents usually know not only you but also your parents and grandparents and perhaps even your great-grandparents. One of Urbana's unheralded claims to fame is an old-fashioned ice cream parlor called Kerr's Sweet Shop, which has been in the same spot for decades. To the townspeople of Urbana, Kerr's well-worn atmosphere is as familiar and comfortable as a favorite pair of old jeans.

  One young boy regularly visited this ice-cream parlor with his dog, a boxer named Gar. Gar was short for Gargantua, named after the famous giant, because he grew to be such a big dog. “Ninety-seven pounds of pure muscle!” the boy would proclaim proudly.

  Whenever the boy visited the ice-cream parlor, which was almost daily in the summer, he always ordered two ice-cream cones — a chocolate one for himself and a vanilla one for Gar. A self-proclaimed “chocoholic,” the boy felt badly that Gar always had to settle for vanilla, even though he knew chocolate is dangerous for dogs. Of course, Gar didn't seem to mind; he wagged his stubby tail gleefully when the boy held out the vanilla cone for him to lick as they sat together on the steps outside the ice-cream parlor. The boy often half-joked that if they could find a way to harness the energy of that tail to a generator, they would have enough power to light all of Urbana for weeks on end.

  One time, the boy was sick with the flu and wasn't able to leave the house to go to school, much less the ice-cream parlor. After four days, or maybe a full week, when he was well again, the boy took Gar out for their routine walk around town. The dog trotted happily beside him, no leash required, stopping here and there to sniff at bushes and hydrants and trees. When the pair came into view of Kerr's Sweet Shop, Gar suddenly left the boy's side and dashed across Main Street. Pausing at the far corner, he glanced back, as if imploring his owner to follow. So the boy did, following Gar right up through the door and into the ice-cream parlor.

  The boy walked up to the counter, asked for “the usual,” and sifted through change in his pocket to pay. But instead of “the usual” ten cents — a nickel for each cone — the man working as the ice-cream scooper said the boy owed a quarter. The boy was confused. He ordered only two single-scoop cones: one vanilla, one chocolate, just as he always did; that should be a dime.

  The man smiled and said, “Well, your dog's been comin' in the past few afternoons around this time, and he kept barkin' and barkin' and wouldn't stop. We figured that, since you always get a vanilla cone for him and he likes 'em so well, we'd just give him some ice cream and keep a tab for him. I hope that's okay.”

  The boy laughed and assured the man that it certainly was. In fact, he told them to keep the tab running if Gar came in again by himself, which the dog occasionally did. Years later, long after he'd grown to be a man, the boy still got a kick out of telling the story about his crazy dog with his very own charge account at the local ice-cream parlor.

  My grandpa was that young boy, and his story about Gar and the ice-cream parlor is one of my favorites. Ever since I was a little girl, I have begged him to tell that story over and over, wishing I had a boxer dog just like his beloved Gar. A dog I could raise from a puppy and take for walks around town and get ice cream with. A dog who would sleep at the foot of my bed at night and be my best friend.

  My dad grew up listening to the same stories, and he understood how much I wanted a dog like Grandpa's Gar. Though Dad was open to the idea of getting a boxer, we lived in a small condominium that was too cramped for a big dog who loves to run and play. So, for what seemed like a very long time, my boxer dreams were just that — a little girl's heart wishes.

  Then, during the summer before I went into third grade, we moved to a bigger house — with a backyard! — and suddenly my dream of owning a boxer seemed wonderfully within reach. That year, as with previous years, a boxer puppy was at the top of my birthday wish list. While we lived in the condo, I never really expected to get one. But when my first birthday in our new house arrived, I had high hopes.

  Gramps came over for dinner to help us celebrate my tenth birthday. He gave me the last present himself, a book titled Caring for Your Boxer Puppy. I opened the cover to find a note written inside: “The real thing will be coming in a few weeks.” And sure enough, on a sunny spring day a short time later, I played fetch with my new puppy, Gar, for the first time!

  Gar soon proved to live up to his namesake's reputation as quite a goofy character. He often “works on his tan” while napping on the porch in the afternoon sunshine. He doesn't care much for ice cream, but he does love oatmeal cookies — not chocolate chip, though, because Gramps was quick to tell me that chocolate is bad for dogs. Gramps refers to Gar as my “brother,” and he spoils him like he is indeed another grandchild. Not surprisingly, Gar absolutely adores his “grandfather.”

  Another thing Gar, like his predecessor, adores is going for walks around the neighborhood. If I so much as whisper the word walk, he immediately starts jumping around frantically and scratching at the front door in excited anticipation. If I am later than usual in asking, he lets me know he's ready to go by whining at the cupboard drawer where his leash is kept.

  Every evening I take Gar for a two-mile walk around our neighborhood. We walk on a path that runs alongside an orange grove, with a view of rows upon rows of green trees stretching toward the distant hills and shimmering Pacific Ocean. My favorite time of the day to take a walk is just before dusk, when the sun is beginning to set and the California sky is filled with warm, soothing pinks and reds and golds. Though I tell Gar I am doing him a favor by walking him, the truth is it has become one of my favorite parts of the day too. It is my quiet time, when I can escape the hectic routines of the day and reflect upon my life and my dreams.

  Most teenagers have a special place where they chill out and regroup — their bedroom or a specific hideout. My sanctuary moves — it is anywhere beside my dog. Walks with Gar keep me grounded and enable me to recognize and savor the little miracles of life — a tiny yellow flower blooming through a crack in the sidewalk, the innocent gleeful laughter of children playing in the neighborhood cul-de-sac, the slobbery wet kiss of a dog as he looks at you with unconditional love and devotion. Especially when I am worried or stressed or sad, walking alongside — or rather, being pulled along behind — my wacky, exuberant, “Eighty-six pounds of pure muscle” dog, who still thinks he's a puppy, always makes me feel better. Our walks allow me to reflect upon my many blessings, to be thankful for all I have — including the best birthday present ever, a gargantuan boxer who is sweeter than ice cream.

  ˜Dallas Woodburn

  The Tail of a Chesapeake

  Maternal instincts run deep, and the day our new puppy arrived, he became
my third child. Relic is a pure-bred Chesapeake Bay retriever. He is a lovely reddish brown with quizzical eyebrows and a sense of adventure and fun to match my own. He even sings. If he hears me singing anything, he happily joins in. He curls his lips forward in a perfect imitation of Charles Shultz's Snoopy and wooo-woooo-wooos right along with me.

  He loves me.

  One heartbreaking fall day, I drove over my beloved pup, right in the middle of my own driveway. It was raining, and I was in a hurry to pick up my children from school. As I backed up, Relic did not get out of the way in time, and I caught him with the rear tire of a three-quarter-ton truck.

  My eight-month-old puppy yelped once.

  My first line of defense is always my husband. He picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”

  “Hi, honey. I drove over the dog, and I need you to come and help me. The kids need to be picked up from school, and the dog needs to go to the vet right away. I don't want the kids to see this.”

  “I'll be right there.”

  David arrived, stern-faced, about two minutes later. He picked up the dog, loaded him into the front seat of his truck, and drove away. I hopped into my truck and dashed off to the school.

  As seriously bad luck would have it, the kids and I were headed for a kiddy play date. I held it together perfectly until the woman, whose cell phone I had just asked to borrow to call my husband, asked me why. That is when the enormity of what I had done struck home. I had driven over my sweet puppy and then sent him off in the care of my husband. This is a man who grew up on a farm and doesn't believe pets should have any amount of money spent on them. He is also familiar with the thirty-nine-cent solution to sick animals — a bullet to the head.

  What have I done? I worried. I felt physically sick. After all, it was my fault the dog was hurt in the first place. I cried as I dialed the number.

  “Heeello,” my husband drawled.

  “Where are you?”

  “Back at work.”

  “Where's the dog?”

  “At the vet's.”

  “Really? You took him to the vet?”

  “Well, yes. I stopped at Dwight's first. After talking to Dwight for a bit, we decided I had two choices. One, shoot the dog and be done with it. Then later, deal with two upset children and one very upset wife — who, by chance, does not take these sorts of things lightly, forgets nothing, forgives even less, and will put me through misery for months, if not the rest of my life. Or, two, take the dog to the vet like she asked, accept that we're going to spend more than thirty-nine cents, and continue to live with happy children and a wife who still likes me. Dwight and I decided option two looked like my best choice. So I took the dog to the vet. The rest is up to you.”

  Guilt is the most expensive emotion. When you love someone, you are willing to spend two months salary on a wedding ring. In this case, I would have sold my very soul to find enough money to fix my dog. In fact, when I signed my Visa slip at the vet's office, I covered up the amount; I didn't want to know. In fact, when the bill came in the mail the next month, I never even opened it. I just called the bank and asked them to transfer enough money from the checking account to cover the balance on the credit card account.

  Relic's best option was to amputate the leg just below the hip, the vet advised. He said I would feel worse about it than the dog would. He was right. I was devastated.

  He said Relic would simply go to sleep with four legs and wake up with three. It would take a while for him to adjust, but otherwise, he would be like any other dog. Run, play, and be happy.

  Again, he was right. Relic is the happiest dog I have ever owned. A playful and loving soul, he greets everyone who comes to our farm market with a wagging tail. On occasion he has wagged his tail so hard it has made him lose his balance in the hind end, and he topples over.

  When you are pregnant, you see pregnant women everywhere. They just seem to appear out of nowhere like shiny beacons. Until Relic lost his leg, I never realized how many disabled people there were in our community. People with disabilities seem to relate to my dog at a deeper level. I have had strangers approach me to show me their missing fingers, thumbs, glass eyes, burns, or scars or sometimes to just tell me about their depression. Because of my dog, they feel brave enough to drop the pretense of being “perfect” and to show me their “flaw” — often with reverence, as if revealing a holy relic for the first time.

  One man, for example, walked into the market and told me he was interested in buying a few apples but more interested in buying my dog. “Name your price,” he said.

  He was not the first to make such an offer. I laughed and tried to joke with him by saying, “Why?”

  “This,” he responded, tapping his prosthetic leg.

  After finally giving in to my insistence that I would not sell my dog, the man chose to sit with Relic for a while. They went into the u-pick together and shared a hot dog and ice cream, though I doubt the man got much of it. When he finally left to go home, he hugged Relic and told him he loved him.

  Missing fingers, legs, arms, eyes; severe arthritis; depression; you name it — people with any type of physical challenge seem to connect with my dog. They often marvel at how seemingly oblivious Relic is to his disability. For many, he is canine therapy.

  “He seems so happy,” they say.

  “Of course he is,” I reply as I watch my laughing canine play in the yard. “Because no one has ever told him he shouldn't be.”

  My happy-go-lucky, three-legged dog is an inspiration to anyone who has something to overcome. Relic is a testament of hope and survival. He is my hero.

  ˜Allison Maher

  The Gift That Keeps Giving

  On my twenty-fifth birthday, my mother and sister waltzed into my hospital room with balloons, flowers, and a gift-wrapped package. When I unwrapped the box, I found it filled with Milk-Bones. I pushed them aside, carefully excavating their depth, looking for buried treasure. And there it was — a picture of a Yorkshire terrier clipped from a magazine. I looked at the creature's long, steel-colored hair — parted from the nose, down the back, to the tip of the tail — and then at my mother and sister, who were seated alongside the aluminum rails of my bed. I'd just had fusion surgery to stabilize degenerative bones in my left foot and ankle. My swollen left leg was set in a cast and elevated beneath a mountain of ice.

  “Once you're back on your feet, we'll find a breeder, and you'll take your pick,” my sister stated matter-of-factly. “It's time, don't you think?”

  Only a few months before, my boyfriend had dumped me, and my first Yorkie had died of old age. Everyone was in agreement that losing the boyfriend was a blessing, but I was lost without my furry friend.

  The memory made my heart ache and my eyes brim. “I'm touched — really, I am — but this is a very extravagant gift.”

  My mother patted my hand. “You're worth it,” she said.

  “But I don't see how I'll be able to take care of another dog when I can barely take care of myself these days.” I gestured toward my bad leg, my intravenous line swinging like a jump rope over it.

  “Don't worry. We'll help you. Besides, you're a dog person,” my sister said. “You have too much love to give not to have one.”

  I sat there, gazing at the picture of the Yorkie — the tilted little head and V-shaped ears, those big, moist eyes. My mom and sister's offer was hard to resist. It seemed just the impetus I needed to hurry up and get well.

  After three months of not being able to put any weight on my left leg, I learned that the fusion surgery had failed. Still in a cast and on crutches, I was told I'd need another surgery as soon as my leg had healed sufficiently. My spirits sunk lower than the temperatures that winter. But when the breeders my mother and sister had contacted a few months before called to tell me about their new litter, I felt a glimmer of hope.

  “It's providential,” my mother said. “If the next surgery's going to confine you for three more months, you might as well convalesce with a new best
friend.”

  It didn't take much to convince me.

  A week before my second surgery, we all paid a visit to the breeders. My sister drove my mother and me down a rolling suburban street as if it were a blacktop version of the yellow brick road. As we pulled into the driveway, we heard muffled barks and yelps coming from a split-level house, where dark silhouettes capped by triangular-shaped ears moved in virtually every window. Inside was a Yorkshire terrier wonderland, shepherded by Mark and Milo — two older men who seemed as devoted to each other as they were to their “kids,” as they referred to their canine brood.

  It was a challenge to navigate on crutches through an ankle-high sea of long-haired creatures — some festooned with paper wrappers, others with ribbons tied into top-knot bows — who fiercely protected their turf. The scent of disinfectant overpowered the smell of urine, as we were ushered into a dark-paneled room filled with even more Yorkies. They were in crates stacked up one on top of the other, and they yapped away like unhappy tenants in an over-crowded condominium complex.

  “Give us a moment. We'll get the babies.” Mark and Milo waltzed past gold cup trophies and pictures of Yorkie champions perched beside blue ribbons from the Westminster Dog Show.

  While they were gone, my mother and sister helped me get settled upon the newspaper covering every square inch of the floor. Then three, ten-week-old Yorkie puppies were brought in and set loose around me. The smooth, black pups resembled one-pound rottweilers. There was a string of colored yarn tied around the neck of each puppy: Priscilla was sporting cotton-candy pink; Isabella, sunflower-petal yellow; Jonathan, Chianti red. The girls showered me with affection. They jumped and wriggled around too much for me to grab them. Jonathan hung back — alert and curious, yet much more reticent than his sisters.