A Cup of Comfort for Dog Lovers

by Colleen Sell

  Yes, we have a big dog. A big ole' mix-up dog. We love him so.

  ˜Kristine Downs

  Dogs Eat Bread?

  Unlike most dogs, Carly, a sheltie/shepherd mix, did not gobble up every speck of food put in front of her. She would take the offered item politely, put it on the floor, and sniff it. Then she would turn her apologetic gaze to me as if to say, “What, exactly, do you expect me to do with this?”

  She certainly never ate plain bread. Carly understood she was a dog, and simple dog food would do. But one day on a visit to my Italian grandmother, she proved she understood much more than that.

  I grew up next door to my grandparents' house, and there, dogs lived outside, were all named Shep, and ate leftover bread and spaghetti sauce for supper. By the time I was in my twenties and had adopted Carly, the Sheps were long gone, and when we visited, my grandparents allowed my dog inside.

  In the kitchen, I sat at the table, fascinated, while Grandma shuffled back and forth in her faded flowered dress and stained apron, getting food for me — as if I could eat six different kinds of cold cuts, half a loaf of Italian bread, a thick slice of fried eggplant, spaghetti and meatballs, salad, and cheesecake all by myself at three o'clock in the afternoon.

  Carly trailed after Grandma's ratty Keds — the comfy ones with the toes cut out of them — as she performed her everyday magic of producing a banqueton a moment's notice. “Mangia, ” Grandma said as she moved from refrigerator to cabinet to pantry and back, placing another item on the table each time she passed. “You want some cheese?”

  “No thanks, Grandma, really. This is plenty.”

  She put the full round of mozzarella in front of me anyway, just in case.

  “You're too skinny.”

  “Why don't you sit down with me?” I asked.

  Grandma continued to bustle around her kitchen, her every step literally dogged by a furry girl eagerly seeking yummy morsels. That's my dog? I thought. My courteous and respectful Carly? She never followed me around the kitchen like that. She never followed anyone like that, and she never begged for people food.

  I picked at the love offering Grandma had lain on the table. The right thing to do was to mangia with gusto, but I wasn't hungry, not that it mattered. This was Grandma's way of showing she cared. To reciprocate, I should eat.

  She eyed me from her station by the stove and gestured in my direction with a spoon. “You got a boyfriend?”

  Here we go. “Yes,” I answered, “but he's not Italian.”

  She emitted an eloquent, long-suffering sigh and returned to stirring the pot, but not without noticing Carly at her feet.

  “Carly, here,” I said. “Get out of Grandma's way.”

  “Eh,” Grandma dismissed me with a wave of her hand. I was too skinny, lacked the sense to eat, and had a non-Italian boyfriend. I was not worth talking to, especially since I had not brought said non Italian boyfriend around so she could squeeze his cheeks between her hands and see for herself whether he was Italian.

  My dog, on the other hand, showed more interest in Grandma's food than I did. She glanced down into Carly's brown eyes. “What do want, eh? You want a piece of bread?”

  Carly's tail thumped the floor.

  I cut a piece of bread for myself. “She won't eat it,” I said as I folded a few slices of prosciutto into the stiff curl of the crusty homemade loaf. Carly licked her chops, her eyes following Grandma's every move, as if a bite of medium-rare sirloin might fall out of her apron pocket. Grandma leaned over the table, tore off a hunk of bread, and offered it to Carly. Carly, in her gentle way, took it and ate it. I stopped chewing, narrowed my eyes at my dog, and watched her throat work the dry treat down to her tummy.

  Grandma nodded in approval. Carly looked as if she might like another taste of that delicious, plain bread. I slumped in my chair, at first surprised, then astonished, as she accepted and ate another piece. She continued to shadow the old woman over the cracked linoleum floor. This is a trick, I thought.

  Grandma, validated in her dogs-eat-bread belief system, lowered herself into a chair, oblivious to the miracle she had wrought. She rested her chin against her palm and fixed her bright eyes on me.

  “You should shop around,” she said, getting back to the important matter of men.

  “So you've said,” I answered absently, not meaning to be rude, but still in shock. I kept my gaze on Carly, waiting for what, I didn't know. At that point, she could have recited The Declaration of Independence, and I wouldn't have been surprised. The dog shoved her damp nose under my hand. I stroked her silky ears.

  “Find a man with money,” my grandmother continued with a wagging finger. “But a man who's had to work for it.”

  I'd heard this advice before and knew it contained wisdom. But the mystery of Grandma and Carly and the bread had me confounded, so I could not engage in the other philosophical issue. I was still pondering what had happened. What enlightenment, beyond fundamental civility, had my dog demonstrated? What alchemy had my grandmother wrought before my eyes? Was the power of her belief so strong that she bent my non-bread-eating dog to her will without thought? Beneath my hand, Carly shrugged, as if wondering what my mental fussing was about. Had she known in the queer way dogs know things that she should eat whatever this old woman offered simply because it was the right thing to do? I'll never know, but I like contemplating the possibilities. Perhaps there was a lesson there for me — that anything is possible with love.

  I do know Grandma was right about shopping for a man. It took a while, but I found a good one, and we married. He had the privilege of being kissed by Carly but not of having his cheeks squeezed by my Italian grandmother. And Carly, who had never eaten bread before that day at Grandma's, never ate bread again, no matter how much I learned or believed, and no matter how often I begged.

  ˜Candace Carrabus

  Away, Sam

  The sweet, green hills of New Zealand are covered with sheep, a constant restless tide always on the lookout for another blade of grass. When it's time to shift to another pasture and the shepherd whistles the dogs to work, the sheep move like a river, flowing steadily toward the gate. A sharp whistle and the shepherd's voice float across the grassy space. Flashes of black and brown change the flow as the shepherd directs his dogs in an age-old rhythm.

  My husband and I managed a farm with three-thousand ewes, and I longed to be able to tread the hills with my own dogs, sending them out in perfect harmony to move the big mobs of sheep. I wanted to be useful, which to me meant being able to move sheep from pasture to pasture. When I'd try with my husband's dogs, they'd look at me with disdain and then head off to chase rabbits, leaving me to race after the sheep myself. They acted as though working for me was one step above a bath.

  Sam came to me in his semi-retirement years. He was about ten years old and had worked faithfully for my husband's uncle. Uncle Jack maintained that Sam secretly wanted to be owned by a woman, having been raised by a farmer's wife. He figured the best place for Sam to spend his golden years was working for someone with a soft voice and gentle hands. At last, here was a dog that wanted to work with me and ignored my husband.

  Sam's breeding made him a “handy” dog — a uniquely New Zealand cross between a loud, rollicking “huntaway” and a silent, stealthy “heading” dog. The huntaway works at the back of the mob, barking loudly and often. Sheep have no natural predators in New Zealand and need to be pushed to make them move. The heading dog turns or stops the mob by gliding to the front and staring down the lead sheep. If the mating to create a handy dog works, you get a dog that barks at the back and then races to the front to silently turn the mob. If it doesn't work, you get a mess, a dog that barks at all the wrong times, scattering the sheep like BBs and turning them when they should go straight ahead.

  Sam turned out to be one of the useful handy dogs. He was of medium build and had short black-and-tan fur, pointy ears, calm eyes, and a long tail. His whole body wagged when I pulled on my boots, his signal
that we'd either be working or going for a walk.

  When he wasn't moving sheep, Sam would snooze peacefully under the big tree in front of our house. Once, he went to pet day at the school with one of our sons, where he won a prize in the dress-up class as a trusty sidekick to our cowboy-togged boy. Sam did look sideways at me that day when I gave him a bath beforehand. Working dogs, even semi-retired ones, never appreciate personal hygiene.

  Sam and I worked the small mobs, manageable for an old dog and his novice handler. I learned to read him and the sheep, and eventually we got our timing in sync. It was such freedom to call out, “Away, Sam,” and send him to just the right place to successfully move groups of fifty to 100 sheep around the farm. Sam and I were a team of two, and I felt handy in my own way.

  I knew Sam's retirement day would eventually come, when even the small mobs would be too much. But dogs don't do retirement timelines nor let their handlers in on their plans.

  One day, we headed out to move some sheep down the road, with the woolshed the final destination. The shed was about half a hour away and involved a trek down a paved road. That road made a sharp turn at the bottom of the hill, but the sheep needed to go straight ahead into a dirt road. If we messed up at that corner, the sheep continued toward a one-lane bridge and a neighbor's front lawn and lovingly tended flowers.

  I stood at the top of the hill, ready to send Sam to the front of the mob. “Away, Sam,” I sang out, expecting to see him flashing through the long grass at the side of the road. Sam remained by my side, looking into the distance. “Away, Sam,” I said again, a bit more firmly. He licked my hand, then sat. Clearly, he was not going to be the one to turn the sheep, which were now streaming down the road and gathering momentum with the slope. With an unladylike oath and hoping that he wasn't sick, I ran off through the pasture beside the road, vaulting over gates and stumbling onto the road in front of the sheep just as they rounded the corner. They stopped, surprised to see me instead of the usual black and tan flash barking at them. I managed a few weak gasps, and they turned obediently toward the dirt road. Looking around, I saw Sam trotting happily through the pasture, stopping now and then to sniff around and roll in the long grass. He caught up with me, staying by my side as the sheep walked down the road. They ended up in the right place with no help or encouragement from him.

  As I watched Sam keep pace with me, all the frustration drained away. He knew the time was here. After three years, Sam had announced his retirement without any fanfare, parties, or gold watches. I hope I'm as decisive as Sam when my big life decisions come along.

  He never herded another sheep, though he always came to watch. We walked around the farm, doing jobs that didn't involve herding, enjoying his last years. I never minded if he wanted to stop and smell the clover. We'd stop together and sit on the side of a hill, watching the other dogs work. Sometimes we'd just stand and stare into the distance. You can see a long way if you look with a calm eye.

  We buried Sam when he was thirteen, under his snoozing tree. All the dogs I've had since have benefited from the lessons he taught me when I called out, “Away, Sam.”

  ˜Kathryn Godsiff

  Contributors

  Beth Rothstein Ambler (“Butkus on Guard” and “Clod of My Heart”) recently relocated from New Jersey to Colorado, where she lives with her husband, Chuck, and her constant source of writing inspiration, Syco. She began writing when she left her management career after a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.

  Carolyn Blankenship (“Trouble on the Hoof”), of Austin, Texas, teaches classes on creativity, memoir, and journal writing. She is the program director for the board of Story Circle Network and the author of From the Heart: A Manual for Facilitators. She delights in gardening, grandkids, and traveling with her husband, Monty.

  Sharyn L. Bolton (“The Escape Artist”), of Mill Creek, Washington, was a psychologist, an account sales manager, and the head of a consulting firm specializing in custom-designed training programs before she became a freelance writer. Her articles, short stories, and essays have appeared in regional and national publications.

  Christy Caballero (“The Sweet Days of Autumn”) is a freelance writer who lives a few deer trails off the beaten path in rural Oregon. She has received journalism awards through the National Federation of Press Women, and the Dog Writers Association of America honored her with a Maxwell Award for her work on Vietnam War dogs. She practices and writes about Reiki for animals.

  Priscilla Carr (“The Major”) lives with her husband, Richard, in Nottingham, New Hampshire. She was the 2006 Writer in Residence at the Artcroft Creative Center in Kentucky. A poet, memoirist, and freelance journalist, she has been published in Northern New England Review and is working on a memoir of Jane Kenyon.

  Candace Carrabus (“Dogs Eat Bread?”) is a technical writer and Web site designer, when she isn't writing stories. She lives on a farm outside St. Louis with her architect husband, wonderful daughter, nine cats, two horses, and two dogs — both of whom love bread, but only if it is topped with spaghetti sauce.

  Loy Michael Cerf (“The Anti-Alpha Male”) is an animal-loving, Chicago-area freelance writer. She enjoys crocheting blankets for Project Linus and dreaming up creative ways to coerce her grown children into petsitting, so she can guiltlessly cruise the globe with her husband of thirty-something years.

  Lisa Ricard Claro (“Sandy Dreams”) is a freelance writer of personal essays and fiction in every genre. Her work often appears in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, and she is seeking to publish a novel. Her loves include her husband, children, two spoiled cats, and a rambunctious yellow Labrador puppy named Rigby.

  Sue Dallman-Carrizales (“Hope in a Dumpster”) was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin, and moved to Colorado after earning a master's degree in social work in 1988. Now a policy specialist with the state of Colorado, she lives in Denver with her husband, two Labradors, and a white cat.

  Tish Davidson (“Where the Need Is Greatest”) is a medical writer specializing in making technical information accessible to people outside the health care community. She is also the author of many parenting articles as well as six nonfiction books. She lives in Fremont, California, and is a volunteer puppy raiser for Guide Dogs for the Blind.

  Amy Rose Davis (“Born to Be Wild”) and her husband, Bryce, live in Gresham, Oregon, with their four children. Amy works as a freelance business copywriter and ghostwriter, and her work has appeared in A Cup of Comfort® for Mothers to Be, A Cup of Comfort® for Writers, Northwest Construction magazine, and the Oregon Humane Society magazine.

  Susan Mayer Davis (“Ginger, Come Home”) is a writer and editor for a nonprofit organization. At home, she divides her leisure time between writing, reading, and oil painting. An award-winning fiction writer, she is currently working on her first novel. Susan lives in Snellville, Georgia, with her family and their rescued Lab, Abby.

  Marla Doherty (“Bellatrix”), who remembers Bell with love and undying gratitude, lives with her husband, Chuck, and their daughter, Malina, in Redding, California. She and her family enjoy biking, hiking, camping, and snow-skiing. Lately, Daisy, their thirteen-year-old Brittany spaniel/Lab pup, prefers naps and leisurely strolls over the family's more strenuous activities.

  Linda Douglas(“The Ultimate Designer Dog”) lives in Edwardsville, Illinois, with her husband, daughter, and two dogs. She has been published in Writers' Journal and several online magazines. She is also a trained volunteer with Noah's Wish, a national organization dedicated to rescuing animals during disasters.

  Kristine Downs (“Big Ole' Mix-Up Dog”) is a lifelong writer living in Rapid City, South Dakota. Her husband, Dave, and son, Max, provide a test audience for her essays, novels, poems, and plays. She shares her love of writing every day, teaching elementary school students to put thought on paper.

  Karin Fuller (“Some Kind of Wonderful”) lives in Poca, West Virginia, with her husband, Geoff, and her daughter, Celeste. Along with Furry Murry, they have another onl
y slightly more intelligent dog, and three cats.

  Marilyn A. Gelman (“Strange Bedfellows”) promotes public awareness of mild traumatic brain injury and advocates for the civil rights of individuals with invisible disabilities. Her publication credits include The New York Times, Modern Romances, Creative Nonfiction, and The Paterson Literary Review. She lives in northern New Jersey.

  Kathleen Gerard (“The Gift That Keeps Giving”) lives in New Jersey. Her writing has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies. She is the author of Still Life, a spiritual memoir, and her work has been nominated for Best New American Voices, a national prize in literature.

  Kathryn Godsiff (“Away, Sam”) and her husband, Allan, raised three boys and many sheep during eighteen years in New Zealand. She now lives in the central Oregon town of Sisters, where she and Allan manage a small ranch. She writes for a regional horse magazine and spends her free time trail-riding.

  Ginny Greene(“Ditto, Darling”) still loves her home state of Washington, but for the past ten years her heart has been tethered near Abilene, Texas. During that time, she has herded goat kids and grandkids and has written the monthly newsletter for the Abilene Writers Guild, for which she currently resides as president.

  Cathy C. Hall (“The Cost of a Dog”), of Lilburn, Georgia, is a humor columnist for a regional magazine. She writes about her husband, three children, and of course, Sally, the wonder dog. But only Sally thinks she's funny.

  Ellen D. Hosafros (“Puzzle”) is a former award-winning newspaper columnist, feature writer, and editor. She currently manages a marketing services department for a manufacturer in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She and her husband, Edward, are the parents of two grown sons. She recently completed her first novel, Mental, and is writing another.

  Dennis Jamison (“For the Love of a Dog”) works as a customer correspondence specialist with a medical device manufacturer. His writing has been published in local newspapers as well as in A Cup of Comfort® for Grandparents. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and youngest son, and he truly misses his two older children, who are attending Southern California colleges.