Chicken Soup for the Cat & Dog Lover's Soul (31 page)
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Authors: Jack Canfield
Marty Becker, D.V.M.
N
othing is impossible for a willing heart.
John Heywood
“So far they've taught me how to sit, beg and roll over.
What I'd really like to learn is Swing Dancing.”
Reprinted by permission of Randy Glasbergen.
For fifteen-year-old Kirsten Hicks of Adelaide, Australia, the most difficult part of a long overseas family trip was leaving behind her Persian cat, Howie. In fact, the only people she trusted to look after Howie were her grandparents—and they lived one thousand miles away.
Kirsten was relieved when Grandma and Grandpa readily agreed to take care of Howie for the entire period of her family’s absence from Australia. Her grandparents had always liked the magnificent Persian, and they seemed happy at the prospect of having Howie as a houseguest.
When the Hicks family returned to reclaim Kirsten’s furry friend, the grandparents greeted them with the terrible news that Howie had disappeared. They begged their granddaughter’s forgiveness and hoped she would understand that they had made every effort to find him.
At first, Kirsten tried to nurture a feeble hope that Howie might still be alive, but she knew her pampered gorgeous Persian probably wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in the streets by himself. He must certainly have been killed by a car or a dog. Kirsten did not blame her grandparents, but she was heartbroken over the loss of her pet.
Back in Adelaide, Kirsten continued grieving for months over her lost Howie. Even though her parents offered, she didn’t want another pet.
A year passed. Then one afternoon Kirsten’s mother made an unusual discovery. Lying miserably on the front porch of their house was a stray cat. The longhaired cat was obviously in a bad way. He was skinny, bleeding from a wound in his paw, filthy and very bedraggled. He was also ravenously hungry, as Mrs. Hicks found out when she put some canned tuna down for him. The thought struck her that if they could clean the cat up and fix his paw, he might make a good pet for Kirsten. Maybe Kirsten would accept the cat if she knew that he had just turned up at their house in dire need of help. Kirsten’s mother was thinking about how best to clean him up when Kirsten came out of the house.
Kirsten took one look at the grubby, footsore cat before her and shrieked: “Howie! Howie!” And she went down on her knees and embraced the cat, dirt and all.
Her mother was startled. Howie? Was it possible?
Kirsten was in no doubt. Underneath all the grime and the matted fur was her beautiful Persian. He had found his way home! Gently, she picked him up in her arms and burst into unrestrained tears when she heard his happy purring.
In the twelve months it had taken Howie to make the one-thousand-mile trek home, the pampered Persian had somehow forded wild rivers, crossed hostile deserts and fought his way through the vast wilderness of the Australian outback. He knew where his home was and neither distance nor danger could deter him. He wanted to lie lazily once more on the soft couches he remembered, and perhaps most of all he wanted to purr again in the arms of the young girl who loved him so. Such is the miracle of love.
Brad Steiger
Everyone in Bricqueville-sur-Mer loved Pére Marie. Though his real name was Alphonse Marie, the villagers affectionately called him “Pére,” a cross between papa and uncle. Ever since he moved to that village in northwest France in 1947 to start a modest sawmill, hardly a day went by without him cheering up or otherwise helping someone.
Pére Marie’s kindliness was also reflected in his relationships with animals. To the amazement of local farmers, he talked to dogs as if they were children. When a customer once gave him a rabbit to cook, Pére Marie tamed it instead.
“Animals can do surprising things if we trust them,” he often said.
After his wife’s death in 1964, Pére Marie lived with his son, Louis, in a four-room bungalow off a country road. In 1972, when a large, automated sawmill opened in a neighboring village, the Maries were forced to close their small operation. Louis found work as a night watchman in a school in nearby Granville, and Pére Marie reluctantly retired. Although his doctor had warned him about his high blood pressure, at sixty-nine he still felt fit.
Father and son shared their home with three four-legged “children”—Rageur and Royal, nine-year-old littermates, part spaniel and part hound, and Rex, only three, who had the face of a lovable mutt and the large body of a black Labrador. The dogs had the run of much of the house. All were highly intelligent and, under Pére Marie’s tutelage, could “almost talk.” A thorn in a paw would cause one of them to stare at Pére Marie or Louis— with an occasional lick at the sore spot—until one of the men removed the irritation. Young Rex, especially, had an uncanny ability to understand and to communicate. Louis marveled at how rapidly the dog learned to fetch the morning newspaper at a one-word command. But, as the latest arrival in the family, Rex was lowest in the dogs’ hierarchy. Cheerfully accepting his role, he let his elders have their way at play and at their masters’ feet.
One March evening in 1977, Louis drove off to his watchman’s job as usual and Pére Marie watched television. At 10:30 he picked up his flashlight, put on a woolen scarf and cap, and called the dogs for their evening romp. With the temperature dropping to below freezing, Pére Marie’s companions frisked about in the tall icy grass as he made his way down the path to the meadow behind the house. Suddenly, a veil clouded his vision. Feeling very ill, he staggered a few feet and collapsed. He forced himself to his feet but fell again after a few steps. The pain, unlike any he had ever felt, seemed to come from inside his head, wringing a shriek from every cell in his body.
Having dropped the flashlight in one of his falls, he was lost in the darkness. He knew the cold would kill him if he didn’t get back to the house. But when he tried to get up once again, he found his left side was paralyzed. Pushing blindly on his right elbow and right knee, he managed to drag himself some thirty yards—only to discover, when the moonlight peeked through the clouds, that he’d been moving in the wrong direction. Utterly exhausted, he could go no farther; only rest.
He had no idea how long he lay there before he sensed that he was not alone. His dogs were breathing above him. They circled him and barked.
They’re here,
he thought.
They will not abandon me.
At 6 A.M. Louis Marie finished his shift and drove toward home. When the Marie bungalow came into view, he stiffened. Why were the lights on inside? Something was wrong. He turned onto the dirt track to the bungalow and heard—even above his motor noise—a fearful howling from Rageur and Royal on the porch. As he came to a stop the two dogs rushed to the car and tried to pull Louis from it. He ran up the stairs, into the house and on to his father’s bedroom at the back. There, stretched out on the bed, was Pére Marie, looking more a corpse than a living man.
He was half-naked, his undershirt and a seaman’s sweater sodden with saliva and nearly bitten through at one shoulder. His body was covered with mud, bruises and blood. Rex was pressed tightly against his master, licking the old man’s face and neck with long, steady strokes. Louis leaned over his father and heard him faintly mutter, “You’re here, need hospital.” His face was half paralyzed, his color ashen. Louis ran to get help. At the hospital, his fears were confirmed. His father had suffered a serious stroke, and his chances of survival were slim.
Pére Marie lay between life and death for several days. Then, slowly, his condition improved. With his speech more coherent, he was able to tell Louis what he remembered about that terrible night.
After lying for some time on the cold ground, he said, he felt Rex take his shoulder in his mouth and begin tugging. Gradually, he realized that the dogs would lead him to the house if he could muster enough strength to crawl. He could only drag his useless left side, inches at a time, with his right. As he struggled along, he lost his shoes, his socks, his scarf. His loose trousers ripped off as he scraped along the ground. Blood streamed from a gash on his knee, and he passed out repeatedly. But whenever he came to, Rex still had him by the shoulder and the other dogs circled around as if keeping watch.
At least an hour of seemingly hopeless, half-conscious struggle must have passed. And still the dogs and the old man persevered. Suddenly, Pére Marie’s hand brushed a wooden post in the darkness. He had reached the stairs!
Home,
he thought. But fear followed: how could he possibly drag himself up the nine steps to the porch? Pére Marie had no memory of what followed next, but long, deep gashes on every step told the story. The dog’s toenails had torn the old wood, as they struggled to keep their foothold while straining against their master’s weight. Pére Marie remembered crossing the threshold— with Rex still tugging at his shoulder. Then he passed out. Coming to later, he realized he was in bed and that Rex was beside him.
Thank goodness for the dogs,
he thought. Then he drifted off.
When Pére Marie was taken off the danger list at the hospital, his doctor told Louis that he would not have survived the cold night had he not made it back to the house. Louis then told him about the dogs. A week after the patient had passed his crisis, the hospital allowed all three to visit their master. Wriggling with joy, they jumped all over Pére Marie.
Gradually, Pére Marie recovered and his life returned to its familiar pattern. But something in the dogs had changed. Rex was now the unchallenged leader. He alone occupied the privileged spot at Pére Marie’s feet in the evening. And he alone lay at the foot of the bed and guarded his master as he slept.
One afternoon, not long after Pére Marie returned home, a friend dropped by to visit. As they sat together in the living room, the old man cradled Rex’s head on his knee, stroking the dog’s ear.
“Thanks to him I’m here today,” he told his guest matter-of-factly. Then he added, almost inaudibly, “Animals can do surprising things if we trust them.”
George Feifer
L
ove is shown by deeds, not by words.
Philippine Proverb
“Go away, King,” Pearl Carlson said sleepily as her German shepherd dog pulled at her bedding, attempting to rouse her. “Not now, I’m trying to get some rest.”
Pearl vaguely wondered what King was doing in her bedroom at three o’clock in the morning, since he usually slept on the enclosed porch at night. It was Christmas night and the sixteen-year-old girl had been looking forward to a good night’s sleep after an exciting day.
Pearl sat up in bed to give the barking dog a good push and realized that smoke was filling her room—the house was on fire. Bolting out of bed, she ran in panic to her parents’ bedroom and awoke them both.
Her mother, Fern, got up at once and told Pearl to escape through her own bedroom window while she helped her husband, Howard, out of their window. Howard Carlson had a lung condition and could not move quickly. They realized that Pearl had somehow wound up in the living room where the fire was at its worst.
“I’m going after her,” Howard said, but his wife, knowing his health made this impossible, told him to escape through the window while she went for Pearl. Fern led her dazed daughter to safety but saw that neither Howard nor King had gotten out of the house. Fern ran back into their bedroom and found Howard collapsed on the floor with King by his side. Fern and King struggled to lift Howard and finally the two of them managed to get the nearly unconscious man to safety. Fern later said she could not have moved Howard without King’s help.
King and the Carlsons were saved. King had badly burned paws and a gash on his back, but seemed otherwise healthy. Yet the day after the fire, King would not eat his dog food.
The neighbors had come by with sandwiches and refreshments and were helping to rebuild what they could of the house. Then King did something he had never done before: He stole one of the soft sandwiches. Something was wrong.
They looked in King’s mouth and saw that his gums were pierced with painful, sharp wooden splinters. Now the family knew how King had gotten into the house. That terrible night, King had, with sheer desperate force, chewed and clawed his way through the closed plywood door that separated him from the Carlsons. The splinters were removed and eventually King recovered fully.
