Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul (18 page)

Thus it was a shock when one day one of the actors in a picture my father was working on came home with him, saw Chickie and immediately wanted to buy her.

“Jack,” said the actor, “that is the greatest dog I ever saw in my life. I’ll give you fifty bucks for that dog.”

“Can’t do it, pal,” said my father. “It’s the kid’s dog.”

The actor persisted. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks for the dog. I know you need the money.”

Indeed, we did, and driven by the panic of imminent poverty—the one thing he dreaded more than anything else—my father acted in an uncharacteristicmanner. Excusing himself, he went into the kitchen to discuss this with my mother.

“Certainly not!” she adamantly declared. “It’s Jeanie’s dog.”

“You’re right, Mary,” my father sheepishly agreed. “It’s just that I think I’m going to lose my job at the studio and am damned scared of not being able to bring home the bacon.”

“Well, you certainly cannot bring home the bacon by selling the child’s dog,” my mother fumed. “Anyway, if we go broke again, I’ll just do what I always do—start an acting school for children.”

A few days later the actor came back, saying, “Jack, I’ve got to have that dog on my ranch. I want that dog. I’ll give you 250 bucks for the dog.”

During this ordeal Chickie and I were sitting on the floor behind the couch, listening in horror. I was already making my running-away plans with her.

“Well, I sure do need the money,” said my father. “Just a minute; I’ve got to talk to my wife.”

“Mary, he’s offering 250 bucks for the dog! We can always get Jeanie a new dog at the pound!”

“No way!” said my mother.

The next day the actor returned. He had rarely known failure and was not about to start now. “Jack, I’ll give you 250 bucks and my secondhand car. I know you need a car to get around.”

“Wait a minute,” said my father. “I’m sure this time I can convince my wife.”

Upon hearing the latest offer, my mother, bless her heart, stormed out of the kitchen, stormed up to the actor and chewed him out.

“Ronald Reagan,” she railed, “how dare you try to take away my child’s dog!”

At least he knew a good dog when he saw one.

Jean Houston

Sammy’s Big Smile

W
hat dogs? These are my children, little people
with fur who make my heart open a little wider.

Oprah Winfrey

When I was a child my Aunt Julie had a dog named Sammy, a little black Chihuahua mix with a tongue as long as her body. Sammy could run up one side of your body, lick your face clean and run down the other side before you knew what happened. This adorable black dog always greeted you with a “doggy smile.” Sammy owned my Aunt Julie, and everyone in our family knew it.

One afternoon I was visiting my aunt. We were all dressed up and going out. I don’t remember the occasion, but I do remember that we were in an awful rush. My family comes from a long line of people who feel that if you’re not fifteen minutes early for an event, you are late! As usual, time was of the essence. Sammy, however, wasn’t in any rush. The only thing Sammy was interested in was getting some attention.

“No, Sammy, we cannot play,” my aunt scolded, “We have
to go! Now!”

The problem was that we couldn’t “go,” because Aunt Julie had misplaced her false teeth. The longer we searched for her teeth, the later we got for the event and the angrier Aunt Julie became—and the more attention Sammy seemed to demand. We ignored Sammy’s barking, as we looked frantically for the missing dentures.

Finally, Aunt Julie reached her breaking point and gave up. She plunked herself down at the bottom of the stairs and cried. I sat next to her, counseling her with that special brand of wisdom eight-year-olds possess. “It’s okay, Aunt Julie, don’t cry. We can still go, just don’t smile,” I said, which made her cry even harder.

At that moment, Sammy gave a few shrill barks, this time from the top of the stairs, and then was quiet. As we turned around to see what she wanted, we both exploded into laughter. There stood a “smiling” Sammy—with Aunt Julie’s false teeth in her mouth—her tail wagging a hundred miles an hour. The message in her sparkling eyes was obvious:
I’ve been trying to tell you for a half hour—I know
where your teeth are!
A vision that, thirty years later, still makes me laugh out loud.

Gayle Delhagen

Phoebe’s Family

In rural Oklahoma, where I was raised, dogs were big and lived outside. They protected the cattle and barked when someone walked down the dirt road. If the temperature dipped below freezing, they might come inside, but they sat right inside the front door, looking ill at ease until we let them out again in the morning.

Then I met Phoebe.

Around the time that my future husband, Joseph, and I became “more than friends,” his family bought a Boston terrier puppy. Phoebe had the bug-eyes and big ears of her breed, and the sharp claws and swift tongue of her age. She was smaller than any dog I’d ever known, but she was pure energy, throwing herself at my legs, clawing her way up my body to nuzzle my face with a cold nose and slobbering tongue. She had her own bed, her own chair and an entire family waiting on her hand and foot, speaking to and about her as if she were not the dog but a newly adopted member of the family. And she was
allergic
to grass.
She had to get shots for this condition.

I found all this faintly ridiculous and was uncertain how to treat a dog like Phoebe. Phoebe sensed this. When I came in the door, she bowled me over completely, launching her body through the air to crash into my legs. To defend myself from her claws, I quickly learned to wear jeans when visiting the house. I stood outside the door, steeling myself for her advances, trying to set a cheerful, dog-confident expression onmy face in the hopes it would trick her into thinking I knewwhat Iwas doing. It neverworked. Every time, Phoebewould barrel past everyone to hurl herself at me, and every time, she would be reprimanded by my future in-laws. The only thing worse than being unable to fend off Phoebe’s exuberant advances was feeling that her family thought I disapproved of her—and therefore disapproved of them. Every time it happened, they would apologize and hold Phoebe back, saying, “Be still, Phoebe. Stacy doesn’t want to pet you.”

But the odd thing is that I
did
want to pet her. She was sleek and beautiful, the first Boston terrier I’d seen except in photographs and paintings. She knew how to do all kinds of tricks our farm dogs wouldn’t have considered. Her eager eyes and excited, wiggling body made me laugh. She was fun and boisterous, like Joseph’s family— just the opposite ofmy close-knit but quietNative American family. In the same way that I wasn’t sure how to fit in with a family so different from mine, I wasn’t quite sure how to make friends with Phoebe, who was so different from every dog I’d ever known.

Joseph was in the army and I was attending college, so we carried on our relationship mostly through letters and phone calls, only getting to see each other in person when he was home on leave. Phoebe grew bigger and smarter, but not less energetic. Because I was an infrequent visitor, she treated me to the grand, excited welcome of a brand-new person every time I came to the house. With other new guests, she would eventually settle down and play fetch or sit on her chair, looking cute. Not with me. No matter how I tried to distract her with toys, her main goal was to stand on my chest, claw at my shirt, lick my nose and bite my long hair. I was trying to impress my future in-laws with my good manners and poise. As you can imagine, it was difficult to be either graceful or witty with an excited dog attempting to clean my eyeglasses with her tongue. Still, I gamely kept trying to find a way to relate to Phoebe that would satisfy us both.

In December 2002 Joseph asked me to marry him, and three months later, he parachuted into Iraq with the 173rd Airborne. I moved nine hours away from our families to attend graduate school in Mississippi—and wait for him. I kept in touch with his family and visited whenever I was home from school. I never did become entirely comfortable with Phoebe, but I grew to value her even more when I saw what a comfort her cheerful, loyal presence was to Joseph’s parents during this stressful time.

Joseph was wounded in October 2003 and sent home for two weeks’ leave. We were married in a quiet ceremony before he returned to Iraq. Now officially part of the family, I continued to keep in touch with my in-laws as we waited and hoped for Joseph’s safe return. Every time I visited them, it was as if Phoebe and I were meeting for the first time. Our relationship became a kind of running joke: “You’re a cat person in a dog family!” my niece said. I loved my in-laws, but I worried that I would always be the “cat person.” In a dog family, this could be serious.

When Joseph called to say he was coming home, his parents drove to Mississippi to help me move, leaving Phoebe with his grandparents for the two-day trip. On our way back to Oklahoma, Joseph’s grandparents called to say that Phoebe, who had been fine when my in-laws left, would not play or eat. We expressed sympathy for her, but we weren’t truly worried. We all joked about how spoiled Phoebe was, and I envisioned my father’s reaction to the news that
now
Phoebe was visiting a dog psychologist.

When we arrived at their house late that night, we expected a jubilant welcome. Instead, a quiet little Phoebe walked up to us wagging her stub-tail, then lay down under the end table. Everyone petted her and tried to get her to eat, with no success. We decided to take her to the vet first thing in the morning. I was sorry that Phoebe wasn’t feeling well—and felt guilty too. I was finally comfortable with this new sick Phoebe, who sat on the floor with her head on my knee, as I petted her gently. It was a drastic change from the tug-of-war using my shirtsleeve and the slobbery game of fetch that had become our routine.

The next morning, Joseph’s mother loaded Phoebe into the truck and left. She was back much sooner than we expected, and when she walked in the door, Phoebe was not with her. “She died on the way to the vet,” she announced, her usually animated face completely still with grief.

Shock and disbelief pounded through my body. I didn’t know what to say. Joseph’s father went to his wife and put his arms around her. They cried together, and I was filled with a bittersweet gratitude, knowing that their relationship had served as an example for my husband. He had grown up with the kind of marriage where two people were willing to share this much love for each other, for their children and even for a demanding little dog, no matter how much it might hurt at times.

In my family, we very seldom cry in front of people. Our emotions are shown through our actions, so I put on my shoes and prepared to help bury Phoebe, despite my in-laws’ protests that it was too cold. It was a miserable, sleeting day. The ground was a little frozen, and we took turns pounding the shovels into it. Phoebe was wrapped in a quilt with one of her toys. When the little grave under the lilac bush was covered, we patted it down one more time and came inside. As I washed the mud from my hands in the privacy of the bathroom, I cried for Phoebe.

For although I’d never quite learned to handle her, I
had
loved her. From the beginning, she’d pulled me headfirst into the process of becoming comfortable with my new family. And though I was awkward and stiff around her, she never gave up trying to connect with me.

Today, when my in-laws’ new Boston terriers, Petey and Lucy, run up to play with me, I know what to do. I roll around on the floor with them—and don’t even care if I look silly. I can finally be myself with Joseph’s family, who I see now have always welcomed me with open arms. I think Phoebe would be pleased.

Stacy Pratt

A Canine Nanny

T
he dog was created especially for children.

Henry Ward Beecher

I was physically and emotionally exhausted. At night, I was awake more than I slept, caring for our three-week-old daughter, Abigail. By day, I chased our older daughter, Bridget, an active two-year-old. My already taut nerves began to fray when Abigail developed a mild case of colic. Bridget demanded attention each time her sister fussed. Our dog, a purebred Brittany named Two, was constantly underfoot, and stumbling over her repeatedly did not help my state of mind.

I also felt isolated. We were new to the area, and I didn’t know anyone in town. My parents, our nearest relatives, lived 150 miles away. Phoning my mother on the spur of the moment to ask if she’d drop by and watch the kids for an hour while I got some much-needed sleep wasn’t realistic. My husband helped as much as he could but needed to focus on his job.

One day Abigail woke from a nap. As babies sometimes do, she had soiled her clothing and crib bedding. I tried to clean her up as fast as possible, but her cries developed into ear-shattering wails before I was through. I wanted to comfort her, but I was at a loss. I had to wash my hands, I couldn’t put her back into the crib and the floor hadn’t been vacuumed for days. Strapping her on the changing table, I wedged a receiving blanket between her and the railing. I promised I’d be right back. As her screams followed me into the bathroom, I neared complete meltdown. Women had handled this for generations—why couldn’t I cope?

I had just lathered up with soap when Two trotted purposefully past the bathroom door. A moment later the crying ceased. Hurriedly, I dried my hands and entered the nursery to find the Brittany standing on her hind legs, tenderly licking Abigail’s ear. The baby’s eyes were opened wide in wonder. Two dropped down and wagged her stubby tail in apology. With a canine grin and her ears pushed back as far as they could go, she seemed to say, “I know babies are off limits, but I couldn’t help myself.”