Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul Page 6

  Debbie Roppolo

  Greta and Pearl: Two Seniors

  When the phone rang and the gentleman on the other end said he wanted to place his dog, an eleven-year-old German shepherd named Greta, I winced. He had sold his house, was moving to a temporary apartment and would soon be leaving the country. As the director of Southwest German Shepherd Rescue, I agreed to see and evaluate the dog with a note of realistic caution to the owner: he’d better start thinking about a contingency plan.

  Greta sure was a nice old gal. We put her information on our Web site right away and did receive a couple of inquiries, but no one wanted to deal with the little annoyances that sometimes come with an aging dog.

  Rescue organizations function within a large cooperative network. One day I received an e-mail from a woman named Suzanne who ran another rescue group. She said that she had an elderly woman, Pearl, looking for an older, large German shepherd. I suggested that Suzanne visit our Web site, where she could view the two senior-citizen canines currently in our rescue program. About a week later Suzanne e-mailed me Pearl’s phone number and advised that, although the woman was eighty-six years old, she felt that it would be worth while to pursue the adoption.

  I immediately phoned Pearl and told her all about Greta. I explained that she was on medication, and Pearl laughed and said they could take their pills together. I made it clear that the average life span of a German shepherd is between ten and twelve years, but many reach thirteen to fifteen years of age. I also asked about her mobility and ability to care for such a dog. Pearl was undaunted and informed me that, in her younger days, she’d run a Great Dane rescue program. She told me that she would make arrangements for Greta to live with her granddaughter, on her forty-acre ranch, should anything happen to her (Pearl). Further, Pearl said that she was still driving her car, and if need be, was able to make trips to the vet.

  I explained our policies and advised that I would be paying her a home visit.

  We don’t usually place German shepherds in apartments for a number of reasons, however in this case, it seemed appropriate. Greta didn’t need a lot of exercise— what she needed was a lot of TLC, a sense of security and a devoted companion who was around all the time. And Pearl’s needs were exactly the same.

  After meeting Pearl and her husband, Bert, and checking out what would be Greta’s new home, I agreed to introduce them. We arranged to meet at a nearby park. The meeting went so well that Greta went home with them on the spot.

  Every time I made a follow-up call, I held my breath. And each time, Pearl told me everything was going great. I asked that she periodically contact me with updates. Whenever I heard Pearl’s voice on the other end of the phone, I found myself waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  During one call, Pearl told me that Greta had a bath and had gone to the vet for a checkup. She had her tested for every disease known to man or beast, and apart from a sluggish thyroid, Greta was in fine shape. In subsequent conversations, Pearl related that Greta shadowed her everywhere. She spoke about how Greta would place her body across Pearl’s if she sensed any unsteadiness. The next call was to tell me: “If I were to have molded a dog from clay and given it life, it would have been Greta. I cannot imagine life without her.” I assured Pearl that I was certain Greta felt the same.

  We were into week five of Pearl and Greta’s union when I received a phone call from a very distraught Pearl. The management of her apartment complex had informed her that, despite the fact that she was permitted to have pets weighing up to a hundred pounds (which we had verified), certain specific breeds were excluded: Rottweilers, German shepherds, Dobermans, chows and pit bulls. There was no mention of this restriction in her lease, nor had Pearl ever been made aware of this policy. Nonetheless, Greta would have to go.

  I assured Pearl that we would fight all the way to court if necessary. She informed me that she would rather live in her car than part with her new companion, yet I could sense the panic associated with the possibility of being uprooted at nearly eighty-seven years of age—with an ailing husband, to boot. I advised Pearl that I would need a few days to do some research. I had to read the Landlord/ Tenant Act and familiarize myself with that aspect of the law.

  In the meantime, I suggested that Pearl obtain a letter from her doctor stating that she needed Greta for her psychological and physical well-being, that Greta assisted both her and her husband with balance issues and provided them with a sense of security. Pearl’s husband, Bert, was going blind as a result of his diabetes and spent a good deal of time sleeping, leaving Pearl lonely and depressed. That is, until Greta came along. Both she and Greta had become reignited. This was truly a mutually beneficial relationship.

  I put in a call to the cofounder of REACH (Restoring and Extending Ability with Canine Helpers). I asked if she thought getting an eleven-year-old German shepherd certified as a service dog was feasible. In essence, she said that as long as the dog could fulfill Pearl’s needs as outlined by her doctor, and provided Greta could pass the Level One Assistance dog test, “Yes, assuming you feel that Greta’s temperament is sound enough.” I asked her to start the process and told her I’d get back to her.

  I checked with Pearl to verify she had her doctor’s letter and to let her know that a small army would be marching into her home in a few days. She had no other information and no preparation.

  One week after that distraught call from Pearl, the certified REACH evaluator (with clipboard and score sheet in hand), an additional temperament tester, two strangers to the dog and family, two children and one female German shepherd unknown to both Greta and Pearl arrived at their home. It was a cool day but I was sweating. I had no idea how the obedience aspect of the evaluation would go. I did not know how much control Pearl would need or have over Greta as Greta faced strange dogs inside her home territory, unfamiliar kids bumping into her, food temptations while being called and so on. I was confident that Greta would be fine with everything else.

  Forty-five minutes later the score sheets were given to the REACH evaluator: Greta had passed with flying colors! At the tender age of eleven, Greta became a Certified Level One Assistance Dog, and Pearl became the proudest lady in Arizona. As they were presented with their official certificate and Greta’s badge, Pearl held out her arms to the entire room, proclaiming, “I love you!”

  As the “team” was pulling out of the parking lot, we saw Pearl, with the letter and certificate in hand, and Greta, with her badge hanging from her collar, heading in the direction of the manager’s office. I phoned her that evening to ask her how it went. Upon seeing their credentials, the manager had said, “Well, I guess she can go just about anywhere now,” to which Pearl had crowed triumphantly, “You got that right!”

  Stefany Smith

  Bullet’s Dog

  Dogs love company. They place it first on their short list of needs.

  J. R. Ackerley

  One morning in early June, I went outside to feed our horse Bullet. Usually, Bullet waits patiently at the fence for his breakfast, but this morning he was lingering near the two tall oak trees in the center of the pasture where he liked to spend the hottest hours of the day.

  Curious why he wasn’t eager for his breakfast, I peered across the pasture at him, hoping he wasn’t sick. Then as he began to slowly walk toward me, I noticed a blotch of red fur hunkering down in the tall grass beneath one of the trees. So this was what held Bullet’s attention this morning: another stray dog had found its way onto our property. Most of them shied away from our large retired racehorse, but this dog seemed to feel safe in the shelter of the tall grass in spite of Bullet. I placed a bucket of alfalfa cubes inside the fence. After Bullet ate them, I would give him a few of the oatmeal cookies he loved more than anything.

  It was a glorious morning, so I sat down on my back steps, reluctant to go back inside and start my day. As Bullet ate his alfalfa cubes, the dog rose cautiously to its feet. The dog stared at Bullet for a long moment and then slowly made its way to
ward the horse. It paused every few steps and looked at me intently to make sure I wasn’t a threat. As the dog drew closer to Bullet, I held my breath. I didn’t know how Bullet would react to an animal that approached while he was eating. Knowing that a kick from a horse can be fatal to a dog, I was about to shout at the dog to scare it away. Just then Bullet swung his head and looked at the dog for a moment. Unperturbed by the approaching animal, he turned back to his food and began to eat again.

  The dog drew close enough to snag a cube that Bullet had dropped. My heart broke as I watched the dog—a female—chewing on the alfalfa. I knew she had to be extremely hungry to attempt to eat horse feed.

  I went inside the house to find something that the dog could eat. I had some leftover meat loaf in the refrigerator that I had planned on serving for dinner. I put the meat loaf in an old aluminum pie tin and walked toward the fence with it. The dog ran to the safety of the tall grass near the oak trees as soon as I took one step in her direction. I put the food down on the ground and tried to coax her toward me. After several minutes, I gave up and went back inside the house. She would probably come for the food as soon as I was out of sight.

  A little while later, while folding laundry, I realized that I had not yet given Bullet his cookies. I grabbed a handful out of the box we kept under the sink and went back outside. To my surprise, Bullet was kneeling in the grass with the dog next to him. I smiled at the warm picture they made. Knowing that I carried his treat, Bullet got up quickly and galloped to the fence to meet me. The dog watched as I tossed the cookies over the fence. I noticed that she had not yet gotten the courage to venture outside the fence to get the meat loaf I had left for her.

  Again I sat down on the back steps, trying to think of how to get the dog to overcome her fear and come for the meat loaf. For some reason, she seemed to feel safe within the confines of the pasture. Noticing that Bullet was eating, the dog began to move forward slowly, watching me all the while. He might share his alfalfa with you, but he’ll never let you at his oatmeal cookies, I said to myself. But to my surprise, Bullet watched with only mild interest as the dog leaped forward and grabbed a cookie. She swallowed the cookie in one famished gulp, then darted forward to snatch another one. There were no more cookies left, but the dog stood beneath Bullet and scurried for the crumbs that fell from the horse’s mouth, licking the ground furiously to get at every last morsel.

  When Bullet walked back toward the shade of the oak trees, the dog trotted along beside him. All day long, whenever I looked out the window toward the pasture, the dog was always close to Bullet, either running along at his side or lying in the grass near him. The dog appeared to be devoted to the horse, who had willingly shared his food with her.

  It was three days before I coaxed the dog out of the pasture. She got down on her belly and crawled toward me, her large brown eyes begging me not to hurt her. Whimpering, partly in fear and partly with joy, she allowed me to gently pet her. I noticed that she was young and quite beautiful, in spite of being malnourished. I found myself calling her Lucy, and knew that this stray was here to stay.

  Though Lucy eventually warmed to my husband, Joe, and me, she always preferred Bullet’s company the most. She spent most of the day inside the pasture with him. They would run together with great exuberance and joy until they got tired and then drop in the grass beside each other to rest. Bullet always shared his cookies with Lucy. Often Bullet would lower his head and nuzzle Lucy, and she would reach up and lick his face. It was obvious that they loved each other. At night Lucy slept in the stall next to Bullet.

  When visitors commented on our new dog, we always laughed and said, “Lucy isn’t our dog. She’s Bullet’s.”

  Lucy brought joy into the life of an aging racehorse, and much amazement and wonder into ours.

  Elizabeth Atwater

  Daisy Love

  In our early days of working together at the grooming shop, my husband, David, and I had a field day studying humanity as it passed through our door on the other end of a dog leash. Things were less hectic then. We had plenty of time to dissect our customers’ personalities and discuss our observations.

  George was one of these character studies. Despite his gruff personality, he was a sentimental man, an uncommon trait in cool, reserved New England where we strive to keep a stiff upper lip. George wore his heart on his sleeve, notably for Evie, his wife of forty-five years whose death after a lingering illness had been a traumatic blow to the craggy old gentleman.

  Each April on the anniversary of Evie’s passing, George would grace the editorial page of the local newspaper with a poem written in her memory.

  “Every year about this time, we know we can count on two things,” David remarked as he leafed through the paper. “Income taxes and a poem from George.”

  “I happen to think it’s touching,” I argued. “And I’ll tell you something else: If George doesn’t get his dog to the vet soon, he’ll have somebody else to grieve for.”

  For almost a year, I had been upset whenever George brought his terrier mix, Daisy, in for grooming. I had noticed small lumps growing on her body, but each time I suggested he take the little Benji look-alike to the vet, he changed the subject. I agonized over the situation with David, who also worked as a psychiatric nurse. “People like George will not act until they are ready,” he told me. “In the mental-health field, we refer to this as denial.”

  I empathized with George’s dread. In his mind, if he didn’t name the demon, it didn’t exist. And Daisy was much more than a pet to the lonely widower. A heavy smoker and drinker in his younger years, George’s retirement had been hastened by poor health, but now he worked at keeping fit. His daily walks with Daisy were a big part of his regimen.

  His life revolved around the little dog. There was the morning ride to the doughnut shop where Ruthie the waitress always saved him a plain, and Daisy a coconut, cruller. “I know it’s not health food, but it’s my only vice,” he told me. Once home, they’d relax in his recliner to watch The Price Is Right, then take awalk before lunch. After a nap, they arose in time to greet the school kids getting off the bus in front of their house. Nomatter what the chore— leaf raking, fence painting, bulb planting or lawn mowing— Daisy happily tagged along at hermaster’s heels as he addressed her with a steady stream of chatter.

  His pride in the little mongrel showed every time he picked her up after grooming. “Well, well, don’t you look pretty,” he’d enthuse as Daisy wagged her whole body with delight. “Show us how you dance!”

  The little dog dutifully twirled on her hind legs, then yipped for a cookie. “Show Kathy how you go for a walk,” he’d tell her, as she picked up the leash in her mouth and trotted to the door.

  “Now let’s go visit your mother and show her those pretty bows.” Off they would go to tend the flowers on Evie’s grave.

  Another winter came and went before George got to the vet with Daisy. By this time, the lumps were harder and larger. I felt a sense of grim foreboding when he said the vet had decided not to operate. “He said she would be more comfortable if you gave her medicated baths.” Somehow I did not believe those were the vet’s only instructions.

  As the months passed, Daisy grew less energetic. She found it increasingly hard to stand, so I took to trimming her while she was lying down. She still performed her little tricks at the end of each visit. “Show Kathy how you act shy,” he told her as she ducked her head and covered her eyes with a paw.

  When I returned from my summer vacation, my new assistant, Trudy, conveyed the news I had been dreading: Daisy had passed away. “George was very upset that you weren’t here,” she told me. “He even called the vet a quack. It got worse when he started crying.”

  Unable to reach him by phone, I sent George a letter expressing our condolences. Months later, when he dropped by to see us, he looked as though he had aged several years. We reminisced about Daisy, her funny tricks and endearing ways. “My son keeps telling me to pull myself together. If
he tells me once more, ‘Dad, it was only a dog. . . .’” All I could offer was a hug.

  “The worst part is, it was all my fault,” he said tearfully. “I blamed the vet, but if I had taken her to see him when you folks told me to, I’d still have her now.”

  David gently placed his arm around the old man’s shoulder. “We’ve all learned some lessons the hard way, George,” he told him.

  A few weeks later, fate intervened when a young woman came into the shop, dragging a dirt-caked terrier mix that was matted from head to tail. The raggedy creature’s pungent odor told me it had recently gotten up close and personal with a skunk.

  “This here is Fanny. She belongs to my aunt and uncle, but they wanna get rid of her.”

  As I reached down to examine the dog, she jerked its chain. “I gotta warn ya, she’s a bad dog. She barks all day, and she don’t like kids.”

  “She barks in the house?” I inquired.

  “No, she don’t come in the house. They keep her tied out in the yard.”

  Poor Fanny was frightened and jumpy. Grooming her was not easy or pleasant. When she emerged, de-fleaed and de-skunked, her bones jutted out from her bare skin. Yet somehow she looked eerily familiar.

  “Who does she remind you of?” I asked David.

  “Sinead O’Connor?” he guessed.

  “No! Doesn’t she look like Daisy, George’s old dog?”

  It would take some convincing. George had sworn he would never have another pet.

  “I just can’t go through it again,” he told me. “I don’t deserve it after what happened to Daisy.”

  “But, George, you know you’ve been lonely,” I prodded, as determined as a used-car salesman.