Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul (11 page)

Gene did go, but he went thinking,
Well, she has definitely
grown up.
I wouldn’t let him out of my sight before then, and this was me acting in a very responsible way.

When Gene came back from France, he gave me an engagement ring. Our cousin Buddy refers to it as the time when Sparkle tried to commit suicide because Gene wasn’t marrying Gilda. He believes that Sparkle’s “suicide attempt” was what turned Gene around and made him actually ask me to get married.

So you can see why I owe a great deal to that dog.

Gilda Radner

Pet Love

Animals have always been a way of life with my family. I never thought of myself as an “only child” because our pets were my playmates and confidants. I cannot remember any family high spot, or crisis, or joy, or sorrow that didn’t include whatever pets we had at the time. More than once in my life I have dried my tears on soft, silky ears! This was never more true than when my husband, Allen Ludden, died.

Life does not come equipped with an instruction manual, and neither does death. Allen and I had worked together on and off during almost eighteen years of marriage, but in our private life we were always very much a team. As well as lovers, we were each other’s critic, editor, fan and friend. While we had had two long years to get used to the idea, when he died I was shattered. My first instinct was to crawl away somewhere to mourn in private, and to some extent I suppose I did. But there were two other gentlemen in my life, my dogs, Timmy, a coal-black miniature poodle, and Sooner, a Labrador-golden retriever mix. They missed Allen, too, but were not about to let me just wither away.

Pets, I discovered long ago, always seem to know what a person is feeling. After Allen’s death there was a wonderful outpouring of love and sympathy from our family and friends, all the people we had worked with over the years, plus hundreds of people we had never met but who had come to know how special he was through watching him on television. My mother was incredible in her support, knowing just when to move in, and when to stand back and give me the little space I needed. But still, whenever anybody was around, even those who were the closest, I felt obligated to keep up appearances and try not to show my grief. I suppose that was from not wanting to make them feel even sadder worrying about me. Such games we humans play! Of course I was grieving! My life had been torn apart! And while I was able to put on a great show of strength for my friends and family, I could not pull the same act with Timothy and Sooner. They knew me too well; they could read me loud and clear.

Sensing that Allen’s death had left me badly wounded, Timothy and Sooner snuggled in to help. Not that I was so willing to cooperate, at least at first. But can anyone say no to a little black pest who keeps throwing his favorite toy at you, or to a seventy-pound “leaner” who is adamant that dinner is already thirty minutes late?

I had continued to work right up until three days before Allen’s death, beginning and ending each day at the hospital. All at once the pattern changed, and the purpose was gone. I had no interest in “lights, camera, makeup,” or much of anything else, for that matter. It was, therefore, up to Sooner and Timothy to take over organizing my day. Their needs became my needs. They gave my life definition—a reason to get up in the morning, a firm grasp on today when so much of me wanted to turn back the clock to yesterday. Timothy and Sooner got me through that first week, the first month, the first year—all those terrible “firsts.”

Looking at my life I see many segments: childhood, an early marriage, ten years of being a single career girl, then my life with Allen. Move in a little closer and there are segments within segments: Allen well, Allen ill, and then, life without Allen. I have discovered that while I can never forget such a loss, I have, with time, pulled my life together. I am working full tilt, exploring new activities, taking new challenges.

I suppose, in the final analysis, I have invested a lot of time and love in animals over the years. But I have reaped such a great return on each investment. For through the many stages of my life, my feeling for animals has been an unwavering constant . . . a dependable reservoir of comfort and love.

Betty White

Little Lost Dog

Through the living room window I watched our fifteen-year-old son, Jay, trudge down the walk toward school. I was afraid that he might again head out into the snow-blanketed fields to hunt for his missing beagle, Cricket. But he didn’t. He turned, waved, and then walked on, shoulders sagging.

Ten days had passed since that Sunday morning when Cricket did not return from his usual romp in the fields. Jay had spent that afternoon searching the countryside for his dog. At times during those first anxious days, one or another of us would rush to the door thinking we’d heard a whimper.

By now my husband, Bill, and I were sure Cricket had been taken by a hunter or struck by a car. But Jay refused to give up. The previous evening, as I stepped outside to fill our bird feeder, I heard my son’s plaintive calls drifting over the fields near us. At last he came in, tears in his blue eyes, and said, “I know you think I’m silly, Mom, but I’ve been asking God about Cricket and I keep getting the feeling that Cricket’s out there somewhere.”

Although we all attended church regularly, Bill and I often wondered where Jay got his strong faith. Perhaps the blow of losing a much-loved older brother in an auto accident when Jay was six turned him to the Lord for help.

I wanted to hold Jay close and tell him that he could easily get another dog. But I remembered too well the day four years before when we brought him his wriggling black-white-and-brown puppy.

The two of them soon became inseparable and, although Cricket was supposed to sleep in the garage, it wasn’t long before I’d find him peacefully snuggled on the foot of Jay’s bed.

However, that night I did tell Jay that I felt there was such a thing as carrying hope too far. Temperatures were very low, and I felt sure no lost animal could have survived.

“Mom,” he said, “I know it seems impossible. But Jesus said that a sparrow doesn’t fall without God knowing it. That must be true of dogs, too, don’t you think?”

What could I do but hug him?

The next day, after sending him off to school, I drove to my real estate office, where I forgot all about missing dogs in the hustle of typing up listings.

At two o’clock, the telephone rang. It was Jay. “They let us out early, Mom—a teachers’ meeting. I thought I’d hunt for Cricket.”

My heart twisted. “Jay,” I said, trying to soften the irritation in my voice, “please don’t put yourself through that anymore. The radio here says it’s below freezing, and you know there’s no chance of—”

“But Mom,” he pleaded, “I have this feeling. I’ve got to try.”

“All right,” I conceded.

After our phone call, he took off through the field where he and Cricket used to go. He walked about a half-mile east and then heard some dogs barking in the distance. They sounded like penned-up beagles. So he headed in that direction. But then, for a reason he couldn’t determine, he found himself walking away from the barking.

Soon Jay came to some railroad tracks. He heard a train coming and stopped to watch it roar by. Wondering if the tracks would be hot after a train went over them, he climbed up the embankment and felt them. They were cold as ice.

Now he didn’t know what to do. He pitched a few rocks and finally decided to walk back down the tracks toward where he had heard the dogs barking earlier. As he stepped down the ties, the wind gusted and some hunters’ shotguns echoed in the distance.

Then everything became quiet. Something made Jay stop dead still and listen. From a tangled fence row nearby came a faint whimper.

Jay tumbled down the embankment, his heart pounding. At the fence row he pushed some growth apart to find a pitifully weak Cricket, dangling by his left hind foot, caught in the rusty strands of the old fence. His front paws barely touched the ground. The snow around him was eaten away. It had saved him fromdying of thirst. Although his left hind paw would later require surgery, Cricket would survive.

My son carried him home and phoned me ecstatically. Stunned, I rushed to the house. There in the kitchen was a very thin Cricket lapping food from his dish with a deliriously happy fifteen-year-old kneeling next to him.

Finishing, Cricket looked up at Jay. In the little dog’s adoring eyes I saw the innocent faith that had sustained him through those arduous days, the trust that his master would come.

I looked at my son who, despite all logic, went out with that same innocent faith and, with heart and soul open to his Master, was guided to Cricket’s side.

Donna Chaney

“He’s about five feet six, has big brown eyes and curly
blond hair, and answers to the name of Master.”

Al Ross ©1990 from The New Yorker Collection. All rights reserved.

2
PETS AS
TEACHERS

T
he power lies in the wisdom
and understanding of one’s role
in the Great Mystery, and in honoring
every living thing as a teacher.

Jamie Sands and David Carson

The Gift of Subira

D
o what you can, with what you have, where
you are.

Theodore Roosevelt

Forty miles north of Los Angeles, there is a wildlife preserve called Shambala. With a raw beauty reminiscent of Africa, gigantic brown-rock outcroppings lay randomly dispersed throughout the sprawling land of the preserve. Shambala—Sanskrit for “a meeting place of peace and harmony for all beings, animal and human”—is a sanctuary for lions and other big cats. Nestled in the awesome grandeur of California’s Soledad Canyon, it is, quite simply, breathtaking.

One day a small group of young people were at Shambala on a field trip from a local rehabilitation center. A lovely woman, the actress Tippi Hedren, who is the founder of Shambala, stood in front of the cheetah enclosure. “Her name is Subira,” Tippi said, beaming. “She’s a three-year-old cheetah, not even at the height of her game. Magnificent, isn’t she?”

As though it were a well-rehearsed script, Subira turned her head to the audience and gazed into the crowd. The black lines running from her eyes to her mouth were so distinctive that they appeared to have been freshly painted on for the day’s exhibition. And the closely set black spots on a tawny-colored backdrop of thick fur were so dazzling that everyone felt compelled to comment. “Oooooh, look at her, she’s so beautiful!” they said in unison. I thought so, too.

Tippi, a friend of mine, had invited me to visit her that day; I was sitting in the front row of chairs assembled for the visiting group. All of us continued to stare in awe— except for a teenage boy in the back row. He groaned in what seemed boredom and discontent. When several members of the group turned in his direction, he brushed the front of his T-shirt as though to remove dust particles, and, in a macho gesture calculated to impress us, rolled up the right sleeve of his shirt, further exposing his well-developed muscles.

Tippi continued, ignoring the boy’s interruption. “The cheetah is the fastest land animal on earth,” she told the small crowd. “Aren’t you, honey?” she asked in a playful velvety tone, looking over her shoulder at the exquisite animal lying atop a large, long, low branch of a massive oak tree.

Abruptly, as though disgusted by any affection, the boy in the back row mocked, “Big deal. A big, skinny cat with a bunch of spots that runs fast. So what! Next! Bring out the stupid tigers or whatever so we can get this over with!” Embarrassed, the other members of the group turned and looked at the boy in disapproval.

Tippi also looked at the boy, but she made no response. But the cheetah did. Looking in the teenager’s direction, the cheetah instantly began chirping.

Using this cue, Tippi informed the group, “Cheetahs make distinctive noises. A happy sound is a distinct chirp, like the one you are hearing now. Her hungry sound is a throaty vibration, and her way of saying ‘watch out’ is a noise that sounds like a high, two-pitched hum. But as you can hear by all this chirping, she’s pretty happy. In fact, I think she likes you,” she said, looking directly at the boy.

“Yeah, yeah, sure! She just loves me,” the boy mimicked sarcastically. Again, Tippi ignored the ill-mannered remark. I couldn’t help wondering what had happened to make this boy so angry and full of spite.