Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul (5 page)

“Whew! It’s not rabies,” Brian said. “But he’s sure hurt real bad. Don’t you think it’s best I put him out of his misery?”

The word “yes” was on my lips, when Becky emerged from the bushes. “Is Brian going to make him well, Mama?” She hauled the animal’s head onto her lap once more, and buried her face in the coarse, dark fur. This time I wasn’t the only one who heard the thumping of the
lobo
’s tail.

That afternoon my husband, Bill, and our veterinarian came to see the wolf. Observing the trust the animal had in our child, Doc said to me, “Suppose you let Becky and me tend to this fella together.” Minutes later, as child and vet reassured the stricken beast, the hypodermic found its mark. The yellow eyes closed.

“He’s asleep now,” said the vet. “Give me a hand here, Bill.” They hauled the massive body out of the stump. The animal must have been over five feet long and well over one-hundred pounds. The hip and leg had been mutilated by bullets. Doc did what he had to in order to clean the wound and then gave the patient a dose of penicillin. Next day he returned and inserted a metal rod to replace the missing bone.

“Well, it looks like you’ve got yourselves a Mexican
lobo
,” Doc said. “He looks to be about three years old, and even as pups, they don’t tame real easy. I’m amazed at the way this big fella took to your little gal. But often there’s something that goes on between children and animals that we grownups don’t understand.”

Becky named the wolf Ralph and carried food and water to the stump every day. Ralph’s recovery was not easy. For three months he dragged his injured hindquarters by clawing the earth with his front paws. From the way he lowered his eyelids when we massaged the atrophied limbs, we knew he endured excruciating pain, but not once did he ever try to bite the hands of those who cared for him.

Four months to the day, Ralph finally stood unaided. His huge frame shook as long-unused muscles were activated. Bill and I patted and praised him. But it was Becky to whom he turned for a gentle word, a kiss or a smile. He responded to these gestures of love by swinging his bushy tail like a pendulum.

As his strength grew, Ralph followed Becky all over the ranch. Together they roamed the desert pastures, the golden-haired child often stooping low, sharing with the great lame wolf whispered secrets of nature’s wonders. When evening came, he returned like a silent shadow to his hollow stump that had surely become his special place. As time went on, although he lived primarily in the brush, the habits of this timid creature endeared him more and more to all of us.

His reaction to people other than our family was yet another story. Strangers terrified him, yet his affection for and protectiveness of Becky brought him out of the desert and fields at the sight of every unknown pickup or car. Occasionally he’d approach, lips taut, exposing a nervous smile full of chattering teeth. More often he’d simply pace and finally skulk off to his tree stump, perhaps to worry alone.

Becky’s first day of school was sad for Ralph. After the bus left, he refused to return to the yard. Instead, he lay by the side of the road and waited. When Becky returned, he limped and tottered in wild, joyous circles around her. This welcoming ritual persisted throughout her school years.

Although Ralph seemed happy on the ranch, he disappeared into the surrounding deserts and mountains for several weeks during the spring mating season, leaving us to worry about his safety. This was calving season, and fellow ranchers watched for coyotes, cougars, wild dogs and, of course, the lone wolf. But Ralph was lucky.

During Ralph’s twelve years on our ranch, his habits remained unchanged. Always keeping his distance, he tolerated other pets and endured the activities of our busy family, but his love for Becky never wavered. Then the spring came when our neighbor told us he’d shot and killed a she-wolf and grazed her mate, who had been running with her. Sure enough, Ralph returned home with another bullet wound.

Becky, nearly fifteen years old now, sat with Ralph’s head resting on her lap. He, too, must have been about fifteen and was gray with age. As Bill removed the bullet, my memory raced back through the years. Once again I saw a chubby three-year-old girl stroking the head of a huge black wolf and heard a small voice murmuring, “It’s all right, boy. Don’t be afraid. That’s my mama, and she loves you, too.”

Although the wound wasn’t serious, this time Ralph didn’t get well. Precious pounds fell away. The once luxurious fur turned dull and dry, and his trips to the yard in search of Becky’s companionship ceased. All day long he rested quietly.

But when night fell, old and stiff as he was, he disappeared into the desert and surrounding hills. By dawn his food was gone.

The morning came when we found him dead. The yellow eyes were closed. Stretched out in front of the oak stump, he appeared but a shadow of the proud beast he once had been. A lump in my throat choked me as I watched Becky stroke his shaggy neck, tears streaming down her face. “I’ll miss him so,” she cried.

Then as I covered him with a blanket, we were startled by a strange rustling sound from inside the stump. Becky looked inside. Two tiny yellow eyes peered back and puppy fangs glinted in the semi-darkness. Ralph’s pup!

Had a dying instinct told him his motherless offspring would be safe here, as he had been, with those who loved him? Hot tears spilled on baby fur as Becky gathered the trembling bundle in her arms. “It’s all right, little . . . Ralphie,” she murmured. “Don’t be afraid. That’s my mom, and she loves you, too.”

Penny Porter

Friends

Twenty-one years ago, my husband gave me Sam, an eight-week-old schnauzer, to help ease the loss of our daughter, who was stillborn. Sam and I developed a very special bond over the next fourteen years. It seemed nothing that happened could ever change that.

At one point, my husband and I decided to relocate from our New York apartment to a new home in New Jersey. After we were there awhile, our neighbor, whose cat had recently had kittens, asked us if we would like one. We were a little apprehensive about Sam’s jealousy and how he would handle his turf being invaded, but we decided to risk it and agreed to take a kitten.

We picked a little, gray, playful ball of fur. It was like having a road runner in the house. She raced around chasing imaginary mice and squirrels and vaulted from table to chair in the blink of an eye, so we named her Lightning.

At first, Sam and Lightning were very cautious with each other and kept their distance. But slowly, as the days went on, Lightning started following Sam—up the stairs, down the stairs, into the kitchen to watch him eat, into the living room to watch him sleep. As time passed, they became inseparable. When they slept, it was always together; when they ate, it was always next to each other. When I played with one, the other joined in. If Sam barked at something, Lightning ran to see what it was. When I took either one out of the house, the other was always waiting by the door when we returned. That was the way it was for years.

Then, without any warning, Sam began suffering from convulsions and was diagnosed as having a weak heart. I had no other choice but to have him put down. The pain of making that decision, however, was nothing compared with what I experienced when I had to leave Sam at the vet and walk into our house alone. This time, there was no Sam for Lightning to greet and no way to explain why she would never see her friend again.

In the days that followed, Lightning seemed heartbroken. She could not tell me in words that she was suffering, but I could see the pain and disappointment in her eyes whenever anyone opened the front door, or the hope whenever she heard a dog bark.

The weeks wore on and the cat’s sorrow seemed to be lifting. One day as I walked into our living room, I happened to glance down on the floor next to our sofa where we had a sculptured replica of Sam that we had bought a few years before. Lying next to the statue, one arm wrapped around the statue’s neck, was Lightning, contentedly sleeping with her best friend.

Karen Del Tufo

The Puppy Express

The Topps stood on the shoulder of the road and watched as their truck’s engine shuddered and died. Nancy and Joe, their two children, Jodi, twelve, and Matthew, fifteen, and their elderly dog, Snoopy, were 1,500 miles from home, stranded on a highway in Wyoming, with the old truck clearly beyond even Joe’s gift for repairs. The little dog, peering around the circle of faces with cataractdimmed eyes, seemed to reflect their anxiety.

The Topps were on the road because five months before, a nephew had told Joe there was work to be had in the Napa Valley and he and Nancy decided to gamble. Breaking up their home in Fort Wayne, Indiana, they packed up the kids and Snoopy and set out for California. But once there, the warehousing job Joe hoped for didn’t materialize, Nancy and the kids were very homesick, and their funds melted away. Now it was January and, the gamble lost, they were on their way back to Fort Wayne.

The truck had taken them as far as Rock Springs, Wyoming, but now there was nothing to do but sell it to a junk dealer for twenty-five dollars and hitch a ride to the bus station. Two pieces of bad news greeted them at the station. Four tickets to Fort Wayne came to much more money than they had, and dogs were not allowed on the bus.

“But we’ve got to take Snoopy with us.” Nancy pleaded with the ticket-seller, tears welling in her eyes.

Joe drew her away from the window. It was no use getting upset about Snoopy, he told her, until they figured how to get themselves on the bus. With no choice but to ask for help, they called Travelers’ Aid, and with kind efficiency, the local representative arranged for a motel room for them for the night. There, with their boxes and bags piled around them, they put in a call to relatives back home, who promised to get together money for the fare and wire it the next day.

“But what about Snoopy?” Matthew said as soon as his parents got off the phone.

“We can’t go without Snoopy,” Jodi stated flatly. At seventeen, Snoopy, a beagle-dachshund mix, had a bit of a heart condition and some kidney problems, and the family worried about her.

Joe picked up the little dog. “Snoopy,” he said, tugging her floppy ears in the way she liked. “I think you’re going to have to hitchhike.”

“Don’t tease, Joe,” said Nancy shortly.

“I’m not teasing, honey,” he assured her, tucking Snoopy into the crook of his arm. “I’m going to try to find an eastbound trucker to take the old girl back for us.”

At the local truck stop, Joe sat Snoopy on a stool beside him while he fell into conversation with drivers who stopped to pet her. “Gee, I’d like to help you out,” one after another said. “She’s awful cute and I wouldn’t mind the company, but I’m not going through Fort Wayne this trip.” The only driver who could have taken her picked Snoopy up and looked at her closely. “Naw,” the man growled, “with an old dog like her, there’d be too many pit stops. I got to make time.” Still hopeful, Joe tacked up a sign and gave the motel’s phone number.

“Somebody’ll call before bus time tomorrow,” he predicted to the kids when he and Snoopy got back to the motel.

“But suppose nobody does?” Jodi said.

Joe answered, “Sweetie, we’ve got to be on that bus. The Travelers’ Aid can only pay for us to stay here one night.”

The next day Joe went off to collect the wired funds while Nancy and the kids sorted through their possessions, trying to decide what could be crammed into the six pieces of baggage they were allowed on the bus and what had to be left behind. Ordinarily Snoopy would have napped, but now her eyes followed every move of Nancy and the children, and if one of them paused to think, even for a minute, Snoopy nosed at the idle hand, asking to be touched, to be held.

“She knows,” Jodi said, cradling her. “She knows something awful is going to happen.”

The Travelers’ Aid representative arrived to take the belongings they couldn’t pack for donation to the local thrift shop. A nice man, he was caught between being sympathetic and being practical when he looked at Snoopy. “Seventeen is really old for a dog,” he said gently. “Maybe you just have to figure she’s had a long life and a good one.” When nobody spoke, he took a deep breath. “If you want, you can leave her with me and I’ll have her put to sleep after you’ve gone.”

The children looked at Nancy but said nothing; they understood there wasn’t any choice and they didn’t want to make it harder on their mother by protesting. Nancy bowed her head. She thought of all the walks, all the romps, all the picnics, all the times she’d gone in to kiss the children goodnight and Snoopy had lifted her head to be kissed too.

“Thank you,” she told the man. “It’s kind of you to offer. But no. No,” she repeated firmly, “Snoopy’s part of the family, and families don’t give up on each other.” She reached for the telephone book, looked up “Kennels” in the Yellow Pages, and began dialing. Scrupulously, she started each call with the explanation that the family was down on their luck. “But,” she begged, “if you’ll just keep our little dog until we can find a way to get her to Fort Wayne, I give you my word we’ll pay. Please trust me. Please.”

A veterinary clinic, which also boarded pets, finally agreed, and the Travelers’ Aid representative drove them to the place. Nancy was the last to say good-bye. She knelt and took Snoopy’s frosted muzzle in her hands. “You know we’d never leave you if we could help it,” she whispered, “so don’t give up; don’t you dare give up. We’ll get you back somehow. I promise.”