My 'Almost' Pet. And My Dad

Daddy and Me. And George. I'm the one with the curlers in her hair . . .

I like dogs.

If I had to state a preference, I would have to admit that I favour big, hairy ones.

Even if they slobber.

But, truth to tell, I like all kinds.

Pointy. Fuzzy. Smooth. Dreadlocked. Naked. Huge. Tiny. Rat-sized. Medium. Purebred. Heinz 57.

If it resembles a dog in any way, I’m well on the way to being smitten.

And I’ve always been this way.

Dad can tell you.

In the past, if any member of the ‘doggy’ fraternity crossed my path, I was ready to welcome it with open arms.

Literally.

And therein lies a tale . . .

I was playing with my friends on the school playground.

I’m not sure what we were playing, probably something noisy.

And dangerous.

But I digress . . .

A dog wandered into our sphere.

A black and tan dog.

Thin and wasted, with the worst case of ‘post nasal drip’ I had ever seen.

But with long, silky hair and beautiful, but sad, teary brown eyes.

I loved him.

He would be mine.

And, my dad was a vet.

He could fix my new best friend!

I clutched a handful of hair, just behind the dog’s head, and led him to my house, two blocks away.

The rest of the kids followed.

Because.

We were an ‘in the moment’ crowd. What can I say . . .?

It took a long time, with frequent stops for my new friend to rest, but finally, we arrived. My Dad met my dog and me as we came up the drive, followed by the rest of the neighbourhood.

“Umm, Diane? What’s going on?”

Dad was used to me. If I detected a trace of hesitancy, that’s probably because he had learned to view anything I did with . . . hesitancy.

Smart man.

I looked up at him expectantly. “Daddy! This nice doggy is sick!”

“Umm, yes, I can see that . . .”

“Fix him!”

Dad glanced at the dog. Then he looked at me.

I put on my most endearing face.

At least, that’s what I was going for.

He knelt down.

Yes!

He looked the dog over. “I’m afraid he’s really sick, Honey,” he said.

“I know. Fix him!”

He sighed and stood up. “Wait here a moment.”

I turned and grinned at the other kids. See? My Dad could do anything.

Dad came back with a syringe filled with something . . . fixy.

He injected the dog and patted it on its droopy head. “There. That’s the best I can do.”

I looked at the dog. It wagged its tail slightly. See? It was better already.

“Can it come and play with us?”

“I think the best thing would be for it to rest here in the garage.”

“Umm. Okay.”

He helped me lay out a blanket and settle my doggie on it comfortably. Then he closed the garage door and told us to let him rest.

We did.

I peeked in through the garage window a couple of times.

It was easy enough if I dangled from the clothesline just outside.

But my little friend just lay there on the blanket.

Getting better.

The next morning, I leaped out of bed and charged down the hallway, on my way to see my new friend.

My Dad met me at the door.

“Oh, Diane, your doggy is gone.”

“Gone? Where?”

“His family came and got him.”

“Oh.”

I was sad, but I knew that Dad had injected him with just the magic elixir (yes, we used that in the 50’s) that would heal him entirely. And thoughts of my doggy running and playing with his family cheered me.

All was well.

There is an addendum . . .

I was visiting with my Dad last night and he recalled the story of my little short-term friend.

I smiled in memory. “Oh, yes. The one with distemper. The one you saved.”

Dad looked at me and shook his head. “Actually, I didn’t save him,” he said. “The shot I gave him was to lessen his pain. He died that night.”

I hadn’t thought about that little dog for over fifty years, but suddenly, I could picture the soft, brown eyes. The long, silky hair and funny, tan ‘eyebrows’. The skinny body.

I felt unaccountably sad for the little fellow.

But, just as suddenly, I was grateful to my Dad.

For his skill. For his compassion.

He did manage to fix him after all. 

Summer in a Quonset Part Seven

The only existing picture of Mom's 'kitchen' in the quonset.
Behind her are The Shelves.

Our popping bolt friends announced the rising of the sun and we found we didn't need any other alarm. In fact, we weren't just exactly ecstatic about rising at 4 A.M.!

Sleep became impossible as flocks of birds began their daily effort of trying to gain a foot hold on the slippery dome of the shed.

They chirped excitedly as they scratched and slid.

We could see the shapes of their fluffy little bodies and wings as they lit on the sky light.

They were having such great fun sliding and flying.

We snuggled down in our warm beds watching and listening.

Soon, our bull chorus greeted the day with their lusty song.

Where is everybody this fine day!

Where is my breakfast, my grain and my hay?

We quickly shivered into our clothes and rushed through breakfast.

I filled my canning kettle with cold water and set it on the stove to heat while we ate.

I was always anxious to finish dishes and straighten our 'apartment' before a veterinary client came.

On this particular morning a Matt Clemens was bringing his cat for a rabies shot.

He brought him in a sack.

Mark laid the sack on the clinic table (three boards over two saw horses), put on some leather gloves, and began rolling the top of the sack down to the wild cat in one corner.

Two beady eyes gleamed from the depths of the sack.

Before the cat could spring, Mark clamped one hand on the neck and head, and the other hand on his back through the sack.

He extracted the cat and held him out flat on the table.

Then it was my turn to hold the creature.

I had done this many times but my courage had not improved with the practice.

In each hand, I clamped two legs just above the claws and wedged my wrist on the neck of the cat, forcing the jaw over and the vicious teeth away from me.

He flexed every muscle as he strained to be free making a desperate attempt to turn his head and slide it out from under my arm. His head was small and he could turn it almost completely around.

Like an owl.

His sharp teeth were just grazing my wrist.

Just as the needle penetrated into the muscle of his hip, I moved my arm a little to try to get a more secure clamp on the cat's jaw.

The movement released the animal just enough for him to twist his head a fraction more and he clamped his teeth into my wrist.

“He's got me!” I whispered, transfixed as numbness crept through all of my muscles.

Very slowly, Mark said, “Let . . . him . . . go . . . both . . . hands . . . at . . . once . . . quickly!”

I couldn't move!

The cat couldn't move!

There was no pain.

“Let . . . him . . . go . . . now!”

I suddenly came to life and obeyed.

The cat, too, came to life. Extracted his teeth and shot like a bullet off the table and across the floor and up to the highest far away place.

Which happened to be the steel shelves where I had all of my dishes and kitchen supplies.

There he sat, with every muscle tensed for a spring, looking down on us with all the venom of a rattle snake.

Our 8-year-old, Blair, had been watching all the proceedings with much interest.

He suddenly grabbed the sack and said, “I'll get him Dad!”

For a moment, we were so astonished we couldn't move.

The he advanced towards the cat.

I climbed a ladder at one end and Blair climbed the table at the other end and held the sack open near the cat's head.

The creature turned its head and looked at me and leaped right into the sack!

Well.

I thought I had a face that would stop a clock, but I didn't know it would scare a wild cat!

At that moment, my arm began to give me the most excruciating pain.

Feeling faint, I lay down for a moment while Doc called the M.D.

He advised us to get a tetanus shot immediately, which we did.

Three or four hours later, my arm was aching from my finger tips to my shoulder and the swelling was beginning to move into the upper arm.

As night came on I became increasingly nauseated and dizzy.

I can't remember too much about the next three days except the pain and dizziness.

I spent most of the time in bed.

However all 'good things' must come to an end.

At the end of the third day, I was out pulling weeds in the lane of new trees we had planted in May.