One morning, I was starting breakfast when Scott came through the kitchen door. His hazel eyes loomed dark beneath his broad-brimmed Stetson. “It’s Angel,” he said softly. “You better come. She got out of the corral last night.”
Trying to hold back my fears, I followed Scott to his pickup. “She’s had her foal somewhere,” he said, “but Dad and I couldn’t find it. She’s . . . dying.” I heard the catch in his voice. “Looks like she was trying to make it home.”
When we got to Angel, Bill was crouched beside her. “There’s nothing we can do,” he said, pointing to the blue wildflowers in the lush green fields, in easy reach for a hungry horse through the barbed wire. “Loco weed. Some horses love it, but it can be a killer.”
I pulled Angel’s big head onto my lap and stroked behind her ears. Tears welled in Scott’s eyes. “Best mare we ever had,” he murmured.
“Angel!” I pleaded. “Please don’t go!” Choking back my grief, I ran my hand down her neck and listened to her labored breathing. She shuddered once, and I looked into eyes that could no longer see. Angel was gone.
In a cloud of numbness, I heard Scott call out only a few yards away. “Mom! Dad! Come look at this foal!”
Deep in the sweet-smelling grasses lay a tiny colt. A single spot brightened his face, and stars spangled his back and hips. A pure, radiant Appaloosa, our horse of many colors. “Starburst,” I whispered.
But somehow, all that color didn’t matter anymore. As his mother had taught us so many times, it’s not what’s on the outside that counts, but what lies deep inside the heart.
Penny Porter
Home
Eventually you will come to understand that love heals everything, and love is all there is.
Gary Zukav
A freezing downpour washed the black asphalt street in front of the small-town bar. I sat gazing into the watery darkness, alone as usual. Across the rain-drenched roadway was the town park: five acres of grass, giant elm trees and, tonight, an ankle-deep covering of cold water.
I had been in that battered old pub for a half hour, quietly nursing a drink, when my thoughtful stare finally focused on a medium-sized lump in a grassy puddle a hundred feet away. For another ten minutes, I looked out through the tear-streaked windowpane trying to decide if the lump was an animal or just a wet and inanimate something.
The night before, a German shepherd-looking mongrel had come into the bar begging for potato chips. He was mangy and starving and just the size of the lump in question. Why would a dog lie in a cold puddle in the freezing rain? I asked myself. The answer was simple: Either it wasn’t a dog, or if it was, he was too weak to get up.
The shrapnel wound in my right shoulder ached all the way down to my fingers. I didn’t want to go out in that storm. Hey, it wasn’t my dog; it wasn’t anybody’s dog. It was just a stray on a cold night in the rain, a lonely drifter.
So am I, I thought, as I tossed down what was left of my drink and headed out the door.
He was lying in three inches of water. When I touched him, he didn’t move. I thought he was dead. I put my hands around his chest and hoisted him to his feet. He stood unsteadily in the puddle, his head hung like a weight at the end of his neck. Half his body was covered with mange. His floppy ears were just hairless pieces of flesh dotted with open sores.
“Come on,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t have to carry his infected carcass to shelter. His tail wagged once and he plodded weakly after me. I led him to an alcove next to the bar, where he lay on the cold cement and closed his eyes.
A block away I could see the lights of a late-night convenience store. It was still open. I bought three cans of Alpo and stuffed them into my leather coat. I was wet and ugly and the clerk looked relieved as I left. The race-type exhausts on my old Harley-Davidson rattled the windows in the bar as I rode back to the bar.
The barmaid opened the cans for me and said the dog’s name was Shep. She told me he was about a year old and that his owner had gone to Germany and left him on the street. He ate all three cans of dog food with an aweinspiring singleness of purpose. I wanted to pet him, but he smelled like death and looked even worse. “Good luck,” I said, then got on my bike and rode away.
The next day I got a job driving a dump truck for a small paving company. As I hauled a load of gravel through the center of town, I saw Shep standing on the sidewalk near the bar. I yelled to him and thought I saw his tail wag. His reaction made me feel good.
After work I bought three more cans of Alpo and a cheeseburger. My new friend and I ate dinner together on the sidewalk. He finished his first.
The next night, when I brought his food, he welcomed me with wild enthusiasm. Now and then, his malnourished legs buckled and he fell to the pavement. Other humans had deserted him and mistreated him, but now he had a friend and his appreciation was more than obvious.
I didn’t see him the next day as I hauled load after load up the main street past the bar. I wondered if someone had taken him home.
After work I parked my black Harley on the street and walked down the sidewalk looking for him. I was afraid of what I would find. He was lying on his side in an alley nearby. His tongue hung out in the dirt and only the tip of his tail moved when he saw me.
The local veterinarian was still at his office, so I borrowed a pickup truck from my employer and loaded the limp mongrel into the cab. “Is this your dog?” the vet asked after checking the pitiful specimen that lay helplessly on his examining table.
“No,” I said, “he’s just a stray.”
“He’s got the beginnings of distemper,” the vet said sadly. “If he doesn’t have a home, the kindest thing we can do is put him out of his misery.”
I put my hand on the dog’s shoulder. His mangy tail thumped weakly against the stainless steel table.
I sighed loudly. “He’s got a home,” I said.
For the next three nights and two days, the dog—I named him Shep—lay on his side in my apartment. My roommate and I spent hours putting water in his mouth and trying to get him to swallow a few scrambled eggs. He couldn’t do it, but whenever I touched him, his tail wagged slightly at the very tip.
At about 10 A.M. on the third day, I went home to open the apartment for the telephone installer. As I stepped through the door, I was nearly flattened by a jumping, wiggling mass of euphoric mutt. Shep had recovered.
With time, the mangy starving dog that nearly died in my living room grew into an eighty-pound block of solid muscle, with a massive chest and a super-thick coat of shiny black fur. Many times, when loneliness and depression have nearly gotten the best of me, Shep has returned my favor by showering me with his unbridled friendship until I had no choice but to smile and trade my melancholy for a fast game of fetch-the-stick.
When I look back, I can see that Shep and I met at the low point of both of our lives. But we aren’t lonely drifters anymore. I’d say we’ve both come home.
Joe Kirkup
Innocent Homeless
No matter how little money and how few possessions you own, having a dog makes you rich.
Louis Sabin
The hastily scrawled sign on the crumpled cardboard read: BROKE—NEED DOG FOOD. The desperate young man held the sign in one hand and a leash in the other as he paced back and forth on the busy corner in downtown Las Vegas.
Attached to the leash was a husky pup no more than a year old. Not far from them was an older dog of the same breed, chained to a lamppost. He was howling into the brisk chill of the approaching winter evening, with a wail that could be heard for blocks. It was as though he knew his own fate, for the sign that was propped next to him read: FOR SALE.
Forgetting about my own destination, I quickly turned the car around and made a beeline back toward the homeless trio. For years, I’ve kept dog and cat food in the trunk of my car for stray or hungry animals I often find. It’s been a way of helping those I couldn’t take in. It’s also what I’ve used to coax many a scared dog off the road to safety. Help
ing needy animals has always been an automatic decision for me.
I pulled into the nearest parking lot and grabbed a five-pound bag of dog food, a container of water and a twenty-dollar bill from my purse. I approached the ragged-looking man and his unhappy dogs warily. If this man had somehow hurt these creatures or was using them as come-ons, I knew my anger would quickly take over. The older dog was staring up at the sky, whining pitifully. Just before I reached them, a truck pulled up alongside of them and asked how much the man wanted for the older dog.
“Fifty bucks,” the man on the corner replied, then added quickly, “but I really don’t want to sell him.”
“Is he papered?”
“No.”
“Is he fixed?”
“No.”
“How old is he?”
“Five. But I really don’t want to sell him. I just need some money to feed him.”
“If I had fifty bucks, I’d buy him.” The light turned green, and the truck sped off.
The man shook his head and continued dejectedly pacing the sidewalk. When he noticed me coming in his direction, he stopped walking and watched me approach. The pup began wagging his tail.
“Hi,” I offered, as I drew nearer. The young man’s face was gentle and friendly, and I could sense just by looking in his eyes that he was someone in real crisis.
“I have some food here for your dogs,” I said. Dumbfounded, he took the bag as I set down the water in front of them.
“You brought water, too?” he asked incredulously. We both knelt down next to the older dog, and the puppy greeted me enthusiastically.
“That one there is T. C., and this one’s Dog. I’m Wayne.” The sad, older dog stopped crying long enough to see what was in the container.
“What happened, Wayne?” I asked. I felt a bit intrusive, but he answered me directly and simply. “Well, I just moved out here from Arizona and haven’t been able to find work. I’m at the point where I can’t even feed the dogs.”
“Where are you living?”
“In that truck right there.” He pointed to a dilapidated old vehicle that was parked close by. It had an extra long bed with a shell, so at least they had shelter from the elements.
The pup had climbed onto my lap and settled in. I asked Wayne what type of work he did.
“I’m a mechanic and a welder,” he said. “But there’s nothing out here for either. I’ve looked and looked. These dogs are my family; I hate to have to sell them, but I just can’t afford to feed them.”
He kept saying it over and over. He didn’t want to sell them, but he couldn’t feed them. An awful look came over his face every time he repeated it. It was as if he might have to give up a child.
The time seemed right to casually pass over the twenty-dollar bill, hoping I wouldn’t further damage his already shaky pride. “Here. Use this to buy yourself something to eat.”
“Well, thanks,” he slowly replied, unable to look me in the face. “This could get us a room for the night, too.”
“How long have you been out here?”
“All day.”
“Hasn’t anyone else stopped?”
“No, you’re the first.” It was late afternoon and quickly getting dark. Here in the desert, when the sun dropped, the temperature would dip into the thirties.
My mind went into fast-forward as I pictured the three of them going without even a single meal today, perhaps for several days, and spending many long, cold hours cooped up in their inadequate, makeshift shelter.
Seeing people beg for food isn’t anything new in this city. But this man stood out because he wasn’t asking for food for himself. He was more concerned with keeping his dogs fed than with his own welfare. As a pet-parent of nine well-fed and passionately loved dogs of my own, it hit a deep chord in me.
I don’t think I’ll ever really know what came over me at that moment, inspiring me to do what I did next, but I just knew it was something I had to do. I asked him if he’d wait there for a few minutes until I returned. He nodded his head and smiled.
My car flew to the nearest grocery store. Bursting with urgency, I raced in and took hold of a cart. I started on the first aisle and didn’t quit until I reached the other side of the store. The items couldn’t be pulled off the shelves fast enough. Just the essentials, I thought. Just food that will last a couple of weeks and sustain their meager existence. Peanut butter and jelly. Bread. Canned food. Juice. Fruit. Vegetables. Dog food. More dog food (forty pounds, to be exact). And chew toys. They should have some treats, too. A few other necessities and the job was done.
“The total comes to $102.91,” said the checker. I didn’t bat an eye. The pen ran over that blank check faster than I could legibly write. It didn’t matter that the mortgage was due soon or that I really didn’t have the extra hundred dollars to spend. Nothing mattered besides seeing that this family had some food. I was amazed at my own intensity and the overwhelming motivation that compelled me to spend a hundred dollars on a total stranger. Yet, at the same time, I felt like the luckiest person in the world. To be able to give this man and his beloved companions a tiny bit of something of which I had so much opened the floodgates of gratitude in my own heart.
The icing on the cake was the look on Wayne’s face when I returned with all the groceries. “Here are just a few things . . . ” I said as the dogs looked on with great anticipation. I wanted to avoid any awkwardness, so I hastily petted the dogs.
“Good luck to you,” I said and held out my hand.
“Thank you and God bless you. Now I won’t have to sell my dogs.” His smile shone brightly in the deepening darkness.
It’s true that people are more complicated than animals, but sometimes they can be as easy to read. Wayne was a good person—someone who looked at a dog and saw family. In my book, a man like that deserves to be happy.
Later, on my way home, I purposely drove past that same corner. Wayne and the dogs were gone.
But they have stayed for a long time in my heart and mind. Perhaps I will run into them again someday. I like to think that it all turned out well for them.
Lori S. Mohr
Priorities
I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
Jean Cocteau
The conditions were ideal for a fire.
The parched hillsides that outline the San Francisco Bay area provided the fuel, and the hot gusts of wind would breathe life into the flames. It was a dangerous combination.
On Sunday, July 7, 1985, an arsonist lit the match—the only missing ingredient—and ignited a disaster.
It started as a small fire in the mountains above Los Gatos. Fire crews responded quickly and predicted an easy containment and no property damage. The fire prompted little concern among the residents of this mountainous community as they went about doing what they normally did on a Sunday afternoon. After all, fires, earthquakes and mudslides were part of the way of life in the mountains, the price one paid for seclusion.
Monday morning, as usual, the mountain dwellers descended from their wooded enclaves for jobs in the valley below as the winds picked up and the temperature climbed into the nineties. By the end of the day, the Lexington Hills fire had been upgraded to a major wildfire.
When the residents of the area tried to return to their homes after work, they were stopped. No one could go back. At the roadblock, there were many emotions—fear, anger, despair and panic. Many people were frantic with worry about their pets.
I was one of the volunteers who made up the animal rescue team in our area. As the rescue team made its way to the front of the crowd at the roadblock, we hoped that the police would let us through. When they finally agreed to let us go into the area to look for pets, we set up a table at the Red Cross shelter and began the process of taking descriptions of pets and addresses.
We worked as late as we could that night and returned at daybreak to continue. It was a large area and the fire was spreading—almost f
aster than we could move to stay ahead of it. But we just kept going. A grueling ten hours had passed since I’d arrived that Tuesday morning. With a few hours of daylight left, and my van empty of rescued animals, I decided to make one last check at the Red Cross shelter. No one had yet told us that we couldn’t go back for more animals.
A woman ran up to my van before I’d even parked. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties, with a smooth, blonde pageboy that framed wide, anxious eyes. I knew she was searching for a pet.
She grasped the bottom of my window frame as I stopped the van and blurted out, “Please, miss, can you help me? I gave my address to one of your colleagues yesterday, but I haven’t heard from anyone. It’s my kitten. She’s only eight weeks old. The poor thing must be so . . . frightened.” Her voice broke as she spoke.
“Why don’t you give me the information again, and I’ll see if I can find your kitten,” I told the woman as I pulled a blank piece of paper from my notebook. “Where’s your house?”
“Aldercroft Heights. A fireman told me early this morning there were still some houses that hadn’t burned.”
I could see the hope in her face. But I knew that when the wind changed that afternoon, the fire had headed back in the direction of the Heights—probably to burn what was left.
“My house isn’t very big. You could search it in less than five minutes. The kitten likes to lie on the rug in my sewing room, especially when I’m in there working.’’ The recollection brought more tears to the woman’s eyes.
Her expression was a mirror image of all of the other displaced people with whom I’d had contact in the past two days. I wanted so much to help them, to ease the anguish and frustration.
“What’s the quickest way to your place?” I asked, looking at my map.
The woman used her finger to point out the best route. As she gave me directions, I asked for landmarks. By now a lot of the street signs had melted.
Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul Page 6