Jan K. Stewart Bass
5
AMAZING
ANIMALS
I have learned to use the word impossible with the greatest of caution.
Wernher von Braun
©1989 by Danny Shanahan from The New Yorker Collection. All Rights Reserved.
Buffalo Games
All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it.
Samuel Butler
[EDITORS’ NOTE: During the Iditarod, the dogsled race across Alaska, a rookie driver came upon a musher who had stopped his team and was gazing down a hill with rapt attention. The rookie driver stopped to see what the other man found so absorbing.]
We were looking down on a frozen lake—one of the Farewell Lakes. But it wasn’t the lake that held his interest. Below and to the right, a group of four buffalo were standing on the shore. Two of them were in the grass at the edge and the other two were out on the ice.
“Somebody told me that there was a herd of buffalo here, but I hadn’t expected to see them along the trail,” he said.
“Yes,” I told the other musher. “Buffalo. I know. They told us . . .”
“No—watch.”
I turned back, thinking frankly that he was around the bend. So it was buffalo—so what?
Then I saw what he meant.
The surface of the lake was bare of snow and the two buffalo out on the ice were having a rough time of it trying to stand. One of the buffalo on the shore backed away from the lake, up the sloping side of the ridge, pawed the ground a couple of times and ran full bore for the lake.
Just as he hit the edge of the ice, his tail went straight up in the air. He spread his front feet apart, stiffened his legs and slid away from shore, spinning around in a circle as he flew across the ice.
When he slowed to a stop he bellowed, a kind of “Gwaaa” sound, then began making his tortuous way back to the shoreline.
While he was doing this, the fourth buffalo came shooting out on the ice, slid farther (also tail up) than the last, made a louder noise, and started back slipping and falling.
I couldn’t believe it and blinked rapidly several times, thinking I was hallucinating.
“No—it’s real,” he laughed. “I was passing when I heard the bellow and came up to check it out. I’ve been here an hour, maybe a little more. They’ve been doing this the whole time. Great, isn’t it?”
We lay there for another half-hour watching them play. The object seemed to be who could slide the farthest, and each of them tried several times, tails up, happy bellows echoing on the far shore of the lake as they slid across the ice.
Buffalo Games . . . who would have thought it could happen?
Gary Paulsen
Doctola
The . . . dog, in life the firmest friend, the first to welcome, foremost to defend.
Lord Byron
I graduated from veterinary school in June of 1984. In July, I hopped a plane for the deepest, darkest heart of Africa and assumed my post as the Thyolo district veterinary officer in August. My life as a new Peace Corps volunteer was moving at warp speed.
My duties were to provide veterinary care and administer the disease control programs for the Thyolo and Mulanji districts in the central African country of Malawi. With nothing more than a cabinet of mostly outdated drugs and a 100-cc motorbike, I was to supervise twenty-three veterinary technicians scattered around my districts and maintain the health of the cattle, sheep, goats, swine, poultry and pet animals in the entire area.
After a month in my new position, I returned to my office one evening after sundown. There, I was greeted by an older gentleman. He sat in the chair that I kept outside my office door. In his lap, he held a box full of puppies. I returned his greeting and then showed him into my office. We conversed in the local language of Chichewa.
The gentleman was Dr. Mzimba, one of the well-known medicine men in the district. In Africa, the medicine man is a spiritual leader and wise man, as well as a healer, for his people. I estimated his age around sixty, but my estimate could easily have been off twenty years in either direction.
In order for him to reach me, he had walked two hours to the nearest bus stop and then taken a six-hour bus ride to my office. He had left his home at 5:00 A.M. and had been waiting for me at my office since his arrival at 4:00 P.M. It was now 7:00 P.M. He went on to explain that there was very little he could do for the sick puppies he had brought me, since his medicine only worked on people. He cared very much for these puppies and had “seen” that some were destined to do great things. He asked that I do all in my power to save them.
The six puppies were very ill. I explained that intensive care would be needed for many days if any of the puppies were to be saved. He agreed to leave them with me. He stated that when he felt it was time, he would return to collect them. With that, he left.
The puppies required round-the-clock care. The pups went with me wherever I went. Homemade electrolyte solution and antibiotics were all that I had available. Yet despite all my efforts, one puppy after another slowly faded away. On the sixth night, the last two remaining puppies and I bedded down for the evening. I fully expected that these two would go the same way as their litter-mates. They were not showing any improvement, and I was sure that they didn’t have another day’s worth of fight left in them.
I was overjoyed to wake to two happy and perky puppies whining for attention. They looked like puppy skeletons, but they were alive and alert puppy skeletons. Their appetites were ravenous. Frequent small meals soon became frequent large meals, and it didn’t take long for them to fill out.
They stayed with me an additional ten days, and I was wondering if Dr. Mzimba would ever return for them. On the tenth day of their recovery period, Dr. Mzimba showed up. He was overjoyed with the two pups that had survived and were now thriving. One pup was black with four white paws and a large white star on his chest. The other pup was brown with a large white patch on the right side of his face. Both pups had prominent ridgebacks.
I watched as the pups licked and kissed the old man’s face while he gently cuddled and hugged them. He pulled out a few coins and some old crumpled bills and asked what the fee came to. I charged him my standard consultation fee—a total of $3.50. He gladly paid, but before he left he gave me the honor of naming the pups. I thought long and hard and finally chose the name Bozo for the black pup and Skippy for the brown one. I told him that I once had dogs with those names, and they had been my best friends.
“Come and visit me often, Doctola,” he said. “These pups now know you as mother and father. They will not forget and some day will return the great kindness you have shown them.” Then Dr. Mzimba and I shook hands and parted company.
Over the course of the next eighteen months, I saw Dr. Mzimba, Bozo and Skippy at least once a month. Every two to four weeks, I took a three-day trip traveling from one village to the next around the Thyolo district, performing various veterinary duties as needed. At the end of each trip, I stopped at Dr. Mzimba’s village. He kindly offered me his home and gracious hospitality every time I swung through the neighborhood.
I watched Bozo and Skippy grow into fine dogs. They each reached around eighty pounds. They were twice the size of the local village dogs and were fiercely loyal to Dr. Mzimba. I vaccinated them and dewormed them regularly, and treated their various wounds and ailments. For me, it was like seeing family. Whenever they saw me, they instantly turned into playful puppies.
The dogs were treasured by the people of their village. On every visit, I heard a new story of how the dogs had run off someone trying to steal cattle, or how they had defended the village against roaming hyenas or jackals.
One time, the dogs killed a leopard. They were badly injured in the fight. Both dogs had multiple puncture wounds, lacerations and a great deal of blood loss. I worked through the night to stitch up their endless wounds. Yet in the morning, I was amazed to see each dog stand and eat a little breakfast.
As I
packed up my motorbike, I left Dr. Mzimba with after-care instructions and some follow-up antibiotics. He thanked me profusely and hugged me with tears in his eyes.
“That is the second time that you have saved their lives, Doctola. From this time on, they will be your protectors. I have seen it!”
Five months later I was again in the area on one of my regular three-day tours. I was approaching Dr. Mzimba’s village and having a rough time. Heavy rain had turned the dirt roads to rivers of mud. I had fallen four times in the last forty minutes and was having a terrible time climbing the hill to Dr. Mzimba’s village. It was drizzling and I was wet, muddy, cold and in a bitter mood as I tried to maneuver my motorbike along the slippery one-lane path.
I stopped short. Ahead, in the beam of my headlight, a hyena stood blocking the path. It was slowly making its way toward me, unafraid of the light or sound of my motor. I honked the horn, to no effect. The hyena’s advance continued, slow and steady. How strange, I thought. In the past, they had always run off in fright. Then I saw the blood and saliva dripping from its mouth and the blank stare in its eyes. Rabies!
As the hyena came toward me, I slowly backed up and tried to keep my distance. The mud was much too thick and slippery to make a run for it, and the path too narrow to turn around.
The only real option was to run anyway and hope the hyena would choose to attack the motorbike instead of me. Despite my efforts to keep a reasonable distance, I was unable to backpedal fast enough. The hyena was gaining on me. It gave a ghoulish laugh as it snapped its powerful jaws in the air. I was about to make a run for it when, on either side of me, Bozo and Skippy appeared. They jumped onto the path between me and the hyena. Their muscles were rock-steady and the hair on their backs stood straight up. They held their ground, teeth bared.
The ensuing battle was fierce and bloody. Not once did the dogs cry out as they fought with a speed and endurance I never thought possible. The life-and-death battle unfolded in the beam of my motorbike headlight. When it was over, the hyena lay dead and the dogs were nowhere to he found. I called and called but there was no sign of them.
I hurried to Dr. Mzimba’s home. As I slipped and stumbled along the path, I was thinking about my treatment plan: stitches, antibiotics, a rabies booster, fluids, shock treatment. I owed those wonderful dogs so much. I had to find them and I had to thank them and they had to live and I wasn’t going to settle for anything less.
When I arrived at Dr. Mzimba’s house, I found him waiting patiently in a chair on the porch outside his hut. I ran to him, explaining all that had happened in a combination of Chichewa and English. I was breathless and hyperventilating and I wasn’t sure if he understood me. It seemed that he did.
“Come with me and I’ll show you the dogs,” he said, and he motioned for me to follow.
I grabbed my medical cases and followed him to the back of his hut. He stopped and pointed to two graves. “Bozo and Skippy sleep there. Three days ago, a pack of hyenas came down from the hills and attacked our cattle. Bozo and Skippy fought like ten dogs and they chased the hyenas away and saved our cattle. But it was too much for them, Doctola,” he said with tears streaming down his cheeks. “They both died shortly after the fight. There was no time to send for you.”
I shook my head. “No! It can’t be. They just saved my life fifteen minutes ago. I know it was them. I saw them and I know it was them.” I fell to my knees and looked up at the black sky. The pelting drizzle now mixed with my own tears. “There aren’t two other dogs in this country that look even close to Skippy and Bozo. It had to be them!” I said, half pleading, half arguing, wishing and hoping it was not so, and all the time sobbing uncontrollably.
“I believe you, Doctola,” said the wise African as he knelt down next to me. “I told you that someday the dogs would return your kindness. They will always protect you!”
Herbert J. (Reb) Rebhan, D.V.M.
A Mother’s Love
I am a New York City fireman. Being a firefighter has its grim side. When someone’s business or home is destroyed, it can break your heart. You see a lot of terror and sometimes even death. But the day I found Scarlett was different. That was a day about life. And love.
It was a Friday. We’d responded to an early morning alarm in Brooklyn at a burning garage. As I was getting my gear on, I heard the sound of cats crying. I couldn’t stop—I would have to look for the cats after the fire was put out.
This was a large fire, so there were other hook and ladder companies there as well. We had been told that everyone in the building had made it out safely. I sure hoped so—the entire garage was filled with flames, and it would have been futile for anyone to attempt a rescue anyway. It took a long time and many firefighters to finally bring the enormous blaze under control.
At that point I was free to investigate the cat noises, which I still heard. There continued to be a tremendous amount of smoke and intense heat coming from the building. I couldn’t see much, but I followed the meowing to a spot on the sidewalk about five feet away from the front of the garage. There, crying and huddled together, were three terrified little kittens. Then I found two more, one in the street and one across the street. They must have been in the building, as their fur was badly singed. I yelled for a box and out of the crowd around me, one appeared. Putting the five kittens in the box, I carried them to the porch of a neighboring house.
I started looking for a mother cat. It was obvious that the mother had gone into the burning garage and carried each of her babies, one by one, out to the sidewalk. Five separate trips into that raging heat and deadly smoke—it was hard to imagine. Then she had attempted to get them across the street, away from the building. Again, one at a time. But she hadn’t been able to finish the job. What had happened to her?
A cop told me he had seen a cat go into a vacant lot near where I’d found the last two kittens. She was there, lying down and crying. She was horribly burnt: her eyes were blistered shut, her paws were blackened, and her fur was singed all over her body. In some places you could see her reddened skin showing through the burned fur. She was too weak to move anymore. I went over to her slowly, talking gently as I approached. I figured that she was a wild cat and I didn’t want to alarm her. When I picked her up, she cried out in pain, but she didn’t struggle. The poor animal reeked of burnt fur and flesh. She gave me a look of utter exhaustion and then relaxed in my arms as much as her pain would allow. Sensing her trust in me, I felt my throat tighten and the tears start in my eyes. I was determined to save this brave little cat and her family. Their lives were, literally, in my hands.
I put the cat in the box with the mewing kittens. Even in her pathetic condition, the blinded mother circled in the box and touched each kitten with her nose, one by one, to make sure they were all there and all safe. She was content, in spite of her pain, now that she was sure the kittens were all accounted for.
These cats obviously needed immediate medical care. I thought of a very special animal shelter out on Long Island, the North Shore Animal League, where I had taken a severely burned dog I had rescued eleven years earlier. If anyone could help them, they could.
I called to alert the Animal League that I was on my way with a badly burned cat and her kittens. Still in my smoke-stained fire gear, I drove my truck there as fast as I could. When I pulled into the driveway, I saw two teams of vets and technicians standing in the parking lot waiting for me. They whisked the cats into a treatment room— the mother on a table with one vet team and all the kittens on another table with the second team.
Utterly exhausted from fighting the fire, I stood in the treatment room, keeping out of the way. I didn’t have much hope that these cats would survive. But somehow, I just couldn’t leave them. After a long wait, the vets told me they would observe the kittens and their mother overnight, but they weren’t very optimistic about the mother’s chances of survival.
I returned the next day and waited and waited. I was about to completely give up hope when the vets fina
lly came over to me. They told me the good news—the kittens would survive.
“And the mother?” I asked. I was afraid to hear the reply.
It was still too early to know.
I came back every day, but each day it was the same thing: they just didn’t know. About a week after the fire, I arrived at the shelter in a bleak mood, thinking, Surely if the mother cat was going to make it, she’d have come around by now. How much longer could she hover between life and death? But when I walked in the door, the vets greeted me with big smiles and gave me the thumbs up sign! Not only was she going to be all right—in time she’d even be able to see again.
Now that she was going to live, she needed a name. One of the technicians came up with the name Scarlett, because of her reddened skin.
Knowing what Scarlett had endured for her kittens, it melted my heart to see her reunited with them. And what did mama cat do first? Another head count! She touched each of her kittens again, nose to nose, to be sure they were all still safe and sound. She had risked her life, not once, but five times—and it had paid off. All of her babies had survived.
As a firefighter, I see heroism every day. But what Scarlett showed me that day was the height of heroism— the kind of bravery that comes only from a mother’s love.
David Giannelli
THE FAMILY CIRCUS® By Bil Keane
“If I was Noah, I’d have taken a whole
BUNCH of cats instead of just two.”
Reprinted by permission of Bil Keane.
Daughter of Sunshine
The baby gorilla was born in the zoo. Her mother, Lulu, could not produce enough milk to adequately feed her, so the zoo keepers stepped in. They worked in shifts to hold the two-month-old ape in their arms around the clock, imitating the way real gorilla mothers take care of their young. The baby thrived and grew to be an exceptionally loving and gentle creature. The keepers named her Binti Jua, which means “daughter of sunshine” in Swahili.
Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul Page 19