My wife has a dog. My wife loves her dog. I love my wife. That does not mean I love her dog. I like her dog, but I don’t love her dog. In our almost 44 years of marriage, she has had a dog. Not the same dog, let me remind you. Best I can remember, there have been four of them, all miniature schnauzers. Brandy, Reebok (my least favorite), and Belle have since gone on to Doggy Heaven. Now we have Chancy. Kathy loves Chancy. I like Chancy.
That’s not to say I cannot love a dog. I have loved some dogs in my time. But I grew up in a world where dogs lived outside the house. My wife’s dogs have always lived inside our house and slept in our bed. I realize after all these years my wife made a great concession when her dog didn’t accompany us on our honeymoon. But when we returned home, there was the dog.
I had a dog that I loved once upon a time. I purchased her through a friend from a veterinarian in Chattanooga. I bought her sight-unseen. She arrived by UPS in a little doggy carrier. When she stepped out of the box, I realized I had been sent the runt of the litter. She was tiny. I named her “Lit’l Bit.”
I sat her beside me on the truck seat and started home. Two things happened that day that endeared her to me for the rest of her life. I stopped at McDonald’s and purchased a quarter pounder. When she smelled it, she went nuts! (In a cute kind of way.) She was starved. I fed her the hamburger patty, a bite-at-a-time, as fast as I could pull it apart. I ate the bun. Then I stopped at the Coop and bought her a flea collar. I sized it and placed it around her neck. When I did, the fleas almost ran me out of the truck cab.
We made a trip to the local veterinarian the next day and she received all her shots, worming, etc. For the next two weeks she began to make a comeback, but then she started tiring easily when we took long walks. Sometimes she just sat down as if she didn’t want to go with me. I thought, at first, she wasn’t training like I had hoped. Soon I realized something was wrong.
So, I took her back to see the vet. As he was in the middle of a thorough examination, I quipped, “Doc, you think she’s going to make it?”
“I don’t know,” he said, thoughtfully, as he turned to me. I did not like the tone in his voice. “She has a bad case of whipworms,” he continued. “We’ll see.”
I buried “Lit’l Bit” two days later. It was a private ceremony – just my dog and me. It was in my 26th year. I cried like a baby.
I have come to find out dogs are somewhat like people when they begin to grow old. They start acting a little cranky. They become more fractious.
Chancy hates fireworks and stormy weather. She can hear thunder when it is still miles away. It makes her stir crazy. Then she begins to hyperventilate. It is hard to sleep when one of your bed partners is hyperventilating.
One morning last week, I think it was Wednesday, I was awakened at 2:30 am by heavy breathing. Chancy was right beside my head. Outside the thunder was rolling. I had no choice but to retire to my recliner in the den.
I decided to sit quietly and enjoy the storm. It was spectacular! Delayed strikes of lightning lit up the inside of the house and the thunder crashed. I marveled at the power of nature.
Years ago, part of my job responsibility with the Department of Agriculture-State of Tennessee was grading a feeder pig sale in Unionville, TN. In the stockyard there was a bulletin board where some resourceful person posted little quotes and newspaper and magazine clippings. I shall never forget a particular quote I noticed early one morning.
“Stormy weather comes our way from time to time to remind us we aren’t really in control of anything.”
I once read of One who, in the middle of a great storm, rebuked the wind and the waves and all became still.
If Kathy’s dog knew that we both would sleep better.
Copyright 2023 by Jack McCall
