Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul (36 page)

The next morning, as we all watched Miss Meadow happily departing in her new loving owner’s car, I bent down and gave each of my dogs a big hug.
Why had I ever
doubted their canine compassion?
I knew better now.

Ed Kostro

Busted!

Our beagle, Samantha, was a real clown. She kept us laughing all the time, making it hard to scold her when she got into mischief. That dog had us wrapped around her finger—or should I say paw?

Samantha was really my husband Al’s dog, or more accurately, he was her human. I was the one who fed her, walked her and took care of her, but as far as Samantha was concerned, the sun rose and set on Al. She adored him. The feeling was mutual; when she gave him that soft beagle “googly-eyed look,” he melted.

We lived in a place called Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, three hundred miles from the Arctic Circle. Al was in the army and away a lot. I managed on my own and was thankful for good friends, an enjoyable working environment and, especially, Samantha to keep me warm at night. She would crawl under the blankets and curl around my feet—what bliss.

It had been a long arctic winter and Samantha had waited patiently for the sunshine and warm weather to come and was raring to get out and about. A typical hound, she loved running, chasing rabbits and squirrels, and swimming in the lake. When the first warm day of spring finally arrived that year and we went out for a walk, in her exuberance, Samantha overdid it—running at top speed over the rocks that are the landscape in Yellowknife. By the time we reached the house, she was limping quite pronouncedly and appeared to be in significant pain. Her injury was diagnosed as sprained ligaments, and she was ordered to keep still: no running for several weeks. It was not welcome news for this beagle. Now she was confined to the porch while I was away at work, and then took short, quiet walks on a leash when I was home. As the weeks passed, her limp slowly but surely diminished; I was pleased with her progress.

During that period, Al was away from Monday to Friday. On his return Friday evenings, there were hugs and kisses all around, and Samantha would be plastered to his lap. She followed him everywhere all weekend, lapping up the attention she received because of her “hurtie.” It was clear to me that her limp became even more pronounced when Al was home.

By the end of the summer her leg was all healed and she was back to normal. She ran and played and chased her ball for hours on end—during the week. When Al came home, her hurtie mysteriously came back, and she was placed on the sofa for the weekend with lots of hugs, a blanket and treats.

I told Al that this was just an act for his attention. “Of course it isn’t,” he said. “Can’t you see her leg is still bothering her? How come it’s not healing like the vet said it would?”

I sighed but let it drop.

The following weekend when Al returned, Samantha’s limp was as bad as ever. Friday and Saturday, Al pampered his little injured princess while I tried not to roll my eyes.

Like most people, Al and I love to sleep in and snuggle on Sunday morning. We chat about the events of the past week, reload our coffee cups, chat some more, nap and generally laze around. Samantha lies at the bottom of the bed enjoying this special time as well. Eventually, we get up, shower and head to the kitchen to start making breakfast. It was our routine to cook an egg for Samantha, too. She usually waited on the bed until it was ready and we called her to come and eat. That morning when breakfast was ready, Al started down the hall, intending to lift Samantha off the bed and carry her into the kitchen because of her hurtie.

“No,” I told him. “Stand where she can’t see you and watch what happens next.”

I called Samantha. We heard her jump off the bed and run down the hall. She was running like there was no tomorrow, and surprise, no hurtie—until she saw Al. She stopped on a dime and immediately began limping. We watched as she took a few steps. You could see the wheels turning in her beagle brain: Was it this leg or the other? Then she started limping on the other leg. Caught in the act!

Al and I laughed, both at Samantha and at each other, over what we called the Academy Award performance of the summer. In Hollywood, Samantha would have been given an award for “Best Actress in a Leading Role.” Instead, we wrote, “The Best Beagle in the Northwest Territories Award” on a piece of paper and gave it to her. She seemed so proud of her performance and the award. Actually, we knew that she was the
only
beagle in the Northwest Territories, but we didn’t tell her—we didn’t want to spoil the magic.

Lynn Alcock

Pudgy

In 1975 my grandparents brought home a new pup and named him Pudgy. This came as no surprise since they always named their dogs Pudgy. In the course of their extremely long lifetimes, my grandparents must have had a dozen or more dogs named Pudgy.

At the time, Grandpa was ninety-two and Grandma was eighty-nine, and they had been married since she was thirteen. That seems shocking today, but it was quite ordinary in the small village on the Polish border where they were born, met and fell in love in the late 1800s. They emigrated to the United States and made a life together that lasted through the coming of the first automobiles, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, four wars— and many Pudgys.

When anyone asked Grandpa why Pudgy was the only name he would ever give to his dog, he answered, “He’s the same dog, come back.”

Relatives told him that was crazy and that he should give new dogs new names, but he always stood firm. Rather than debate the issue, people simply accepted that “Pudgy” was Grandpa’s dog.

Each Pudgy was about the size of a fox terrier and white with black spots or patches. For the little kids in the family, like me, who lived in other states and traveled across the country to visit them in their big old brownstone in Chicago, using the same name for each dog did make it a lot easier to remember. And many of us believed it was the same dog, although I did wonder once why the Pudgy I saw when I visited them in 1949, 1950 and 1951 had shaggy, floppy ears and the Pudgy I played with over Easter vacation in 1952 had short, pointed ones. Since the Pudgy of 1952 was still black and white and about the same size, I simply assumed my grandfather was telling the truth when he told me that the dog had accidentally stuck his tail in a light socket and his ears had shot straight up and had never gone down again. It didn’t explain where all the shaggy hair on his ears had gone, but at seven, I simply decided the electricity must have burned it off.

Looking at an old family album with photos from the various decades, one could see the dog change a little in height and definitely in bone structure. He went from having a long, slim nose to a short, puglike one and then back to something in between. In some photos he had curly hair; in others, smooth. One decade he had small black spots on the white coat; and the next, large, pinto-pony-type patches. One time he had no tail at all. It didn’t matter: he was always Pudgy.

This last Pudgy was a short-legged, potbellied pup, a mixture of too many breeds to try to put a finger on any dominant one. He was the first “Pudgy” that really looked as if the name belonged.

About two weeks after the pup arrived at the house, Grandpa decided it was time to take him on his first walk. Grandpa was a great walker, and even in his nineties, he did a good two miles several times a week. His favorite destination was the park, a great place to let his dog run after a nice long walk down the busy city streets. He could sit and talk with his friends while their dogs romped together. That day, when Grandpa didn’t come back at his usual time, Grandma simply thought he was spending more time at the park with his friends, showing off the new pup. Then she heard yapping at the front door. She opened it and there was the pup, leash dragging behind him. A panting boy ran up to the door. He’d been chasing the pup all the way to the house. Grandpa had been hit by a car!

The rescue unit that had come to his aid found no identification on him—only the pup, licking the unconscious man’s face. They had taken Grandpa to the general hospital. But when they’d tried to grab the pup, he’d run away. The boy followed him over a mile and a half back to the house. How could this pup, who had only lived in the house only two weeks and had never been out walking in the city, have made a beeline right back to the front porch? It amazed everyone.

Grandpa had been admitted to the hospital as a John Doe and did not regain consciousness for several days. Thanks to Pudgy, Grandma was able to go immediately to see Grandpa and ensure that he received the best care possible instead of being relegated to languish in the charity ward until relatives could be found and notified.

Within two months Grandpa was back walking with Pudgy and sharing with his friends at the park the story of how his Pudgy brought help when it was needed themost. Of course, the story grew in heroic proportions every time it was told, but nobody seemed to mind. One thing was certain: nobody ever again contradicted Grandpa when he told them that Pudgy was, “The same dog, come back.”

Joyce Laird

Felix, the Firehouse Dog

Firefighters everywhere love telling stories—and some of their favorites are about that select group of firefighters who are on duty twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year: the firehouse dogs. One such dog, Felix, who lived in the first half of the twentieth century, remains a demigod among his firehouse brethren and stands alone as the dog that most influenced the Chicago Fire Department.

Felix was the Babe Ruth of Chicago firedogs. One of the earliest and most legendary firehouse dogs, he was a part of an elite group that went on every call, followed his crew into fires and rescued lives. This common street mongrel inspired memorials, remembrances and, eventually, television specials for more than a half century after his death. His firefighting colleagues truly considered Felix one of their own: a full-fledged Chicago fireman. The people in his neighborhood adored him as well. Loud cheers for Felix could be heard whenever Engine 25 rushed down a street.

Felix was born in 1910. How he arrived at Engine 25 will forever be in dispute. Some say Felix was among a litter of seven abandoned puppies donated to a local tavern that later gave one of the puppies to a firefighter. One woman distinctly remembers an injured dog wandering into her father’s local coal office, which later donated the dog to Engine 25. Or perhaps Felix was simply another stray dog that found his way into one of Chicago’s firehouses.

In any case, Felix grew to be a medium-sized mutt, mostly brown in color with some black-and-white patches. Although Felix served the majority of his career with horse-drawn fire engines, he later became a part of firefighting history due to a widely circulated picture taken of him in 1920 aboard one of Chicago’s first motorized pumpers. Judging by his confident stance in the photograph, Felix adapted well to the new type of apparatus. The story goes that he made every run—except one. On that day, Felix wandered too far from the firehouse to hear the alarm, and when the firefighters returned, Felix was so ashamed that he couldn’t bear to look at his comrades. It never happened again.

Like most Chicago firedogs, Felix learned the different alarm bell sounds and would board the appropriate fire rig depending on the specific signal used. As a result, Felix was always on the rig, barking before the alarm finished sounding. Once at the fire, Felix served as guard to the rig, not allowing anyone near it. As time wore on, however, he wanted to get closer to the action, and his duties greatly expanded. He learned how to climb ladders, making his way behind the firemen into the belly of the fire. Once inside, Felix shadowed the men as they worked to extinguish the flames. When the firefighters went down the ladder, Felix jumped on one of their backs, putting his front paws around the fireman’s shoulders and his back legs tucked under his arms.

At one unusually intense fire, Felix followed the men into the flames as always, but the fire quickly overcame the two hose teams and outflanked the men. Because the path they had forged with their hoses was no longer available, they had to find another way out. Felix went to work. Through the smoke and flames, he left the firefighters to look for a back entrance. After a few minutes that seemed to the men like hours, he came back barking ferociously. As one man held onto Felix’s tail, the dog led the entire team on their knees out of the building. At the end of the day, all the men owed their lives to Felix.

Felix also had an uncanny ability to know if anyone was still in a burning building, and he refused to leave the scene of an active fire if people were still inside. On one run, the men of Engine 25 extinguished a fire and believed they had evacuated the house when Felix went up to the porch door and began barking uncontrollably. After several minutes, the firefighters wondered why Felix was so focused on the house. Deciding to go back in for one more look, three firefighters followed Felix directly to one of the bedrooms. Moments later, a fireman emerged from the charred house with a screaming infant in his arms.

Stories of Felix’s valor spread far and wide. One day P .T. Barnum from Barnum & Bailey Circus came to Engine 25 to see if Felix would join the circus. With his unusual intelligence and ability to climb ladders, there was no doubt he would have done very well in the show, but there was no way the firefighters were going to let him leave.

Felix enjoyed the simple pleasures of the everyday Chicago firedog. He thrived on the attention from the local children who looked forward to giving him treats on their way home from school. Like most firedogs, Felix loved to eat, especially the liver sausage brought to him by adoring neighbors.