Three Word Wednesday - The Answer to Heartbreak

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 Three Word Wednesday - The Answer to Heartbreak 

Prompts:  

Curious, adjective: eager to know or learn something; expressing curiosity; strange; unusual.

Inevitable, adjective: Certain to happen; unavoidable; informal: So frequently experienced or seen that it is completely predictable.

Wary, adjective: Feeling or showing caution about possible dangers or problems.

The Answer to Heartbreak

       How do you top a dog story about a heroic dog? You don’t but you can tell the story about the next dog that came into your life. Let me start this by telling you that my dad knew we were all grieving Shep’s passing and he didn’t want to replace him, but he thought children should grow up with a dog. Since we also lived in a small town near the highway he thought we needed a dog to protect us while he worked in the city.

      My Dad went to the animal shelter.since he wanted a full grown dog not a puppy. When he got there he asked if they had any Collies. Desperate to find a home for this one dog they said yes and that his name was Sam. My dad looked at Sam. He didn’t look like a full grown Collie, he warily commented. They said it was a six month old dog that would grow.  My dad went into the dog and he wagged his tale and then licked him that made him accept the dog and take him home.   I hesitated at first to bond with Sam but he seemed like a great dog and he was ours. My siblings all seemed happy. Still curious about Sam's true age, my Dad decided to take Sam  to get shots the next day at the vet. The vet said Sam was a year old dog and part Sheltie not a Collie. My dad just laughed about it and took him home.

         A first the only problem we had was Sam’s inability to accept the women in the family and that he peed in the house. He wanted to be the pack leader to the women so he snarled and bared his teeth. He even bit my sister Debbie, taking my brother’s part when they argued. My dad didn’t want to get rid of Sam, so he told us never to play with the dog and allow him to bite us. To always make the dog show us respect by scolding him when he did wrong and to always lead the dog. We should also tell him Sam no, when he tried to bite and hold his mouth shut with two hands when he tried to bite us, but to do so in a way that didn’t hurt the dog.

      This seemed to work, now Sam would growl only when we scolded him, but not bite us. The one thing that would make him growl more than anything was to call him a dog. He decided he was the youngest child of the pack. As for the other problem of peeing my mother laid down newspaper and Sam would try to go there.

     Now Sam was mischievous and did things you didn’t expect dogs to do.  My dad joked that he thought Sam must have been a circus dog because of some of the things he could do. He climbed ladders and got on roofs and he also climbed trees and then couldn’t get down.  We saw him walk across a  high wire one day, though he never did that again.

     We lived in a home that had a cherry tree beside a garage. A trestle lay up against the garage and Sam climbed it like a ladder, picking the ripest cherries and eating them. For some reason if Sam decided he was mad at you he would take things that you valued and hide them, or chew them up. So we tried to keep our toys hidden from him. One day after I scolded him for peeing in the house Sam took a imitation Barbie doll of mine and chewed off it’s head, then he returned it to me at my feet. Now it wasn’t only the children he did this to, he did this to us all, he even used to steal my Dad’s socks. This made my Dad utter where’s that damn Sam so much, that we started thinking that his name was Damn Sam.

     Obey did not seem to be in Sam’s brain. He had a mind of his own and he exerted it. Sam was an escape artist and could slip his collar and get out of any chain whenever he wished to a great inconvenience to us. No matter how many times you’d scold him. We’d be sure he was tied up inevitably he'd take off down the street into other people’s yards. He also had been trained in another life to retrieve ducks and other birds, so if he saw them even alive, he kill them bring them back and lay them at my dad’s feet. The problem with that was that he killed the neighbour’s chickens. My dad apologized and replaced them, but Sam got out and killed them again. The neighbour sent him back with a dead chicken tied around his neck. Sam didn’t do that again.

One day we came home and found out my mom had acquired a Labrador retriever. She told a story of the game warden finding an emaciated abandoned dog with three starving puppies. The game warden had regretfully shot the mother to get the puppies. One of the puppies had died the game warden took one but the other puppy needed a home. If he didn’t find a home he would put the puppy whom he called Mugsy, down, simply because no one wanted a female dog. My mother said she couldn’t stand that so she took the puppy. (Now the truth was that my mom wanted her own dog and fell in love with this obedient well trained pup. It had been found in the woods but the warden had wanted to keep the pup only my mother's begging had made him give the dog to her but we didn;t find this out until the warden came to the house again a week later.)

      This puppy, Mugsy, could shake a paw and would sit and come on demand. My dad amazed by this pup’s abilities, accepted the new addition hoping maybe some of it would rub off on Sam. Sam however was jealous. He hated that this new dog did what it was told and that we fawned over this new puppy. Where was all the love and adoration he always got? He decided to get rid of the problem. He slipped his new chain (the one that we were promised no dog could get free of) then he managed to get Mugsy free as well. The two dogs left the yard and Sam led the puppy by her ear some miles away. (we were told this by a neighbour who saw the two together)

The only problem with the plan? Sam outsmarted himself, he got lost and couldn’t find his own way back. Mugsy started sniffing and was leading them partway home when my dad found them and brought them home. He scolded both dogs. 

       Sam didn’t seem to learn and wanted to escape the next chance he got. Mugsy had gotten bigger in the meantime and was now bigger than Sam and Mugsy decided it was her job to make Sam obey so she pulled him back into the year by his ear.  He yelped all the way up the long driveway but after that he stayed home. Sam never learned to sit or come when told but after we got Mugsy, he didn’t pee in the house anymore and he never bit or took my Dad’s socks again.

    One time though my dad brought a chicken hatchery into the house because the power to the barn failed. The chick hatched while my mom and dad were sleeping and somehow managed to get out of the contraption. My mom heard snarling and came down to find Mugsey covered completely with yellow chicks against her black fur snarling at Sam who snapped at the chicks. Sam died at the ripe old age of thirteen. Mugsey died at seventeen years old. They were happy dogs and they are ever remembered by us their pack.

©Sheilagh Lee November 27, 2013

This is an out of an focus pic (sorry best I could fix) of Sam and I

                                                
                                                          

             









                                                                                                 Mugsy