An interesting story about family or friends

It’s Long and Short Review‘s  Wednesday challenge day again. So here goes my story:

When I was in middle school (or junior high, as we called it back then), we had a rescued dog named Gerry. She was mostly black lab. My mother’s boss had gotten her a couple of years earlier, already an adult dog, thinking that she would be a good hunting dog. He’d kept her penned up in pretty bad circumstances (and never took her hunting as far as I know). One day, he mentioned that he was going to have her put down because, I think, he didn’t want to deal with her more. My mother phoned my stepfather to see if we could adopt her (always good to get one’s partner’s consent before making major life changes to the family). He always had a soft spot for animals and immediately agreed.

So we adopted the unnamed dog and my brother named her Gerry because he’d always wanted a dog named Jerry  (I’m pretty sure we spelled with a G as a nod to her gender, short for Geraldine). Her first stop was the vet, who uttered the famous last words: “She’s fixed, I’m sure.” Needless to say, she wasn’t. 

When she went into heat, we tried to keep her away from other dogs, but one day, she escaped out the back door and met a very nice Great Dane before we found her again.

A couple of months or so later, all three of us (my high school sister, my grade school brother, and I) happened to be home sick (who knows what was going around), when the very pregnant Gerry was scratching at the front door wanting out. And we spotted a little tiny tail sticking out beneath her tail. We called Mom in breathless excitement! By the end of the night, she had 13 puppies (plus two still born pups). We named them all for sports stars, except for the last born, Lucky.

We created a puppy corral out of refrigerator boxes. We put carpet at one end and the rest was newspaper (we went through a ton of newspaper!). The pups were paper trained before they could fully walk. They’d shimmy themselves off the carpet to do their business. We kept the cats locked out of where the corral was lest Gerry get protective as a new mother. They snuck in one day and we found them standing up with their front paws on top of the cardboard fence, looking at the puppies. When we walked in, they turned and looked at us with “What have you done?!?” expressions on their faces.

Gerry was pretty soon over nursing 13 puppies so we had a whole feeding system pretty early. We kids found it exciting. We have photos of my brother nearly buried in puppies, wagging their tails and licking him (he says now that it was terrifying and his laughter at the time had actually been hysteria). They could also fetch before they could walk (hard-wiring is amazing!). You could roll a ball and a pup would crawl after it and push it back to you with its nose.

As they got bigger, we got a deep snow (Iowa) and I recall the little puppies bounding across snow twice as high as they were tall.

Initially we found homes for all but two of them: Yogi (Berra) who was all black and Bart (Starr) who has black with a white star on the back of his neck and white tipped tail and feet. (Some of the others had been brindled). But keeping two huge dogs + their mother proved too much in town. Yogi was adopted by a farm. We went to visit (they held a Christmas shop each year on the farm) and Yogi at the time had been adopted by some of the farm kittens as a mother-figure. You must picture a big black dog standing taller than waist-high followed by three little black kitties. 

Bart was one of the sweetest dogs – and so beautiful when he ran! He would get the wander lust can could clear a 6 foot fence. We used to borrow the little girl from next-door. He loved her. We’d take her out and she’d call to him. It could be terrifying (if you didn’t know) as this dog bigger than the girl would come barreling up and, at the last minute, flop down and present his belly for her to rub. Then we’d take him home. Despite his lab-heritage, he was terrified of water. On one of his escapes, he fell into a neighbor’s pool and my brother had to rescue him.

Bart must have been 5-7 years old when, sadly, he got cancer. We treated him as long as his quality of life was good. My cat, Athena, who was always empathetic, would curl up with him (which she had never done before he got sick). At last, we had to say goodbye to him. 

So that’s my story. We had many other pets along the way, but I’ll never forget the winter of 13 puppies (+ their mother + two cats). 

Author: gretaham

teacher, writer, baker, biker (the pedal kind), hiker, swimmer, reader, movie buff, cat owner View all posts by gretaham