A Dog Story

No, I didn't write this - but wanted to share ...Bec

Missy (An Angel . . . Instead of wings, she had floppy ears.)

It was a typical Newport summer morning. The world was overcast with morning fog, and all was damp from hours of dew. The ocean licked gently at the granite rock beach, and the day was about to begin with quite a different breath.

I seldom walked down to the beach this early, and really couldn't say why I did this day, but as I sat on my favorite boulder at the top of the rocky beach, I sucked in the magic essences of my best lady friend, the Ocean.

This morning, as I sat on my rock and reminisced over the seventy years of my love affair with the Ocean, my eyes ever on automatic, still searching the beach for that out-of-place object, something flashed from across the bay. To this day, I'm not sure what it was, but I blinked and turned my head away from the blinding reflection. Then, in that new direction, I saw it. Something was bobbing back and forth in the shallow lip of the water. Up, I groaned from my stone chaise, and down closer to the beach I crawled. I still could not make out what it was, and finally stumbled down to the rock beach itself. My heart dropped when I recognized what I had found. It was an animal, partially floating in the shallow water. I stepped closer and bent down to pull off the seaweed and other flotsam. It was a dog. Oh God! I cried to myself. Why?

I stepped into the water and lifted her onto the beach. She had been tied with wire to some thin wood slats, perhaps snow fencing, and the wire wound about her neck and jaw. I knew she was dead, but still, I gently unwound the tangled wire, and carried her up to the lawn. I pushed on her chest a few times, after noticing water gurgling from her mouth. She looked like she'd been dead for a while, but to me, I had to try. I covered her nose with my mouth and blew some air into her lungs, hoping for the impossible. It was then that I noticed another piece of wire, jammed between her teeth and around her gums. Good God! What happened to this poor soul?

Knowing sadly that it was in vain, I worked on the little animal for a while, then, let her lie in the warm sun to dry her dead body. Leaving her on the grass, I walked up to the garage for a pair of cutting pliers to remove the remaining wire.

John, the gentleman who lived with his wife in the apartment over the garage, came back to the beach with me. We both held her head, and cut loose the wire in the dead animal's teeth. It was our consensus that she'd been tied with the wire and tossed overboard, or even used as shark bait by some rogue fisherman. Damn! What person would wire a dog to drown? What a horrible way to die, and what a horrible person must have done it.

John had come down with a bottle of spring water he had been drinking. I took it and trickled some of it into the dead dog's mouth, letting her rid herself of any sand and salt water and to taste sweet water for the last time. "OMG! Her tongue moved", I yelled.

John disagreed. It must've been a muscle or nerve that jumped, he thought. I worked her chest a few more times and blew again into her nose and mouth. A gush of water shot out of her and a flutter of air behind it. Seconds passed, then she sucked in, coughed, and started to breathe in short unsteady breaths. John and I looked at each other in disbelief. We cannot remember now which of us picked her up, but two old men ran her up to the house and to a bathroom shower. I stood in the shower and held her under the warm water, heating up the cold flesh of the poor animal. We wrapped her in one blanket to keep her warm. She was breathing, but had not yet come to.

I called the vet and was told to keep her warm for a while before bringing her to his clinic. I can see her now, all wrapped up in the huge comforter that was on my bed. At first I thought she was an Irish Setter, but she was too blond for that. She was mostly golden retriever we thought, or perhaps, a little of each. She may die at anytime. Nevertheless, at least, this little animal would not die alone, cold, wet and afraid. If her brain hadn't been damaged, she was going to live.

Suddenly, the screeching calls of gulls shook me. I turned to close the sliders and shut out the noise, when I saw a huge and beautiful white gull stood brazenly on my porch railing. I stepped out on the deck to shoo him away, but he moved not a feather. I looked at the gull and he at me. Then, I turned to my friend the Ocean and smiled. That blinding flash at the beach? A signal, to get my attention? Now, I knew the gull was there for a reason, so I whispered to it. "She's breathing. I think she's going to be okay".

The gull set its wings, letting the wind lift and carry it back toward the Ocean. The same Ocean that had swept the little dog to my feet was now impatiently waiting to hear if she lived.

The doorbell rang, and much to our surprise we found Ralph, the Vet, complete with a small bottle of oxygen and all sorts of equipment. "We thought it better that the dog not be moved, so we brought the Mountain to Mohammed".

Ralph examined the dog from head to tail. He tested her reflexes by pinching her paws with tweezers, and she seemed to respond, however weakly. When all that was tended to, Ralph attached a small nasal jet to feed her some oxygen, and an intravenous drip for some liquids. He didn't know if she'd ever awaken. She was reflex swallowing drops of liquid easily, and the nutriment mixed with the honey water was refueling her system.

John turned on some music and put an earpiece near her. He had read somewhere that sound is extremely important in awakening a brain. I looked at my bed, and the lump of golden life bundled in the center, and thought . . . in the whole wide world, what man or animal has an Ocean for a friend? This little girl does.

And so, the hours ticked by, and the little group became a larger one, with the addition of my wife and John's wife and the return of Ralph, the vet. It was suggested that we give her another 12 hours, and then take her to the animal hospital for some EEG tests. If she were to live as a vegetable, it wouldn't be right, and I thought, at least she would die warm and clean, and not alone. We all took turns sitting with her, and massaging her paws and legs and stroking her sleeping face. It was nice to see how John reacted. He would hold her in his arms, singing to her, and stroke her head, and tears would trickle down his cragged face. It was John and I, who were there at the beach and had witnessed the cruelty this poor animal had suffered, and I guess he and I were suffering along with her.

Her heart was steadier and her breathing was good, but she slept such a deep sleep, it bothered Ralph. When I swapped duty with John, I stretched out on the bed and held the animal in my arms as we all did. Something wasn't right. This animal feels normal. She is warm, her breath is warm and steady. She is going to be fine, I thought. There would be no reason for God, nature, fate, or whatever, to have put an animal through all this pain, offer her a second chance, and then take her anyway. No. She is fine and she is going to awaken. Somebody up there is still working on her. My romantic soul was reaching out with all sorts of mental Band-Aids. That night I stretched her out and held her back against my own body, holding her as I would a child.

The sound was weird. I hadn't heard a song like that since Shannon, my old Irish Setter, sang in her sleep. It wasn't a snore, it was a song. My eyes snapped wide open and I was up on my elbow. The song was coming from her. The nearly dead animal next to me was singing on each exhaled breath. Her eyes were partially opened. I reached for the baby bottle of honey water and dribbled some into the side of her mouth. She consciously drank and swallowed. She was coming to. I wanted to yell and awaken the whole house, but I thought it would frighten the poor thing.

It was early in the morning and the sun was just rising over the driveway and spilling into the bedroom through the partially closed drapes. She licked her mouth and her lips as I gave her more honey water. Her eyes were glazed and only partially opened, but I thought she was trying to see me. She would close her eyes fully and start to sing again. I would stroke her and keep a gentle hand touching her. She would sleep a bit more and then open her eyes again. Within the next hour or so, I felt her legs twitch and her neck stretch a bit. It was a good morning.

Today, months later, I sit at my desk writing of my heartbreaking experience with a drowned animal and of all the attempts to save her, and of all the people who became involved. How could anyone have done such evil?

But, as I type these words, I'm reminded of the present world by the pawing at my elbow. I turn and look into those beautiful brown eyes searching into my soul with such love and devotion and at the same time wanting just a bit more of my attention, just a bit more, like a lifetime. This perfectly healthy animal, a survivor from the sea, is now, the Mistress of the Manor.
"Hi Missy."

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