Molly

We found Molly at the pound where she had been abandoned. She was timid and not well-bred. We never found out who her parents were or what breeds any of her other ancestors were either. We could only guess. Even though she had apparently been born under humble circumstances, she had dignity. She was kind. When she looked at you with those soft eyes, you knew she could see right into you and you could keep no secrets from her about what kind of person you really were. Our children took to her right away. She was with us for eighteen years and now she’s gone. All we have left are pictures and ashes. As soon as the snow melts, we’ll bury them in my wife’s flower garden, where she liked to lay in the sun.

Molly’s time overlapped my children’s lives from elementary school to adulthood. She frolicked with them in the yard when they were young children. When they became teenagers, She let their boyfriends and girlfriends pat her as they were introduced. They are grown and gone now, but when they learned Molly was fading, they made a trip back to say good-bye before we had to put her down. As I watched each one lean down and whisper to her, I wondered what they were thinking about. Was it how she never barked when each was sneaking into the house after their curfew? She let us know whenever a stranger came near the house, but even in the dark of night, she always knew when it was family coming home. Was it in the way they walked? Was it their scent? However it was, Molly always knew who belonged there and who didn’t, and she never told any tales. She would take their secrets to the grave.

She’d been deaf for more than two years and there were cataracts on her eyes. Still, she maintained her dignity and she could sense the mood of whoever was present around her, something she had always done. She got along with everybody, but she didn’t force her attentions on people. Whenever I hugged my wife or one of my children, Molly would come over and nuzzle between us. She never approached outsiders, but waited nearby and allowed them to approach her, preferring women to men.

As I younger child, I liked dogs quite well and I had a German Shepherd who was a constant companion until she had to be put down too. After getting a paper route, however, I realized that some could be a real pain in the butt and, though I can’t lean over far enough to see for sure, I think I still have scars to prove it.
I was beginning to lose faith in the species until we found Molly at the pound.

As a puppy, she paper-trained fast and there was never much need to discipline her. She only needed to be told the rules once, it seemed, and she’d remember. She wasn’t the type to perform tricks and she didn’t need to be told what to do. I never said, “Lay down,” or “Sit.” Molly did what she wanted and it always seemed appropriate. She was so good at being a dog that she made me want to be a better human.

For most of her life here on Christian Hill, the neighborhood’s dogs went where they wished and they were well-behaved. They didn’t bark too much or chase cars or get into the trash. They may have fertilized the lawn in spots, but that’s it. The neighbors knew them all by name and where they lived. But they’re all gone now; Molly was the last one.

During her life, Molly was a good example for her human companions. Nobody had to tell her how to be a dog and she didn’t sweat the small stuff, always seeming to understand what was going on around her. She did start to lose it at the end though, but don’t we all? She was incontinent, occasionally. She forgot things, sometimes. She’d go for a stroll and forget how to get back. A couple of times, she wandered down to the Village and appeared lost. Donny Chandler called from his garage and we’d go pick her up. Two other times she didn’t come home and my wife called Harvest Hills to discover that she’d been picked up on the road heading out of town and acting confused. When she made her final trip to the Fryeburg Veterinary Hospital, she seemed to know it. She lay peacefully on her favorite blanket and hardly flinched as the hypodermic needle went into her leg. We weren’t surprised to observe that she died as gracefully as she had lived.

This column was first published in March, 2005

Animal Lover

I love animals, especially on the grill. Lately, I prefer domestic animals all cleaned, cut up and wrapped at the supermarket meat counter. Some guys like wild animals better, but for me they’re too much bother now that I’m an aging baby boomer. I’m a decent shot with a rifle or shotgun but it’s a lot of work to hunt them down, shoot them, disembowel them, drag them to the truck, butcher them, wrap them up and freeze them. I’m getting too old for all that.

There are other kinds of animal lovers who consider them equal to humans, but I’m not in that category. Growing up, I did get friendly with some dogs though. We had a German shepherd named Trixie which, if an older boy tried to push me around, would show her teeth and growl menacingly. I had to like that dog. She got old and died and my parents got a mongrel named Tootsie. He had a brave heart too, but lacked the strength to back it up. Consequently, he got thrashed in clashes with other dogs. Still, he never backed off and I had to admire that. As they say, it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.

Two years ago we buried a wonderful mongrel named Molly after seventeen years. She was gentle and smart and knew her place. She got expensive near the end of her life, but she was worth it. Her replacement is a large, unintelligent Yellow Lab/Irish Setter cross. Neither breed is known for smarts and Hannah is no exception. She’s huge and high-maintenance - a black hole of need, constantly seeking to be patted and stroked. And, she eats a lot. I may get a hernia carrying in huge bags of dogfood from the car. It doesn’t take long for Hannah to gobble it all down and what comes out the other end is of commensurate size. When she drinks water from her bowl in the kitchen, she slobbers about a quart all over the floor. You know how it feels to step in water right after putting on fresh pair of socks? Not a pleasant sensation. In winter, her hairs are all over the fleeces I wear and the back of my wife’s car is covered with them. When I ride in the passenger seat, Hannah is right by my left ear breathing and drooling. She’s not allowed in my car or in the cab of my truck either. She barks whenever a stranger approaches so she does serve as a kind of organic security system, but if I had my ’druthers I’d replace her with an electronic one. I tolerate Hannah only because my wife likes her.

Other kinds of animal lovers consider them superior to humans and I’m certainly not in that category. These are your rabid animal lovers. They would rather humans were extinct so we could turn the planet over completely to animals. When alligators ate three women in Florida last month, rabid animal lovers blamed humans for encroaching on the alligators’ habitat. It was the women’s own fault the alligators ate them.

Speaking of predators, a big black bear has been hanging around my neighborhood lately. I went out my door at 6:45 one morning and he was sniffing around my grandson’s swing set. He looked at me and sauntered down the hill into the woods like he owned the place. My wife has a counseling practice here and she told me some clients noticed the bear again outside her office. One said the bear was “brazen,” not afraid of people at all. Then I read about a black bear attacking a young family after climbing over a fence in Tennessee. The bear killed a six-year-old girl, mauled her mother and critically wounded her two-year-old brother after picking him up by the head and holding him aloft. Rabid animal lovers claim such attacks result from increased human encroaching on bear habitat, but Forest Service biologist Laura Lewis said in USA Today: “People don't want to think it is a natural behavior on the part of the bear [to eat people], but I really think it is.” I’m with you Laura. It’s natural for alligators to eat people too.

Why is this so hard for animal lovers to accept? Do they think all animals are vegetarians like they are? It should be obvious that bears love humans too - as tasty morsels. My six-year-old grandson plays on that swing set and the next time the bear comes around may be his last. He’s encroaching on my habitat now. Rock musician and hunter Ted Nugent wrote a book recently called “Kill It And Grill It,” with a recipe for “Bar-B-Que Black Bear.” I’m going to Amazon now and order it. Maybe I could learn to love bears. I’ve never tasted one on the grill before.