My ten-year-old daughter walked into the room and saw me staring at Muffie. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
I thought Nina, an animal lover, would be thrilled to have puppies in the house. And lately I’d noticed her mood had seemed a little down. But when I told her, she simply looked from Muffie to my protruding stomach and stated, “I don’t know how I feel about babies right now.”
My heart squeezed. “What do you mean? I thought you wanted a brother or sister.”
The expression on her young face turned anguished, and deep down I sensed her fears. Steve and I had married when Nina was six years old and because her biological father had long since severed the ties, Steve had become the daddy she had always wanted.
“What if Daddy loves the baby best?” she asked and tears filled her brown eyes. “It will be his, you know. Not just some stepchild he got stuck with.”
My own eyes grew moist, and I reassured her that Steve had enough love to share and he would love them the same. But I still saw the doubt in her watery eyes, and it broke my heart. It seemed nothing we said or did could convince her.
Two months later, Muffie had two beautiful puppies and although Nina was fascinated, and I’d occasionally find her visiting with the puppies, she still remained somewhat aloof about the whole “baby” situation.
Then one day I came in and found Nina crying as she stood over the puppies.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Through her tears she told me about a friend who had found a stray pregnant dog. After a few days, the animal had gone into labor and after several hours they took the dog to the vet. The puppies were premature: Two were born dead, and the other two were sickly. It seemed the mother dog was too weak to feed the puppies. “The vet is giving the mother until this afternoon, and if her milk doesn’t come in, he’s going to . . . put the puppies down. That means he going to kill them, doesn’t it?” she asked.
Heartbroken, I took Nina in my arms, “Oh baby, I’m so sorry.”
“They can’t do that, Mama. They just can’t,” she cried.
She allowed me to hold her a second then she pulled away. “So I’ve been thinking. Maybe Muffie will take them as her stepchildren.”
I was shocked at her idea. I’d heard that sometimes whelping animals would take other young, but I also knew it wasn’t a sure thing.
“But honey,” I told her. “Muffie’s puppies are almost four weeks. And you said the puppies were premature.”
“So, you told me I was premature, too. They didn’t kill me.”
“But honey,” I said, “What if . . .” What if she doesn’t accept them, I almost said, but right then my mind played back what Nina had said, “Maybe Muffie would take the children as her stepchildren. . . . I was premature.” Somehow Nina related to this situation at a deeper level than I first guessed.
I stood there in a quandary. I wanted to say we’d try, but what if Muffie rejected the puppies? Would that send a message to my daughter? Yet would our not trying send a message? I thought of the puppies, the consequences, and then I met my daughter’s pleading gaze. “I’ll talk to the vet.”
The vet was not reassuring. My Muffie could very likely reject the puppies.
Steve and I talked, and in the end we felt that not to try would be more damaging than to have tried and failed. We also discussed the possibility of attempting to save the puppies ourselves. But with our baby on the way and Steve’s job situation, the around-the-clock care seemed too daunting. In spite of our doubts, the next morning Steve went to the vet and got the puppies.
Nina stayed home from school, and although we had explained to her that Muffie could very well reject the new additions, Steve and I both worried.
Removing a towel from Muffie’s box, I placed the two new puppies on the towel in another box. Then I put the box in the middle of the kitchen, a room away from where Muffie was nursing her own litter.
When Muffie heard the new puppies’ soft cries, she came bustling into the kitchen to investigate. She stared down in the box, and I can honestly say I’ve never seen a dog with a more befuddled expression. She ran back to her puppies and stared down in the box as if to count. Then she scurried back to the two other puppies and looked at us in total bewilderment. After a moment, she smelled them, nudged them with her nose, and then left the room as if to say, “These aren’t mine.”
I looked at my daughter. Her big brown eyes had begun to fill with tears. “She doesn’t want them, does she?”
“Let’s give her some time,” I told her. We waited for fifteen minutes. The new puppies began to cry again, and I felt like joining in. The vet had said not to force Muffie to take them. It had to be her choice. Eventually, I took Nina’s hand and Steve wrapped his arm around her shoulder.
“We tried,” he told her. Then he looked at her, and I saw the beginning of tears in his eyes. “But hey,” he said. “We can still try. We’ll get those droppers. We can do this.”
Nina looked up at him with love in her eyes, somehow sensing this was a sacrifice on his part. “Thank you,” she said.
Sighing, he reached down to pick up one of the yelping puppies and when he did Muffie came running into the room. She barked at him. He quickly put the tiny newcomer down, and we stood back. Muffie jumped into the box and licked the puppies. We all started laughing and hugging. Then, with our arms around each other we watched as she carried her adopted family, one at a time, to her box.
Steve took Nina by the hand and led her to the puppies. “You gave Muffie something very special today. You gave her two more puppies to love. Just like your mother gave me you to love.” In gentle words, he assured Nina one more time that she had a place in his heart, a place that couldn’t be erased no matter how many brothers and sisters she had.
Nina looked up at Steve, and then down at Muffie, who was lying contentedly with all four of the puppies, and her face brightened, breaking into a radiant smile. As she returned his bear hug, I could see that her fears had finally melted away. In that happy moment, I knew our combined family was going to be just fine.
Christie Craig
“Nobody's the cutest, you're all cute.”
Reprinted by permission of Charles Barsotti.
Jet
“Will you save them, Mommy?”
As I looked down into the inquisitive, trusting faces of my two sons, ages four and seven, I was touched by their undeniable, little-boy faith in me. They had not asked, “Can you save them?” They just assumed that I could. I decided to try.
The mallard nest that we had stumbled upon that spring day along the wooded shore of my father’s backyard pond was abandoned and strewn apart. Only five of twelve eggs were left unbroken.
We gently gathered the smooth, creamy-white, elliptical orbs into our hands. They felt cool against my skin, which warned me that the nippy spring air had probably finished what their unknown assailant had begun during the night.
Back in our kitchen, we constructed a primitive incubator from an empty fish aquarium, clamping a reflector light to its upper rim. After placing the eggs on a towel at the bottom of the aquarium and turning on the light, we began our patient vigil. A little research told us that duck eggs take about twenty-seven days to hatch, but since we had no clue as to when the “birth” of the eggs had taken place, we didn’t know how long we would have to wait.
Day after day, several times a day, their enthusiasm never diminishing, the boys checked and gently turned the eggs. As we passed day twenty-seven, the disappointment on their young faces was only too visible. Not willing to abandon hope, we continued to watch and wait.
A day or two later, our patience was rewarded. I was summoned to the kitchen by shouts of excitement. One of the eggs looked different. Its once smooth surface was now covered with dark jagged lines. When we listened carefully, we heard tiny noises confirming the life within. Slowly but surely one little mallard was struggling to make its way into the world.
After several hours of scratching and
pecking, the duckling finally freed itself of the eggshell. Wet and exhausted, it collapsed and slept in the warmth of the light. By the time it awoke, it was dry, soft and fluffy. Immediately, it began to try out its spindly legs and very large feet. Before the day had ended, it was walking around, eagerly flapping its tiny wings. After eating its fill of chicken feed, it slept once again, as we looked on with wonder and pride.
In the days that followed, it became obvious that in the duckling’s eyes, I was its mother. When I moved, it moved with me; when I stopped, it sat on top of my foot. When it lost sight of me, its tiny panicked peeps would fill the air.
Even though we enjoyed the enthusiastic greeting we received each morning upon entering the kitchen, it soon became obvious that we needed to make new living arrangements for our little friend. In exchange for a quiet kitchen, my husband, who through the years has patiently endured an array of orphaned critters, constructed a chicken wire pen in a remote corner of our yard, complete with a “duck house” and a tub of water.
We expected that our duckling would be thrilled to have so much space and so many amenities. Apparently, though, the adjustment from house duck to mere yard duck was not an easy one, and the duckling wasted no time letting us know how it felt about its new accommodations. In order to maintain some peace and quiet, during the day we gave the duckling free range of the yard under the watchful eyes of the boys and myself. At night, or when we were away from home, it was returned, protesting loudly, to its pen.
As the duckling grew, the soft fuzzy down that covered its body was slowly replaced by the coarser feathers of adulthood. Two things soon became obvious. The first was that our duck was a female, and second, that something about her wings was very unusual. Instead of folding neatly at her sides, her wing tips turned upside down and stuck straight out. We dubbed her Jet, because to us she resembled an airplane.
Jet assumed many roles as a member of our family. As resident comedian she was a constant source of amusement and giggles. She waddled behind whoever was walking in the yard, going as fast as she had to in order to keep up. She supplied our lawn with an abundance of fresh fertilizer. She also provided us with numerous fresh eggs, placed indiscriminately throughout the yard, though somehow we never found the courage to eat them. Jet was also an efficient bug-zapper and a terrific “watchdog.” Head cocked, watching with first one eye and then the other, she was always on the alert and never failed to announce the arrival of visitors.
Jet quickly outgrew her small water tub, so we purchased a kiddy pool and propped a board on the edge to serve as a ramp. She relished her new pool and spent hours swimming, diving and flapping those misshapen, yet rapidly developing wings. As Jet reached her full physical maturity, her pool seemed suddenly small, and we knew the time had come to give her the freedom of the lake and the company of her own kind.
Wondering how long she would continue to recognize us, two quiet adults and two sad little boys loaded her into the car. As I carried her through the woods to the lake’s edge, she quickly spotted her real family for the first time. I felt her heart beating wildly beneath my hands. As I placed her on the ground at our feet, the other ducks loudly beckoned to her to join them. Jet sat there, unmoving, glued to her spot in confusion. She seemed to have no clue as to what those noisy creatures were nor what she was to do. Jet had never seen a duck before!
I watched from the lake’s edge as my husband and boys climbed into a small rowboat and began to paddle her out to where the other ducks had congregated. They carefully lowered Jet into the water and suddenly, with a splash, we learned another thing about her: with the right motivation, those bent wings were quite capable of flight. And fly she did. Before the boys could get their paddles back into the water, Jet was once again on the shore, tucked safely between the feet of the only mom she had ever known.
We tried many times that day to introduce her to life on the lake, but Jet had made her choice. So we left the lake in single-file and made our way through the woods and up the hill to the car, five “ducks” in a row . . . all happy and relieved to be going home together.
Lynn Pulliam
Obedience
For seven years my father, who was not yet old enough to retire, had been battling colon cancer. Now he was dying. He could no longer eat or even drink water, and an infection had forced him into the hospital. I sensed that he hated being in the hospital, but he hardly complained. That wasn’t his way.
One night when he had no luck summoning a nurse, and tried to reach the bathroom on his own, he fell and gashed his head on the nightstand. When I saw his wounded head the next day, I felt my frustration and helpless anger rise. Why isn’t there anything I can do? I thought, as I waited for the elevator. As if in answer to my prayers, when the elevator opened, two dogs greeted me.
Dogs? In a hospital? Personally, I couldn’t think of a better place for dogs, but I was shocked that the city laws and hospital codes allowed it.
“How did you get to bring dogs here?” I asked the owner, as I stepped in.
“They’re therapy dogs. I take them up to the sixth floor once a week, to meet with the patients in rehab.”
An idea grew stronger and stronger as I walked out of the hospital and to my car. My dad had bought a springer spaniel named Boots for my mom for a Christmas present a few years before. My mother had insisted that she wanted a dog, and it had to be a spaniel. My dad had explained this to me when he asked me to go for a ride with him to pick out a puppy.
When he picked up a wriggly kissy puppy, I saw the tension ease from my father’s face. I realized the genius of my mother’s plan immediately. The dog was not for her; it was for him. Brilliantly, she asked for a spaniel so he could have the breed of dog he’d always wanted, and never had, when he was a boy.
By then, all of us kids had moved away from home. So Boots also became the perfect child my father never had. She was an eager, loving and obedient pal for him.
Personally, I thought she was a little too obedient. Boots was not allowed on the bed or any other furniture, and she never broke this rule. Sometimes I wanted to tell my dad when he was at home lying on his sickbed, “Call Boots up here! She’ll give you love and kisses and touch you like I’m too restrained to do . . . and you need it.”
But I didn’t. And he didn’t. And Boots didn’t.
Instead, she sat near his bed, watching him protectively, as the months rolled by. She was always there, a loving presence as his strength ebbed away, till he could no longer walk or even sit up without help. Once in a while, he got very sick, and went to the hospital, and she awaited his return anxiously, jumping up expectantly every time a car pulled up to the house.
I decided that if I could give my dad nothing else, I was going to give him a few minutes with his beloved dog. So I went back to the hospital and asked a nurse about it. She told me that if I were to bring his dog in, she would not “see anything.” I took that as a yes.
Later that day, I came back for another visit, bringing Boots. I told my dad I had a surprise for him in my car. I went to get her, and the strangest thing happened.
Boots, the perfect dog, who was as impeccably leash-trained as she was obedient, practically flew out of the car, yanked me across that snowy parking lot to the front door and dragged me through the hospital lobby. She somehow knew to stop directly in front of the appropriate elevator (I could never find the right one myself). And even though she had never been anywhere near that hospital before, when the elevator doors opened at the fourth floor, she nearly pulled my arm out of its socket as she ran down the hall, around two corners, down another hall and into his room. Then, without a moment of hesitation, she jumped straight up onto his bed! Ever so gently, she crawled into my father’s open arms, not touching his pain-filled sides or stomach, and laid her face next to his.
For the first time, Boots was on my dad’s bed, just where she belonged. And for the first time in a long time, I saw my father’s broad smile. I knew we were both grateful Boots had b
roken the rules and finally obeyed her own heart.
Lori Jo Oswald, Ph.D.
A Cat Named Turtle
You will be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats.
Colonial American Proverb
I didn’t grow up with cats. Or with dogs. We once harbored the dalmatian of a vacationing aunt and uncle. If all had gone well, we’d have gotten our own dog.
But all did not go well. My brother refused to clean up after the dog, and soon we were permanently critter-free. Not that my mother minded. Having been scratched by a cat when she was little, she feared anything that moved too quickly on too many legs. My father, a city boy, had no experience with animals and less interest in them.
But I married a cat-lover. In his meager walk-up flat in New York City, Roy had enjoyed the company of several marvelous felines, one of them a waif from the subway. I listened to his fond recollections in the same way I heard his tales of some other experiences: They were interesting, even compelling, but nothing I thought I’d ever experience myself.
And then we moved to Vermont and found the cats on our land. Or they found us—and it was really their land. They were feral, having lived in the wild for who-knows-how-long. We extended a hand literally and figuratively to newly named Mama Cat, Honey Puss, Herbert and Sylvester, giving them food on the deck, shelter in the carport and veterinary care for the occasional ailment. Now we realized we should have neutered them, too.
We first saw Turtle trotting along behind her mother, in a parade that included several chubby kittens making their way from the blackberry thicket, across the driveway and into the pine trees. She reappeared briefly a year later, unmistakably the same tortoiseshell. The year afterward, she visited often. I named her when I didn’t quite like her; she was nervous, pushy, eating Honey Puss’s food. Turtle seemed a good name for a tortoiseshell, especially one who didn’t yet have my affection.