She read. She napped. She traveled a worn path in memory back over the years to the big yellow house at the end of the street. Rusty always trotted at her heels as she strolled. She saw the towering shade trees that her beloved Papa had planted as saplings for her and her husband Jack when they first got married.
She and Jack had enjoyed a good marriage. There’d been no children. Just the dogs. The last was Rusty, a tall, proud mutt, who was with her when Jack died of pneumonia. Rusty had slept on the floor by her side of the bed, and every morning she’d reach down first thing to pet him. Now, curled in her bed, she hung an arm over the mattress; for a heart-stopping second, she thought she felt Rusty’s mink-soft head and heard the thump of his long, fringed tail. Then the clanging of the meal carts and the bland smell of institutional food brought her back to reality. She cried into her pillow.
The activities director of the nursing home, a woman named Ronnie, was concerned about Agnes. There must be a way to reach her, she thought. Every day Ronnie came to Number 109, pulled up a chair and showed Agnes the activities schedule.
“Look at this,” Ronnie would say, her finger sliding down the list. “We have current events, bingo, women’s issues, music, sweet memories. Won’t you just try one? Or maybe you’d like to go down the hall and meet some people?”
But the elderly lady with the girlish bangs shook her head. “I’m fine,” she said, her eyes cloudy with sadness.
One day, in late autumn, Ronnie walked into Agnes’s room and spied a dog calendar on top of the nightstand.
“What a handsome dog,” Ronnie said, tapping the picture. For the first time she saw a spark in the faded blue eyes.
“I love dogs,” Agnes said.
Ronnie’s mind started racing. She’d tried in the past to arrange for a dog to visit the nursing home, but it had never worked out. Now it was time to try again. Back in her office, she dialed the number of a local shelter and talked to the shelter director, a woman named Mimi. Halfway through Ronnie’s story, Mimi broke in and said, “We have the perfect dog. Her name is Mattie.”
For weeks Mimi had been wondering what to do about Mattie. She thought back to the blustery winter night when Mattie, a large black mutt, had been brought in as a stray. She shivered in the doorway, her coat mud-caked and wet. Despite her appearance, she was dignified, like a lady who’d fallen on hard times.
“Here, girl,” Mimi called. Shyly the dog came, placing a dirty paw on Mimi’s knee, then removing it, as if to say, “I’m sorry. I forgot about the mud.”
They bathed her and combed out the mats, from which they took her name—Mattie. No one claimed her. She lived in a kennel run with four to five other dogs, waiting to be adopted. Months turned to years. Each time people came to look, competing canines raced to the gate, barking and furiously wagging their tails. Mattie trailed modestly behind, shyly raising trusting brown eyes. Like a gem that doesn’t shine, she was passed over. She became a lonely, institutional survivor. Like Agnes.
Now, Mimi walked down the long, noisy kennel aisle to a large run. “Mattie,” she called into the maze of barking, wriggling canines. The big, long-haired mutt padded to the gate, calmly easing herself through the crush of younger, excitable dogs. She pressed her setter-type nose into the wire mesh.
“Hey, old girl,” Mimi said, getting down to eye level. “A lady named Agnes needs you.” Mattie’s ears perked.
Not many days later, Mimi walked Mattie down the dim hall of the nursing home to the last room on the left. Number 109. The dog was freshly bathed and groomed. Her ears were erect, and her tail was raised high with anticipation. They turned the corner of the doorway and Mattie’s nails clicked on the gray linoleum. Agnes looked up from her chair; the book she’d been reading slipped off her lap. Her mouth dropped. Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.
“I thought I’d never see a dog again,” she sobbed.
“Her name’s Mattie,” Mimi said.
“Here, Mattie. Here, girl,” Agnes called. Mattie trotted over, leash dragging, waving her long, fringed tail just as Rusty used to. Agnes buried her face in the soft fur. Mattie scrunched as close as she could get and placed a paw on Agnes’s lap. She looked up adoringly, her eyes begging friendship.
Agnes stroked her silky head, whispering, “Hello, Mattie, girl. There’s a good girl.” Her wizened face was soft and glowing. Mattie laid her head in Agnes’s lap and sighed as Agnes scratched behind her ears.
Suddenly, Agnes remembered something. With the aid of her walker, she hobbled eagerly to the nightstand, Mattie trotting at her heels. The old lady opened the drawer, retrieving the crumbling dog biscuit she hadn’t been able to throw away. Mattie’s ears lifted. Daintily she took the biscuit, then cleaned the crumbs from the floor.
Before they left, Mimi promised Agnes they’d come every week. Agnes flipped through the dog calendar, marking in all the Tuesdays with Mattie’s name.
Now when Mattie arrived for her visits, the drawer of the metal cabinet was always stocked with favorite treats. Ever the lady, Mattie would ask politely by sniffing the drawer, then sitting and waiting. She never had to wait long.
As the months went by, Agnes began to show an interest in the events around her. Soon Mattie was accompanying Agnes to drawing classes, flower-arranging workshops and gospel songfests. She sat with her head in Agnes’s lap as Agnes talked with friends, and she thumped her tail at Agnes’s happy chuckle.
Encouraged by the change in Agnes, Mimi took Mattie to visit residents at other nursing homes. Mattie’s days became full as well. Before long, many volunteers were taking dogs to visit old people and children throughout the area. The successful Golden Outreach Program was officially launched.
When Agnes celebrated her one-hundredth birthday, Mattie, herself a senior citizen and still a regular visitor, came to celebrate. As Agnes ate her cake and visited with her many guests, she stroked the now-grizzled head resting in her lap and frequently returned the old dog’s devoted gaze. Finding each other had transformed their lives, as well as the lives of others through Golden Outreach—a program born of the love between one elderly lady and a gentle dog.
Shari Smyth
Friends in Arms
“Have you a pet who would make a good War Dog?”
The message went out by radio and newspapers to citizens of England in July 1942 at the height of the Allied struggle with Germany during World War II. “The British War Office needs strong, intelligent dogs to be trained for guard and patrol duty, rescue work, as messengers and mine detectors,” the message continued. “If you have such a dog and would consider lending him to the service of your country, please call the war office.”
Eight-year-old Barry Railton heard the appeal at his home in Tolworth, Surrey. He looked at his six-year-old cream-colored German shepherd Khan, whom he had owned since the dog was a puppy. “Would you like to be a War Dog?” he asked Khan.
He went to his father, Harry Railton. “Could I volunteer Khan to be a War Dog?”
Railton had heard the radio appeal. “Are you sure you want to volunteer Khan? He is intelligent enough and has always been eager to learn, but remember, he would be gone for a long time.”
“How long?”
Railton shook his head. “Who knows when this war will end? I can’t say how long he would be gone.”
Barry patted the dog’s head. “Khan is smart. If the country needs him, I think he should go.”
“Think about this, Barry. He might not come back.”
“He’ll come back, all right.” Barry spoke with the optimism of a child.
Harry Railton phoned the war office, and soon papers arrived for him to fill out. In a few weeks, it was time for Khan to leave his Norfolk home for the War Dog Training School. Barry kissed the top of Khan’s head and cried as he said good-bye, but the boy remained steadfast in his confidence that Khan would return.
The training school requirements were a breeze for Khan, and on graduation he was assigned to the 6th B
attalion Cameronians, based in Lanarkshire, Scotland.
Corporal Jimmy Muldoon was assigned to work with Khan. Right from the beginning, they became good friends.
They worked together on guard patrol for two years.
Then in 1944, Kahn and Muldoon were assigned to take part in the Allied forces invasion of German-held western Europe. In boats, men of the 6th Battalion were to outflank a causeway leading to a Dutch island and then wade ashore along a mile-long stretch of mud bank.
An assault craft, packed with men and equipment, was launched at high tide, in the early hours of the morning. As the boat approached the shore, enemy guns fired. A shell hit the boat amidship and men, dogs and equipment catapulted into the air. Muldoon and Khan were thrown into the icy water as the boat, riddled by gunfire, broke in two and sank.
Men struggled to keep afloat and hold their rifles above the water. Khan rose to the surface and swam toward the lights on the shore. When the dog neared the bank, he sank into the mud, but he was able to scramble up onto firmer ground. He stopped and stood still.
The flash of searchlights and the blasts of gunfire raked the struggling men in the mud. In spite of the cracking of artillery and the screams of injured and dying men, Khan must have heard the voice of Johnny Muldoon calling to him. Unable to swim, Muldoon was desperately battling to stay afloat two hundred yards from the shore. Khan plunged back into the frigid water and, guided by Muldoon’s calls, swam to his master. Grabbing the collar of Muldoon’s tunic, Khan paddled through the water and mud and at last dragged Muldoon to the shore. Man and dog collapsed on the bank.
Litter bearers found Muldoon and carried him to a field hospital. Khan stayed right beside his bed the entire time the corporal was in hospital. When Muldoon and Khan returned to the regiment, the battalion commander nominated Khan for the Dickin Medal, named for Maria Dickin, founder of the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, a British charitable organization. The Dickin Medal was awarded to eighteen dogs, eight horses, thirty-seven pigeons and one cat during World War II and its aftermath for service to the armed forces or civil defense.
Khan’s medal was presented March 27, 1945, by the commanding officer at a full battalion parade. The citation on the medal read, “For rescuing Corporal Muldoon from drowning under heavy shell fire of the assault at Walcheren November 1944, while serving with the 6th Cameronians.”
Corporal Muldoon wrote many letters to the war office, asking to be allowed to keep Khan after the war ended. The Railton family, however, asked for their dog to be returned.
When the war ended, Corporal Muldoon was demobilized, and he returned to civilian life in Strathaven, Scotland. Khan was sent for six months to the quarantine station not far from the Railton’s home in Surrey. Barry Railton, now twelve, visited the quarantined Khan three times a week. At the end of six months, Khan returned to the Railton home.
The following year, Khan was invited to participate in the National Dog Tournament. Harry Railton wrote to Muldoon, asking him to lead Khan in the Special War Dog Parade.
Muldoon was ecstatic at the thought of seeing Khan again, even if only for a little while. Two hundred of the most intelligent, skillful dogs in Great Britain, including sixteen Dickin medalists, were to appear in the parade.
On the day of the parade, Khan was one of a huge crowd of dogs milling around on the grounds. Suddenly he stopped, lifted his head, his ears at the alert. He sniffed the air. His legs tensed. He jerked the leash from Mr. Railton’s hand and bolted, a streak of fur, across the parade grounds, barking loudly.
Ten thousand people in the spectator stands saw the joyful reunion of man and dog. Applause thundered as Muldoon and Khan took their places in the parade line.
Afterwards Harry Railton searched out Muldoon in the crowd. He watched as Muldoon, tears bathing his cheeks, buried his head in the dog’s fur. Sobbing, he held out the leash to Railton.
Railton shook his head. “Barry and I talked it over during the parade,” he said. “Tell him, Barry.”
“We think Khan belongs with you,” said Barry, the tears shining in his own eyes. “He’s yours. Take him home.”
A grateful Muldoon left with Khan on the overnight express for Glasgow. Next morning when they left the train, they were welcomed at the station by a crowd of press members. At the end of the interview, Johnny Muldoon told the reporters, “Pray God we will live out our lives together.”
His prayer was answered.
Rosamond Young
The Yorkshire Christmas Cat
My strongest memory of Christmas will always be bound up with a certain little cat. I first saw her when I was called to see one of Mrs. Ainsworth’s dogs, and I looked in some surprise at the furry black creature sitting before the fire. “I didn’t know you had a cat,” I said.
The lady smiled. “We haven’t, this is Debbie.”
“Debbie?”
“Yes, at least that’s what we call her. She’s a stray. Comes here two or three times a week and we give her some food. I don’t know where she lives but I believe she spends a lot of her time around one of the farms along the road.”
“Do you ever get the feeling that she wants to stay with you?”
“No.” Mrs. Ainsworth shook her head. “She’s a timid little thing. Just creeps in, has some food, then flits away. There’s something so appealing about her, but she doesn’t seem to want to let me or anybody into her life.”
I looked again at the little cat. “But she isn’t just having food today.”
“That’s right. It’s a funny thing but every now and again she slips through here into the lounge and sits by the fire for a few minutes. It’s as though she was giving herself a treat.”
“Yes . . . I see what you mean.” There was no doubt there was something unusual in the attitude of the little animal. She was sitting bolt upright on the thick rug which lay before the fireplace in which the coals glowed and flamed. She made no effort to curl up or wash herself or do anything other than gaze quietly ahead. And there was something in the dusty black of her coat, the half-wild scrawny look of her, that gave me a clue. This was a special event in her life, a rare and wonderful thing. She was lapping up a comfort undreamed of in her daily existence.
As I watched she turned, crept soundlessly from the room and was gone. “That’s always the way with Debbie,”
Mrs. Ainsworth laughed. “She never stays more than ten minutes or so, then she’s off.”
Mrs. Ainsworth was a plumpish, pleasant-faced woman in her forties and the kind of client veterinary surgeons dream of—well off, generous, and the owner of three cosseted Basset hounds. And it only needed the habitually mournful expression of one of the dogs to deepen a little and I was round there post-haste. Today one of the Bassets had raised its paw and scratched its ear a couple of times and that was enough to send his mistress scurrying to the phone in great alarm.
So my visits to the Ainsworth home were frequent but undemanding, and I had ample opportunity to look out for the little cat that had intrigued me. On one occasion I spotted her nibbling daintily from a saucer at the kitchen door. As I watched she turned and almost floated on light footsteps into the hall and then through the lounge door. The three Bassets were already in residence draped snoring on the fireside rug, but they seemed to be used to Debbie because two of them sniffed her in a bored manner and the third merely cocked a sleepy eye at her before flopping back on the rich pile.
Debbie sat among them in her usual posture; upright, intent, gazing absorbedly into the glowing coals. This time I tried to make friends with her. I approached her carefully but she leaned away as I stretched out my hand. However, by patient wheedling and soft talk I managed to touch her and gently stroke her cheek with one finger. There was a moment when she responded by putting her head on one side and rubbing back against my hand, but soon she was ready to leave. Once outside the house she darted quickly along the road then through a gap in a hedge, and the last I saw was the little black figure flitting over the rain
-swept grass of a field.
“I wonder where she goes,” I murmured half to myself.
Mrs. Ainsworth appeared at my elbow. “That’s something we’ve never been able to find out.”
It must have been nearly three months before I heard from Mrs. Ainsworth, and in fact I had begun to wonder at the Bassets’ long symptomless run when she came on the phone.
It was Christmas morning and she was apologetic. “Mr. Herriot, I’m so sorry to bother you today of all days. I should think you want a rest at Christmas like anybody else.” But her natural politeness could not hide the distress in her voice.
“Please don’t worry about that,” I said. “Which one is it this time?”
“It’s not one of the dogs. It’s . . . Debbie.”
“Debbie? She’s at your house now?”
“Yes . . . but there’s something wrong. Please come quickly.”
Driving through the marketplace, I thought again that Darrowby on Christmas Day was like Dickens come to life; the empty square with the snow thick on the cobbles and hanging from the eaves of the fretted lines of roofs; the shops closed and the colored lights of the Christmas trees winking at the windows of the clustering houses, warmly inviting against the cold white bulk of the fells behind.
Mrs. Ainsworth’s home was lavishly decorated with tinsel and holly, rows of drinks stood on the sideboard and the rich aroma of turkey and sage-and-onion stuffing wafted from the kitchen. But her eyes were full of pain as she led me through to the lounge.
Debbie was there all right, but this time everything was different. She wasn’t sitting upright in her usual position; she was stretched quite motionless on her side, and huddled close to her lay a tiny black kitten.
I looked down in bewilderment. “What’s happened here?”
“It’s the strangest thing,” Mrs. Ainsworth replied. “I haven’t seen her for several weeks then she came in about two hours ago—sort of staggered into the kitchen, and she was carrying the kitten in her mouth. She took it through the lounge and laid it on the rug, and at first I was amused. But I could see all was not well because she sat as she usually does, but for a long time—over an hour— then she lay down like this and she hasn’t moved.”