She was indeed perfect; good looking with soulful brown eyes, though not gorgeous; even tempered and anxious to please; and unquestionably faithful. Her name was Luvie, and she was a part of the family for thirteen years; a perfect dog.
My sister got Luvie as a puppy from a dog shelter in Syracuse, and brought her to my house in Vestal thinking that she would be a good companion for my young daughters. She couldn’t have made a better choice.
Luvie was immediately at home with the family, but she remained un-named for several days until we could get a feel for her personality. We eventually settled on the name that fit her perfectly. She would always greet any member of the family with her tail wagging so fast that it threatened to tip her over. Before you knew it she was sitting beside you with her head nestled on your chest, her brown sparkling eyes looking up with happiness and anticipation as if to say “C’mon, let’s do something that’s fun.”
Riding in the car was one of those fun things and she was ready anytime one of us headed for the garage. When I would take her with me, she would move over to sit behind the steering wheel while I was gone conducting whatever business I was about. We took her with us whenever we could, especially if we were going for an ice cream treat in the summer; she’d get her own small cone to lick. I never thought that Luvie would turn her nose up at ice cream, but I was wrong.
We had been too late to have her spayed before she came into her first ‘heat’ (I never saw so many male dogs pacing back and forth in our yard), but we took her to the vet shortly afterward. She had to stay overnight. We picked her up early the following afternoon, and then stopped at the ice cream store on the way home thinking she’d like a treat. Well, she would have no part of her favorite treat and the expression of betrayal on her face was unmistakable. She ignored the ice cream and the rest of us in the car. Then, to add injury to insult, she climbed up on the ledge behind the rear seat and deposited a steaming, smelly ‘signature’ for good measure. The car quickly filled with the foul odor, and I had to pull off the road to give my handkerchief to my wife who scooped the mess up and threw the whole thing off to the roadside. It’s good that Luvie didn’t need any more surgery, because she might not have survived the trip home.
Luvie was a constant companion to my children as they were growing up. She would follow them to the little park about one hundred yards away at the end of our street. The kids always claimed that they didn’t hear either my wife or I when we called them to come home, so we bought a large bell with a wooden handle that we would shake when it was time for lunch or dinner. Luvie caught on quickly, and would bark when she heard the bell and start for home. That little ritual would serve her well in her old age.
There were a couple of ‘toys’ that Luvie favored above all others. One was a knotted old sock that she would periodically deposit at someone’s feet to indicate that she wanted to play tug-of-war. If you picked it up, she’d growl ferociously as she tried to pull you out of your chair. Her favorite, by far, was a fuzzy slipper; she would swipe one from one of the girls, and take it to a quiet spot where she would sleep with it under her chin. We decided to buy her a pair for Christmas. We wrapped only one in gift paper, and saved the other to give to her in the summer when the Christmas slipper became too beat up to be seen any longer. That became a ritual for as long as she remained with us.
One year we rented a house for a week on Onieda Lake, close to Sylvan Beach. The place had a large back yard that terminated on a small beach which tapered off very slowly into the lake water. The kids could wade out for about twenty yards and still not be in water above their thighs. There was a large, denuded section of tree trunk out about fifteen feet from the water’s edge, and the kids loved to jump off it into the shallow water. There were always fifteen to twenty seagulls sitting on it in the early morning hours, doing whatever it is that seagulls do. We had, of course, taken Luvie with us to the lake; she wasn’t the type of dog that would wander away, and since there were no dog restraint ordinances in the area where we were, we let her run free. She would, first thing in the morning, dash out into the water to scare the gulls off their perch; they weren’t the least bit pleased about it.
After the morning fun had gone on for several days, the gulls decided that they had had enough, and were going to put an end to it. No one could imagine what they were about to do. I did know that they were crafty birds. I had watched them, as a kid on Long Island, snatch up an exposed clam on the beach and fly to a height of several hundred feet over the concrete road where they would circle slowly to watch for a break in the sparse traffic. Then, when the road was clear with no more cars in sight, they would go into a steep dive and release the clam twenty to thirty feet above the road’s surface. The clam shell would shatter on impact and the gull would swoop in for a quick meal. They were also devious birds, as we were about to learn.
One morning, Luvie chased the gulls as usual, but they must have flown off somewhere nearby to have a meeting. We came out a while later to watch the kids as they frolicked in the warm, shallow water. I noticed that the gulls were returning, and a couple of the braver ones settled on the log even though Luvie was relatively close by. She gave chase, but the birds didn’t fly off too far. Instead, the others flew in and circled low over the water just close enough to agitate the dog. She got up on the log to bark at them, but they only swooped lower and closer. She jumped off the log and moved farther out into the lake; the gulls moved out just a little more. I saw what was happening and whistled for her to come back to the beach; she was swimming, heading for deeper water and ignoring me. The gulls were in control now.
I sent one of the kids back to the house to get her food dish and a large spoon. I beat on her dish while calling her to come back, but to no avail; she was swimming strongly in the wrong direction. There was a boat channel to the right of the property, and there were several boat slips, made from the same denuded tree trunks, along the property line. Those logs are really slippery, especially when coated with oily water, as we shall soon discover.
My wife and I discussed what we should do; she wasn’t a strong swimmer, and I, though still able to walk, had a tracheostomy tube that I kept mostly plugged. Plugged or not, swimming with a hole in one’s neck is not something one should attempt. The term ‘sinking like a stone’ came to mind.
Joyce decided to wade out into the lake. The birds decided to lead Luvie into the boat channel. I was left on the beach, beating the dog’s dish and trying to convince the kids that everything was alright.
Joyce had gone as far out as possible without swimming; the water was up to her neck. Luvie was close to the boat channel as her strength began to flag. She knew that she was in trouble, and began looking around for something, anything that would support her. Joyce had been calling her all the while, and the dog finally took notice. She turned and headed straight toward Joyce who was able to get her and hold her head up as they both started back to shore. Joyce said that the dog just collapsed shortly after she was safe in her arms. I’m certain that after thinking it over, Luvie decided to leave the birds alone, or perhaps she was just humiliated by the whole ordeal; she didn’t chase them anymore. I swear the seagulls were laughing. The episode with the slippery logs occurred the next day.
We were sitting on the beach in the afternoon when we noticed that Luvie wasn’t nearby (yes, she was still running free). I whistled and called her but she didn’t appear. We waited a few more minutes until I remembered hearing a soft splashing noise a bit earlier. I mentioned it to Joyce, and we both had the same thought… the boat slips. We walked over to have a look, and sure enough… there was Luvie in the slip, trying to climb out over the oily, slippery logs. Joyce reached down and pulled her out by the collar. That was the end of Luvie’s free running days at the lake; we kept her tied with a long rope, or on a leash for the rest of our vacation.
In the later years, after I had retired, Luvie and I developed a sort of unspoken communication. I spent a lot of time in the den (a room in the rear corner of the house) reading, and she would lay on the couch across the room dozing in the afternoon sunlight. Sometimes I could feel her eyes on me and it was then that I would ask if she had to go outside. She would jump down and head for the front door and wait for me to get there. Everyone else let her out through the back door, but I used the one in front because there were no steps for me to negotiate. She’d then stay out in the back yard for a half hour or so after which I would tap on the window in the den; I could see her from there. She’d look up at me, and then run around to the front of the house where I’d let her in.
She became impatient (or forgetful) in her old age, and my walking became slower. I’d tap on the window, she’d start for the front door, but by the time I got there she was returning to the back yard. So, I’d open the front door first (that way she’d know I was coming) then tap on the window. This arrangement worked quite well until she began to lose her hearing and couldn’t hear me tapping on the window. I thought of the old school bell that she responded to when much younger, found it, and tried leaning out the front door to ring it. It worked, but now she walked to the front door instead of running. Her old sparkling enthusiasm for life was beginning to fade.
She lingered for a while longer, had a couple of mild seizures, developed some heart problems, and began to fade rapidly. My wife and I talked of having her put down, but Joyce couldn’t bring herself to do it. Luvie began to stop for a rest as she was going outside or even walking into another room. She’d pass by me, stop and breathe in a heavily labored way, and look at me as if to say “It’s time, can’t you see it’s time?” It was shortly after that she began to regurgitate her food undigested. It definitely was time, and Joyce couldn’t bring herself to do it. I called my youngest daughter, who at this time was living next door, and asked her to make an appointment at the vet’s. She readily agreed, and a couple of days later Luvie was put to rest. Saving her any more discomfort was the least we could do to repay her years of faithful companionship.
I’ve never had a dog quite like her before, or since.
F. A. Zedik
08-14-07