Saying Goodbye

Each room in our home is emptier now, since Lucy Girl died.  Our "Loved Dog" said her good-byes to us over a three day period of sickness from which she could not recover.

We knew, as we sat on the floor with her. We knew. She Knew.

She knew. Our time together was short, and like every day of her life and ours, we made the most of it.  Our neighbor, Julie, walked slowly with tears in her eyes after I called and said, 'please come say good-bye.' Even then Lucy shared her kisses and found one last bounce in her step for Julie.

  The Joys of our silly cow dog:

 

I once wrote that I might never have become a blogger if it hadn't been for our silly dog (click on the link to read the blog) Loosey Goosey

 

Silly, curious, like every dog, she explored her world with zest and gave us hours of laughter, stories, and memories. First Contact

She discovered the most remarkable trails in our journeys across the middle states.  Guard of the Plains

I-70 Eisenhower Interstate

Even in the garden I find it empty without her curious nose into every plant, bush, and possible rabbit trail. Always near my side she became My Shadow

sixteen stories including our good-bye. Perhaps my favorite was the most recent, as Lucy was 'OUR' companion, not just mine.  Puppy Dog Love

Today, I sat alone in the closet pulling on my walking shoes. Her nose was not there sniffing my shoes, pawing at me to hurry. "Hurry,  let's go walking and exploring."

 So a toast to Lucy....I will think of you each time I put on those old walking shoes. I will look for you under my feet. I will look for you following Jack from the Kitchen to the table. I will miss you at Jack's side. I will look for you in the 'man cave' keeping an eye on Jack, an eye on me, and an eye on the front door. Our great protector is gone.  

 

 Now, we will see her among the flowers. 

 *RIP Lucy Girl, September 10, 2020

Other Lucy blogs: 

First Contact on Becoming a Dog

...And My Shadow

Thunder Is Not Just a Basketball Team

The New Addition--Scooter

Frisky, the Cat with Nine Lives

My creative normally playful mind is on hiatus, while I continue to strip, stain, and varnish the kitchen table. What an undertaking! Not to mention that the flowers outside are demanding my attention. 

I needed a story to sidetrack my mind and make me smile. This story of Frisky, I wrote a decade ago, but good stories need repeating. So I make this toast to you, old cat, and share your story from decades past. 

Oh, our Frisky kitty, whatever was your fate? I pray it was a gentle sleep on a warm comforter. We have lost our paper pictures of your capers and mischief, but we have not forgotten a single antic you pulled. 

Today, I remembered a picture of you that captured all of your spirited orneriness. There you were crawling out of the trash can, leaping up at an unsuspecting four year old Katy. But that was your life, always full of surprises.

You came to us from our friend, Gary, who never knew his gift might someday be the reason we called the Greensburg, Kansas fire department to rescue a black and white kitty meowing from the highest branch of the old cottonwood tree. Our trailer and yard on Nebraska Street became your playground for three adventurous years.

Birthday party, Thane, Gail, Robin, Bruce, Richardson's,
Katy and Frisky in the middle. 

It was the pink picture of you that stumped me,Frisky. Why were you stained in shades of pink? There you were on the brown and white checkered bedspread posing like a queen with a black and white fur coat, and tail wrapped around your body. Guilty you looked, but of what? Then I noticed your white underbelly and paws stained in shades of pink and red. Whatever had you played with while I was at work? 

This puzzle would soon be solved by sleuths, Katy and Gail. They were the ones who found the magic markers on the bedroom floor, opened, scratched and strewn apart. The camera shot evoked a cat charmingly innocent of all artistic endeavors. Luckily, the olive green carpet showed only a few color blends. For months your pinkness gave the neighborhood much delight.

Frisky and Squirty dog, you both chased each other back and forth on the linoleum floors of that trailer keeping us on constant alert and in cheerful moods. But once you took a dare only a cat with nine lives would take. I had been in the hospital for a week with pneumonia and came home weakened. Katy and I hugged and hugged. Then reality set in and the dirty laundry took priority. The dog must have dared you to hide in the warm dryer. I certainly didn't let you in. I did throw my newly washed gowns and underwear into the dryer. With the door closed I turned on the dryer and you, too, to twenty minutes of low heat.

I took a nap at the back of the trailer while Katy and Gail played with Barbie dolls at the front end. We heard thumps but never suspected you. At last the buzzer went off and I shuffled to the dryer. On my first reach I pulled out blood covered lingerie and promptly did what any young woman would have done. I screamed bloody murder.

Katy and Gail rounded the corner at a fast slide in time to see me pull out a wounded cat. You were covered in blood with your eyes, nose, and mouth swollen, ears broken and torn, and a tail more crooked than any tales I've ever told. You managed a weak meow. Tears of joy and fear followed.

We wrapped you in warm towels and called Nurse Arlene for help. In the coming weeks you were nursed back to health by a community of loving people. Pictures showed the before with a curling sly tail and the after, a crooked bend and kinks in a tail that would never swing nor sway the same way again.

Frisky, you, too, were the one that could have gotten me arrested, for exposing a wet nude body in the side yard, had the bath towel dropped to the ground. I'll never forget the blood curdling screams of little girls outside. Inside, I stood in the shower with only a twelve inch square trailer window open to the outside world, I heard, "Help, Letty, help. The dogs have Katy!" Dripping wet with soap sliding down my body, I stepped out of the shower grabbing the nearest towel for cover. Running outside, I saw a covey of little girls backed against the trailer and three snarling dogs at the base of the tree.

There stood Katy safe and sound, but the screams continued, "Save Kitty. Save Kitty!" With fingers pointed at the tree I saw you, Frisky. There you were, only weeks away from the dryer episode, in a feeble crawl to save your life from the ferocious teeth and paws of the barking dogs.

What's a mother to do, but rescue the cat! My screaming and running shooed the dogs away, but there you were frozen flat to the tree, just out of reach. One ladder found in the neighbor's yard saved the day. With the ladder leaning precariously against the tree, up I crawled, step by step, one hand on the ladder and one on my knotted towel. I grabbed you by the scruff of the neck, holding you tight to my chest, and together we gingerly crawled down to solid ground.

We were all safe that day and lived to tell our versions of your escapades. Thanks for the memories, Frisky.

Miami Memories: Tick Tock

One of the saddest days of my life occurred on a hot summer Monday at Elk River in Missouri when I about ten years old. Our family had enjoyed a relaxing day of swimming, light fishing, meals of campfire hot dogs covered in mustard and relish, and baloney sandwiches with dessert of roasted marshmallows on gram crackers (the chocolate Hersey bars never lasted till evening). My sister and I had spent hours in the cold waters of Elk River trying to catch perch in our summer sand buckets. Oh, those wise parents of ours, who convinced us that we could catch them in tiny little buckets! What we caught, in the end, was a good night's sleep. Our little dog Ticky accompanied us on our Monday outings and never strayed far from our campgrounds. Late in the afternoon with the campfire roaring and sticks ready to grill the hot dogs our little dog failed to appear.

Ticky, our pet, had found us one summer evening a few years before, and I knew in my child's heart he'd find us again. This stubby short brown haired dog with the face of a pug that had been pushed out from the inside appeared in our backyard one night on E st SW about the time Dad hauled out the homemade trash barrel BBQ grill. The grill must have smelled like a dozen nights of steak and hamburger drippings. This nameless stray dog plopped himself down by the grill and watched Dad's every move.

Mother reached down to pet the little stray just as I picked him up. Then I heard her screech, "Ticks." Too late. I carried the dog in my arms over to my dad, who was now seated in a lawn chair with a beer in hand. On the ground beside my father I placed the little dog like an offering to a God, all the while my mother screeched in the background, "He's covered in ticks, let him go." At my dad's feet, this little dog began to scratch his belly and with his bucky teeth tried to clean himself before the man who might have a hand out. Even dad's hand jerked away when he saw the revolting ticks on the dogs back. Then we realized the poor little dog was covered head to toe in ticks.

Dinner was delayed that night as a team of surgeons went to work on the dog. Dad put some gasoline in the bottom of a coffee can, then Jonya, Dad, and I sat down and pulled ticks off and dropped them in the can. The fat ugly ticks squirmed in the gas until at last they sunk to the bottom, dead! Mother stayed in the kitchen. The stray little dog waited and wiggled patiently as we worked to clean him up. At long last the poor dog was somewhat presentable to mother. When at last dinner was served the little dog was rewarded with table scraps of hamburger and a steak bone, and our little dog, Ticky, had found a home.

But now time was ticking away for our lost little dog.

But now time was ticking away for our lost little dog. Mother and my sister, Jonya, who had the melodramatic voice of a heroine tied to the railroad tracks, yelled for Ticky, while dad and i walked to every camped area asking and calling for our ever faithful companion. It wasn't like Ticky to leave Dad's side, he was a daddy's dog. The four of us choked down our hot dogs that night between tears. After dark we'd given up hope, and I saw tears stream down my dad's face as we packed the station wagon for home.

We all gave one last tearful call for Ticky and then two little girls, crying their hearts out, were loaded into the station wagon. With windows down we screamed, "Ticky, Ticky, Ticky," all the way to the highway. Just as the dirt road stopped at the paved highway, the headlights of the car spotted a little brown dog sitting off to the side of the road watching every pair of headlights driving by. I've never seen my father so jubilant and teary eyed as he jumped from the car, nearly forgetting to put it in park, and picked up that forlorn little brown dog with dark woeful eyes. Happiness flooded our car that night as we sang "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window," and every other happy song my mother could remember. Truly that was one of the happiest moments of my life.

Letty Stapp Watt
storyteller and historian
 

Loosey Goosey

How would I have ever become a writer without my faithful dog,

Lucy, creating havoc wherever we walk. In the nearly four years she has lived with us her nicknames have changed regularly. For the most part we call her Loosey Goosey just because she plows headlong into bushes, deep grasses, furniture, beds, chairs with people sitting in them, and then bangs her head on tables as she attempts to sniff for food. 

In the beginning she was a frail pitiful lost soul of a dog. Sadly, my youngest cousin, Gary, had died quite unexpectedly and my sister and I drove to Altus, OK for his funeral. During the funeral services family and friends had an opportunity to share a memory or story about him. Gary worked in the plant department at Wal-mart where he was deeply and sincerely loved by his co-workers. The store manager spoke in near tears as he recalled my cousin. The manager, standing near the back of the funeral home, with his eyes glancing at us and then upwards as if searching for a bird spoke, "Whenever I was having a rough day, I could always go out and talk to Gary. His genuine smile greeted me. As I began to lament my problems, he'd listen then cheer me up by asking me to listen to the birds chirping. I'd just stand and listen and before long my frustrations floated away. Gary loved working outside with nature and his birds that came to rest in the garden area...We will all miss Gary and his smile." With those words the pews of friends and family were wiping tears from their eyes. 

As our family gathered later for a meal we began telling our own

Snow Fall 

Gary stories. In the end the one serious note was left. He had owned four dogs, three of which would go to rescue homes because of their breed and personality, but one lonely scared dog would be put down unless one of us could find a home. It seems as though this dog was terrified of people and no one would take her. My cousin Patty had already picked the dog up from the shelter but had no place for her. Our dog, Woofer, had died that fall and our home seemed empty. I had taken one of Gary's dogs years ago, little Poco, who lived only a few short years with us, but they were good years. So here I was saying, "Let me just see her. Surely no dog can be that sad and scared."

With a slight lease on her neck we attempted to get her to walk to my car, but she shook so badly we carried her! And so began the drive back OKC with my sister and an unnamed terrified dog. By Lawton, we thought to call her Birdie after the story about Gary. I stayed in OKC for several days with family and during that time I changed her name back and forth between Birdie and Trembles. Her tail began to wag ever so slightly on the day I drove home to Kansas. From the rear view mirror I thought I saw her grin when I told her we were going home. At home she cowered and hide from my husband, but she was my constant "Shadow" another nickname. Little by little she began to seek us out. She just acted so strangely we started calling her "Goosey" then just like that it was "Lucy." To honor Gary I wanted to keep the "Birdie" but it just didn't rhyme. Finally, I remember how much I admired Lady Bird Johnson and her daughters Linda, and Lucy. By the end of May our "Lucy Bird" was official.

That summer when we'd go for walks Lucy didn't know she was a dog. In one attempt to chase a squirrel she literally leaped and crawled up a tree, sliding back down, she took a flying leap into the ditch. We were stunned, sorry we didn't have a video of it, but also laughing out loud at our "Flying Goose." After several attempts at climbing after squirrels and cats she decided that whatever she was it might be best to stay on the ground. She hadn't, yet, learned to bark.

On a warm fall day, I was outside under a shade tree reading The Loved Dog by Tamar Geller when our neighbor stepped outside to work in the yard. Apparently, Lucy decided he was too close to me. Barking erupted from her belly like a volcano spewing ashes scaring her almost as much as it scared me. She looked at me for moment asking what had happened, then she turned back to Roger, our neighbor, and barked some more. So Lucy, the cowdog, blue healer-mix, was born. Jack and I became her only two cows. We've trained her to carry a "chew" in her mouth when she gets excited, so she doesn't accidentally nip us. She must think she has a tremendous burden in keeping her cows corralled. One of us leaves, another leaves, one returns, another returns, or sometimes we both leave. When we leave she is the drama queen, lowering her head nearly to the floor, crossing her legs in front like a broken ballerina. Oh, how far our dancing, barking, flying "Lucy Goosey Bird" has come since those shaky trembly beginnings.