Sometimes when your heart is broken so badly, you know there isn’t anything that will make you feel better. That’s the time to pull yourself together and to do something, anything, because any kind of change might help.
My big heartache was the absence of two Dalmatians who had been poisoned. It happens and when it does, the hurt is there, and unless you have experienced something similar, there is no point in trying to describe the pain. It is there day and night and I finally thought of something that might lessen the agony. At least it would bring a diversion.
A puppy might help. He or she would keep me busy, bring amusement and laughter back into the house, would be a delightful companion to Xanthippe, the only remaining Dalmatian, who hasn’t stopped searching yet for the other two.
My friend Orrie, who knows Guadalajara very well, took me to a reputable kennel. There were three tiny Dals and I picked the one who sat in a corner, who had been waiting there for a long time. For me. I knew that. I cradled her in my arms while I paid the bill and received her papers. “Oh yes, she’s very healthy,” they answered my questions and assured me she’d had all her shots and that the documents said so.
Yet, she seemed so light and she clung to me as if I were her first true friend.
She vomited in the car onto my knees. I wasn’t alarmed at first, but a few minutes later she vomited on the floor, then crawled right back into my lap, literally burying herself between my stomach and my thighs. Orrie, a former AKC judge, said quietly, “Let’s stop, see a vet, this puppy is really sick.”
The vet suspected Parvo and said she’d probably not make it through the night.And that there was nothing he could think of to do.
Xanthippe’s reaction was frightening. She bared her teeth and snarled at the pup. She was very upset and Orrie told me it was because she could sense a danger, could smell the illness and I had to lock up the poor dog not to be able to come close enough to hurt the little one.
I stayed up with the pup and watched her getting smaller and thinner by the moment. Now I had another kind of heartache on top of what I was already going through.
Orrie came back in the morning taking a look at the little rib cage on top of the couch. “At least give her a little sugar water,” he said and I did. We played Yahtzee in the kitchen and took turns going back and forth to the living room, loving and cradling her and giving her tiny amounts of sugar water and sips of plain water, but she disintegrated more by the minute. I started to cry and couldn’t stop and finally went for a walk, tears streaming down my face.
A young man walked toward me. He is a well-known, very talented artist and I knew him by sight only. I didn’t then and still don’t know his name. He stopped and looked at all those tears.
“Why are you hurting so?” He asked.
“My puppy is dying,” I cried and let him hug me for a moment. He took my hand and held it for awhile, “Your puppy won’t die.”
I looked at the large, kind eyes and nodded helplessly, sure that there was nothing anyone could do.
“I will go home now and get on my knees and tell God that you need this puppy very badly.” I’m not a religious person but somehow I felt better because of his assurance.
My friend Orrie had stayed. How wonderful people can be when you’re in trouble.
About three hours later we heard a little thump. Had she fallen off the couch? We didn’t dare look. But a few seconds later an almost transparent little dog stood there in the hallway, wobbly but wagging her little pencil tail and I was closer to God at that moment than I ever will be.
She weighs about 50 pounds today, hasn’t been sick since and her tail has never stopped wagging. Her name is “Einstein,” I thought that would give her an incentive, but it isn’t working.
The young artist? I never found out his name. We’ve seen each other a few times since I had almost given up on my puppy and he always nods a knowing smile.
Being obviously very shy, he never gave me a chance to thank him.
Maybe someone will tell him or let him read or translate this story for him. I hope so...
“Gracias mijo”!
