Chapter 31 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

MY DOG WENDY





Every once in awhile I would read the classified’s pet ads. One day I saw the perfect deal for a thoroughbred Springer. For only $35 I could obtain a puppy as the owner was going on vacation. When I went to see the pups, I further understood why I was to get such a good deal--the pups were only four weeks old, and I would have to wean one myself if I were to purchase it now. Otherwise the dam and the pups were to be at the kennel for a month and the price would be proportionately higher.

It took no convincing at all for me to decide to take the only female liver and white female pup before they went on vacation. I figured a female dog may not be the rover as the males dogs tended to be. She was so tiny she felt comfortable being carried in my one hand. Her markings were exactly like the dog in the ad. I left it for the last week with his mother, and went over last minute to get the pup before the people left for vacation and the litter to the kennel. With my new “baby” snuggled on my lap, I drove home.

From the start Wendy did not like the car. It took a lot of cuddling to calm her down for the ride home, but a pup that age had to check in with the vet on almost a weekly basis. It seemed that she needed puppy-shots from what I remember. All dogs seem nervous going to a vet, but Wendy was nervous just being in the car, so every time we went anywhere, I made it into a fun adventure by taking her on side trips after the trauma of visiting the vet.

Mostly we would go to Choconut creek in Vestal which was near Main Street where the vet‘s practice was. I’d park the car near a bridge that crossed the creek and took a footpath down to the water. There Wendy would get her feet wet, although I wouldn’t let her swim until she was older. There were smells she could sample, and always new discoveries. I think the first word she recognized was walk. “Wendy, lets go for a walk! ” I’d say, and scoop her up for her visit to the vet. I began taking her on other rides just so she wouldn’t relate the car ride to getting another puppy shot. For these other expeditions, we usually went to Rock Road, a mile long road that lay in a gorge from it’s eons of gurgling erosion. It had been such a hot dry summer, the creek had almost dried up. She found she could easily cool off in an area near the bridge where the spring run-off had eroded an area in which there was water even during droughts. After a rainstorm the night before, when I said the next two words Wendy learned, “Rock Road,” we went off to that place, and when Wendy did her regular wading, she suddenly found that she was swimming, and loved the feeling. From then on we would look for areas where she could actually swim.

Wendy was a gentle loving and intelligent dog and only embarrassed me once. What is it about manure that fascinates dogs? A neighbor had planted some nice shrubs, giving them a good start by lining the transplanting ditch with manure. Not once, but twice, Wendy went up the street, dug up one of the bushes and brought it back to our lawn to chew on like she’d dug up a bone. However, the replanted bushes survived, and Wendy turned to chasing rabbits for a better sport.