*Fast Dogs*

 (Part I)

When our long-legged, beagle-howling, slut puppy sister hounds run away, my husband always says a prayer. "I pray they never come back."
            I'm telling you what, they were so cute when we got them at the Manteo Island Animal Shelter thirteen years ago. I loved the way their silky ears were bigger than their heads. I stuck my nose in their mouths to sniff their milky baby breath. Thing is, puppies are like kids. They almost always outgrow their initial cuteness.
            No one at the shelter knew the pups' birth date so I decided it would be April Fool's Day. It seems I was waxing prophetic. Only question was, who was the fool? Us or the dogs?
            It was Friday of our vacation week and it was raining to beat all. At the beach. It'd poured more days than not that week. We'd done all the indoor things that could be done—the lame mall, the Rugrats Movie, the sea shell shops.
            We weren't in the market for a pet right then. In fact, we were on the tail end of the mourning period for our seven year-old pure-bred Beagle. Lacy June Bug Lulu Bell, daughter of Happy Time Barbie and Happy Time Ken, had succombed to an overdose of feminine protection products. Man, was the house quiet without her strident hunting howl. Boy, did I miss the way she'd sneak one paw, then another, then all of her, into my lap while I was watching ER.
            The plan had been to spend the rainy morning at the animal shelter, petting puppies and kittens. An hour after arriving though, I was writing a check and signing a paper. Swearing we'd be awesome animal owners when we returned to West Virginia. The shelter staff even phoned our vet back home, Dr. Doom. He testified that we were excellent pet owners and promised the pups would get shot and spayed at the appropriate times.

The invisible fence that worked most of the time for Lacy worked none of the time for Daisy and Little Paint. That's what I named them. Actually, that's what I renamed them. I refused to step out on our back porch and yell, "Here, Sea Shell. Here, Suntan Lotion.” Those were the girls' names for the pups.
            "Nuh-unh," I said. "This one'll be Daisy, 'cause she's white and yellow. That one'll be Little Paint, 'cause it looks like someone dipped her tail in a bucket of black paint."
            At first it was like a game, them running over the buried shock wire. When they were real small, they'd let out a pitiful yelp as the black box with shiny spikes punished their tender throats. Pretty soon though, they seemed to figure out the pain was lessened, or shortened at least, with speed. They'd fold their long, young legs under their deep ribcages and explode. Zero to fifteen miles per hour, just like that.
            My husband fixed them. He and his dad built a 5' x 40' dog run on one side of our property. Attached it to the neighbors' chain link fence. For a week or two, the girl pups seem to have been divested of their joie de vivre. Whenever my daughters called me outside to push them on the swings, the dogs'd stare at me through the fence with their big, Milk Dud-looking eyes. I wasn't a dog whisperer, but I was pretty sure I knew what they were thinking. Just like Cindy Lou Who in Dr. Suess's, The Grinch, they were begging to know one thing—why?
            Wasn't long before Daisy and Little Paint fixed us. They started climbing over, digging under, or chewing through their dog run. If they were in the kitchen and the back door was ajar, they knew it and carpe diemed. If there was nothing but a toddler between them and a screen door, the child was sacrificed for the greater good—the wild blue yonder.

            Scrapes, contusions and high-pitched wails of "No, doggies! No!" were ignored. Sometimes the dogs'd stop smack dab in the middle of the street and glance back at us. Daring us to try to catch them. Their blue-black, rick rack gums flapped. Their tongues hung to one side like strips of warm, strawberry taffy. Their eyes seemed to smile. Seemed to say, "Looky! Looky! Look at me! I'm a doggy that's now free!"

The same scene stuttered the same way, over and over. Never changing. Once a week for months it seemed. Then once a month for years. Wore me out. Wore me down.
            I'd have an hour or two before the phone rang. "Is this Daisy and Little Paint's mom?" 

            I perceived a serrated tone in every caller's voice. I pictured one hand on   his or her hip, the pointer finger on their other hand wagging. 

            "I have your dogs. Can you come and get them please? Like, right now 'cause I'm fixin’ to go to the mall any minute. And another thing, you shouldn't . . .” Fuss. Fuss. Fuss.
            I never defended myself. Never blamed my kids or the dogs. I'd just drive down the hill, or one neighborhood over, and say, "Thank you so much! I was very worried. I've been driving around for an hour.” Even if I wasn't. Even if I hadn't been. Even if I'd been praying that prayer of my husband's.

All in the Family

My oldest brother put his hand on my shoulder.  “Want my paper route?  Since I leave for college in August?”

I nibbled a fingernail.  Regular spending money ("The tips are great!")?  Something to do besides watch Gilligan’s Island every afternoon, Monday through Friday?

I grinned.  “Sure.”

“Fold the left side over two to three inches,” he said.  “Crease it.  Then roll the right side toward it and tuck it inside.”

My brother, Mike, stood at the curb and tossed the paper roll onto Mr. Waugh’s porch.  I whistled in admiration.

He gave me a thumb’s up.  “Rubber bands and plastic bags are for sissies.”

He took the big canvas bag with the wide, bright orange strap off his shoulder and held it out to me. 

“You carry it.  So you get used to it.”

Two weeks later he left. For Concord College. 

“Can I talk to Mike?” I asked Dad when he made the usual Sunday night phone call.

Dad handed me the phone.

“How often do you miss Ms. Thorn’s paper box?”  I said.

Mrs. Thorn lived on North Queens Court.  She had at least eight dogs.  Eight dogs and their poo piles.  And the reek of their poo piles.  There was a chain link fence all around her yard.  You had to throw the paper into a two foot by two foot box on her porch, so the dogs wouldn’t shred it.  If you missed, you had to go into the yard and fetch it.  The dogs weren’t mean, you just had to navigate your way through the poo pile landmines and the gauntlet of wagging tails.  I’d pet the pups with one hand and pinch my nose with the other.

“Can I talk to Mike again?” I said to Dad the next Sunday.

He held out the phone.

“Guess what, Mike?  Mr. Perkins on Green Oak Drive said he’ll give me his antique Karmann Ghia, the robin’s egg blue one, not the Atomic Fireball red one, when I grow up.”

Mike huffed.  “Don’t believe it for a second.”

I stuck my lip out.  “Really? 'Cause I love it.  He says when I get my license—“

“Does he hold your hand a long time when he pays you?”

My eyebrows went up.  “How’d you know?”

“Be careful with him, okay?” my brother said.  “Maybe take someone with you when you collect money.  Promise?”

In the summertime, on really hot days, Mrs. Fitzgerald always let me spray myself with her garden hose.

“That’ll cool you off,” she’d say. 

When it was super muggy she’d offer me a glass of iced tea and we’d chat in the breezeway between her house and garage.  Then I’d cut through her yard to get over to Locust Street.  Four boys lived in the house behind hers.  

“Woo hoo!” the youngest one always said.  “Wet t-shirt.  I like it.”

He wouldn’t say that if his mom was on the porch.  Sometimes in the fall she’d give me an old Big Bear bag.

“Get you some chestnuts, honey.  I know how you love them.”

I usually gave her a free newspaper.  She always tried to pay me for it. 

“Don’t worry about it,” I’d say.  “They always put one extra in my bundle.”

“Hey, Dad,” I said.  “Let me tell Mike about the dogs that attacked Holly last week.”

Mike growled.  “The black and white Great Danes over on Linden Circle?"

"Yeah.  How'd you know?  The lady came outside to write her check, but she didn't shut the screen door good.  The dogs tore out of the house, and they were on Holly like rice at a wedding."

Holly was our Heinz-57-mostly-Beagle dog.

I heard Mike inhale through his nose.  “How’s Holly?”

“Her tail might be broke, but she’s okay.  I beat the tar out of 'em with rolled up newspapers, and they backed off. I think the lady felt bad 'cause she gave me a five dollar tip.”

“Cool.”

“You calling Mike tonight?” I asked Dad.

He dialed and pressed the phone into my palm.

“I busted my lip on the route on Friday,” I told Mike.

“How?”

“You know the last house on the route?  At the bottom of Locust, before Norway Avenue?  And how there’s that bent over fence in between it and the house next door?”

“Yeah.”

“I pretended like I was a horse jumping it, but my foot got hung on the lip of it.  I busted my knees to beat all, and my hips are black and blue now."

Mike groaned.  “Bummer.”

“Oh, that’s not the worst part,” I said.  “My bottom teeth went through my lower lip. Mom thought I might need stitches, but I talked her out of going to the emergency room.  I hate needles.”

“You’re doing a great job with my route, you know,” my big brother said.  “I’m proud of you.”

I handed the phone back to my dad.  Wrapped my arms around my belly and smiled.

I kept the paper route for years.  Blew pretty much all my profits on Certs, candy cigarettes, and wax lips at the Convenient Mart.  Mr. Perkins never did give me the cute blue Kharmann Ghia.  His wife gave him a divorce though.

Then one day John, another one of my big brothers, said, “Want my job?  At Biscuit World?  Since I’m starting Marshall soon?”

I tapped at my front teeth with my fingernail.  A weekly paycheck?  Air conditioning?  All the made-from-scratch-biscuits you can eat?

I grinned.  “Sure!”

Fast Dogs--Part II

My son was crying when he came upstairs to tell me the long-legged, beagle-howling, slut puppy, sister hounds had run away.  Again.  I pulled him onto my lap and used my shirt sleeve to wipe the snot from under his nose.

"They'll come back, honey," I said, into his hair.  "They always do."

"I hope so, Mommy.  'Cause I don't want 'em to get hit by a car and have to be scraped off the street with a splatula."

I turned his face around so I could look in his eyes.  "What in the world are you talking about?"

"That's what Daddy said would happen to 'em someday."

"Did he really?  Well, why don't you pray right now that the dogs will come home by supper?"

My little guy bowed his head and clasped his hands.  "Dear God," he said. 

I peeked at him through my lashes.  His eyes were squinched shut and his little boy forehead was wrinkled with effort.  I felt like a bike tire pump was attached to my heart, swelling it with little gusts of air.

"Please bring Daisy and Little Paint  home, sooner than now.  Please don't let them get squished by a car.  I think if I had to look at the blood and guts spot on the road where they got killed, it'd make me barf every time until the rain washed it away."

I bit my lip.

"We love 'em so much, God.  They're so soft and nice.  They let me lay on them like they're a couch.  Please bring 'em home soon.  Thank you, God.  Hey-men."

"That was quite a prayer, sweetie," I said.  "I bet the dogs are on their way home right now.  Let's go down and see."

We went downstairs and opened the back door.  No dogs.  We whistled and promised treats.  Nothin.' 

That night, I looked on the front and back porches before I went to bed.  Nada.  They weren't there in the morning either.  Uh oh.


This time it looked like they weren't coming back.  They'd never been gone this long.  One night came and went.  Then two. 

Each day, our middle child came home from school and asked, "Did the dogs come back?  Did anyone call?" 

I'd tell her no and no.  She'd call the animal shelter and ask if they'd picked up a tan, Beagle-looking, long-legged dog and a white and tan, Beagle-looking, long-legged dog.  It got to the point where the guy at the pound said, "Look, kid.  Don't call us.  We'll call you."

The kids talked to the mailman.  He loved the dogs.  Brought 'em Milk Bones every day.  He said  he'd keep an eye out for 'em.


The dogs had been gone three days now.  At dinner time, the kids prayed for the dogs to come home.  At bedtime, they prayed again. 

The next day, they made fliers and posted 'em on just about every telephone pole within a mile of our house.  They organized a search party with neighborhood kids. 

"I'll give whoever finds 'em, two dollars," Middle Child said.  "One for each dog."

On the fifth day, all three kids cornered me.  "Do something, Mommy!" 

"Like what?"

They stepped into my personal space bubble.  "Like . . . something!"

I called the newspaper and put a missing dogs ad in the Saturday and Sunday papers.  The Dominion Post is real nice.  They'll run a missing pet ad for a few days, for free. 

Even so, no one called.  Night number six and night number seven came and went.

"Do you think they'll come back?" I asked my husband on the seventh night.

He shrugged.  "I seriously doubt it.  They've never been gone this long," he said.  "As fast as they run, they're probably in another state by now.  And if that's the case, I don't know that they can find their way back."

I pulled the covers up to my chin and sighed.  "You're probably right.  No one's called.  I bet they lost their collars.  Or their i.d. tags fell off."


I vented to a friend on email the next morning.  I'm so mad at those darn dogs!  We give 'em food.  We give 'em water.  We give 'em treats.  The kids love 'em.  I like 'em, most of the time.  We give 'em everything and this is how they repay us?  By running away?  They're sluts, I tell you!  I feel so betrayed.

My friend emailed me back.  Hmmmm . . . . maybe  you should rename them--Gomer number one and Gomer number two.

I had no idea what she was talking about.  What does Gomer Pyle have to do with our dogs?  Send.

From the Bible, my friend typed back.  Look it up.

I huffed as I got out my big study Bible.  I looked up Gomer in the concordance in the back.  Oh, that Gomer.  Gomer, the prostitute turned wife, who was always running away from her husband, Hosea, who was a real good man.  That girl didn't have a lick of sense.  Hosea, I feel your pain, man.

Later that day I called the vet and cancelled their well doggy visit.  Of course they asked why and I had to tell them that the  dang dogs had skipped town. 

"We love your dogs," the clinic receptionist said.  "Bring us a flier and we'll put it up."

My husband grumbled when I handed him a flier to take to the vet's office.  "You know I don't want them to come back, don't you?"  I nodded.  I know.

"Are you praying for them to come back, Daddy?" our middle child asked my husband at dinner that night.  He glared at her.  She turned to me.

"Are you praying for the dogs to come back, Mommy?"

I didn't look up from my pork chop.  "Sort of."

"Sort of?"   The kids echoed.

"What kind of answer is 'sort of''?" Middle Child said.

I took my time answering.  "You know how God knows everything?"

The kids nodded.

"Well, I reckon he knows that part of me is worn out.  Worn down. Doesn't necessarily wanna keep doing this forever.  If I pray for them to come back, it's kinda like a lie, so why bother?"

Middle Child's eyes were shiny, her voice all quivery.  "You really don't want 'em to come back?"

A tear dropped off one of her tarantula leg eyelashes.  "How can you say that?  What if they get hit by a car?  What if they get picked up by some weirdo, freaky animal testing lab that wants to try out hair dye on 'em?"

I huffed.  "Oh, the drama of it all!  I'm just bein' honest here!  You know what I'd like?  I'd like 'em to be found by someone with a big ole farm where they could run all day, every day.  That's what I'm thinking . . .  hoping."

Middle Child Drama Girl slapped the table with both her hands.  We all jumped. 

"I've got it!" she said.  She stabbed her chest with her pointer finger a couple of times.  "I'm going to fast!"

My mouth fell open.  My husband's too.  Drama Girl nodded, her eyes wide.  "Fasting is what people did in the Bible when they really wanted to get God's attention, so that's what I'm gonna do."

My husband's fork clanked as it hit the glass table top.  He picked it up and pointed at her with it.  "You, little missy, are too young and too small to fast.  Who knows how long they'll be gone?  What if they never come back?  You could starve."

Drama Girl crossed her arms and blew air out her nose.  "I'm not going to fast eating, Daddy," she said.  "I'm going to fast tv.  I'm not going to watch another show until the dogs come back.  So there."

That night she stayed in her room reading while the rest of us watched, "High School Musical" on the Disney channel.

I laid in bed that night, looking at the ceiling.  "God, you know my heart.  You know I'm so tired of those long-legged, Beagle howling, slut puppies and their gosh darn running away.  You are fully aware that I'd only be a little sad if I never saw them again."

I sighed before I went on.  "But the kids, God . . . The kids want them to come home.  For the kids' sake . . .  Please bring the doggies back.  Please?  Amen."


After school the next day, the kids and all their neighborhood buddies combed the nearby streets and yards.  They came home after an hour. 

"Any luck?" I said, as I put out a bowl of pretzels and cups of lemonade. 

They all shook their heads and looked at their laps.

A little while later, the kids were putting on their jackets to leave when one of the oldest kids looked out the kitchen door window.

"Hey!  Hey, you guys!  Little Paint's back!  She's on your back porch." 

I opened the back door and there she was.  What was left of her anyway.  The once stout and strong brown dog looked fifteen pounds less.  Her fur looked like someone had blown their nose in it.  She was panting, her tongue hanging out like a strip of raw bacon.  Her tail wagging made her body sway side to side. 

When I opened the screen door, she stumbled in.   When she plopped down on her blanket, she was instantly covered with almost a dozen kids.  A dog pile, for real.

"Careful," I said, wrinkling my nose.  "She might have rolled in cow poo."

They didn't care.  They petted and kissed and stroked every bit of her.

I called my husband at work.  "You're never gonna guess what just happened."
.
"They didn't."

"One of 'em did."

"No way."

"Way," I said.  "Guess Drama Girl's fasting got God's attention after all."

"Guess so."


The next morning, Daisy was on the back porch.  Curled in a tight ball, nose under her tail.  I drummed my fingers on the window.  She looked up at me and blinked real slow.  Her tail started thumping.  Slow at first, then faster.

When I opened the door, she stepped in gingerly.

"Did the pavement shred your paw pads?" I asked, only a little bit mean. 

I leaned over the baby gate that kept the dogs in the kitchen at night.  "Kids!" I said, loud enough to reach the third floor.  "The other prodigal pup has returned."

The kids thundered down flights of stairs, making the artwork on the walls tremble.  They flopped on Daisy, as they had sprawled on Little Paint the day before.  Daisy didn't look quite as bad.  I figured she was only five pounds lighter. 

Little Paint glared at the welcome home party from across the kitchen.  Seemed she kinda liked being an only dog.  A few minutes later though, she made her way to the blanket.  She growled at Daisy for a bit before I pointed a finger at her and told her to hush.

I poured a splash of my good olive oil into a small bowl and handed it to the kids.  "Rub this on their paw pads."   I didn't miss the snide look little Miss Drama Girl gave me 'neath her substantial lashes.

Both dogs rolled onto their backs, their legs stiff in the air, as if to offer their paws up for pampering.

My son put his head on Little Paint's ribcage, like it was a pillow.  "You were right, Mommy."

"'Bout what, sweetie?"

"They came back.  Just like you said they would."

"Yep," I said.  "Seems like they always do.  They're like cats, these two.  They seem to have nine lives.  I'm just worried that one of these days, they're gonna run out of lives."

Fast Dogs--Part I

When our long-legged, beagle-howling, slut puppy, sister hounds run away, my husband always says a prayer.  "I pray they never come back."

I'm telling you what, they were so cute when we got 'em at the Manteo Island Animal Shelter thirteen years ago. I loved the way their silky ears were bigger than their heads.  I stuck my nose in their mouths to sniff their milky baby breath.  Thing is, puppies are like kids.  They almost always outgrow their initial adorableness.

No one at the shelter knew the pups' birthday so I decided it would be April Fool's Day.  It seems I was waxing prophetic.  Only question was, who was the fool?  Us, or the dogs?


It was Friday of our vacation week and it was raining to beat all.  At the beach.  It'd poured more days than not that week.  We'd done all the indoor things that could be done--the lame mall, the Rugrats Movie, the sea shell shops.

We weren't in the market for a pet right then.  In fact, we were on the tail end of the mourning period for our 7 year-old pure-bred Beagle.  Lacy June Bug Lulu Bell, daughter of Happy Time Barbie and Happy Time Ken, had succombed to an overdose of feminine protection products.  Man, was the house quiet without her strident hunting howl.  Boy, did I miss the way she'd sneak one paw, then another, then all of her, into my lap while I was watching ER.

The plan had been to spend the rainy morning at the animal shelter, petting puppies and kittens.  An hour later, I was writing a check and signing a paper.  Swearing we'd be awesome animal owners when we returned to West Virginia.  The shelter staff even phoned our vet back home, Dr. Doom.  He testified that we were excellent pet owners and promised the pups would get shot and spayed at the appropriate times.


The invisible fence that worked most of the time for Lacy worked none of the time for Daisy and Little Paint.  That's what I named 'em.  Actually, that's what I renamed them.  I refused to step out on our back porch and yell, "Here, Sea Shell.  Here, Suntan Lotion."  Those were the girls' names for the pups.

"Nuh-unh," I said.  "This one'll be Daisy, 'cause she's white and yellow.  That one'll be Little Paint, 'cause it looks like someone dipped her tail in a bucket of black paint."

At first it was like a game, them running over the buried shock wire.  When they were real small, they'd let out a pitiful yelp as the black box punished their throats.  Pretty soon though, they seemed to figure out that the pain was lessened, or shortened at least, with speed.  They'd fold their long, young legs under their deep ribcages and explode.  Zero to 15 m.p.h., just like that.

My husband fixed them.  He and his dad built a 5'x40' dog run on one side of our property.  Attached it to the neighbors' chain link fence.  For a week or two, the girl pups seem to have been divested of their joie de vivre.  Whenever my daughters called me outside to push them on the swings, the dogs'd stare at me through the fence with their big, Milk Dud-lookin' eyes.  I wasn't a dog whisperer, but I was pretty sure I knew what they were thinking.  Just like Cindy Lou Who in Dr. Suess's, The Grinch,  they were begging to know one thing.  "Why?"

Wasn't long before Daisy and Little Paint fixed us.  They started climbing over, digging under, or chewing through their dog run.  If they were in the kitchen and the back door was ajar, they knew it and carpe diemed.  If there was nothing but a toddler between them and a screen door, the child was sacrificed for the greater good--freedom.

Scrapes, contusions and high-pitched wails of, "No, doggies!  No!" were ignored.  Sometimes the dogs'd stop smack dab in the middle of the street and look back at us. Daring us to try to catch 'em.  Their blue-black, rick rack gums flapped.  Their tongues hung to one side like strips of warm, strawberry taffy.  Their eyes seemed to smile.  Seemed to say, "Looky!  Looky!  Look at me!  I'm a doggy that's now free!"


The same scene stuttered the same way, over and over.  Never changing.  Once a week for months it seemed.  Then once a month for years.  Wore me out.  Wore me down. 

I'd have an hour or two before the phone rang.  "Is this Daisy and Little Paint's mom?"  I perceived a serrated tone in every caller's voice.  I pictured one hand on their hip, the pointer finger on their other hand wagging.  "I have your dogs.  Can you come and get them please?  Like, right now 'cause I'm leaving for the mall any minute.  And another thing, you shouldn't . . ."  Fuss.  Fuss.  Fuss.

I never defended myself.  Never blamed my kids or the dogs.  I'd just drive down the hill, or one neighborhood over, and say, "Thank you so much! I was very worried.  I've been driving around for an hour."  Even if I wasn't.  Even if I hadn't been.  Even if I'd been praying that prayer of my husband's.