Playful

I can't remember where the pup came from.

I know that previous pups had come into our family by Daddy bringing them home from work. I remember that once someone he worked with had found a box of puppies in the county dump. He brought them back to the car dealership where Daddy worked, hoping someone would want them. Two of those pups came home with Daddy, one for me and one for my sister.

I know that another pup was rescued from a large litter delivered by a stray dog under our neighbor's porch. He was the runt of the litter and would have undoubtedly starved if we hadn't taken him home with us.

But I can't remember how this particular puppy came into our lives. She was a small black and white mixed-breed terrier. She was sharp as a tack and fiercely defensive of "her" yard and "her" kids (my sister and me). She would chase balls tirelessly as long as we would throw them for her, zipping around the yard like a black-and-white streak. We named her "Playful", because she WAS playful.

At that time, all of our dogs had been outdoor dogs. (Indoor dogs came later.) They had good, sturdy, warm doghouses and plenty of nutritious food and water. Playful, like all other pets in our neighborhood, was not chained. There was no leash law. She would, on occasion, leave our yard to go exploring, but never stayed away for long and was always home by suppertime.

One Sunday afternoon we returned from a weekend visit to see my grandparents to find Playful absent from the yard. She didn't return for supper. She was still missing when my sister and I went to school the next morning. We were devastated when she wasn't waiting on the sidewalk when we returned from school that afternoon. She'd never been away overnight before, and this long an absence could only be due to some occurrence that would physically prevent her return. Though we didn't speak it aloud, my sister and I knew that this meant that either she'd been picked up by a stranger or killed.

Two weeks passed with no sign of Playful. It was time for another weekend visit to see my grandparents. Unbelievably, when we returned on Sunday afternoon, Playful was laying on the front porch waiting for us. Her left front paw was horribly mangled, and she was painfully thin. When Daddy took her to the veterinarian, the vet said that her paw had apparently been caught in an animal trap. (There'd been a recent outbreak of rabies in the area, and traps were more prevalent than usual.) During the time she'd been missing, snow had fallen in our area. The vet theorized that she'd probably been able to stay alive during the time she'd been trapped by eating snow. My heart ached to think of her trapped, in pain, cold, and hungry. Because the injured part of her paw was still attached, we knew that someone must have found her and released her. Somehow, even though half-starved and injured, she found her way back home to us.

The mangled paw would have to be surgically removed. The vet advised that since the paw must be removed, it would be easier for Playful to adapt if he removed the entire leg. And so he did.

We were amazed at how quickly she healed. Her appetite was good, and her heart-breaking thinness soon gave way to a sleek plumpness and once-again-shiny coat. The loss of her leg never slowed her down. She ran as fast as ever on the remaining three legs. We loved to watch her dig holes (her favorite past-time was burying things and digging them up again) after she healed. She would choose the spot for her newest hole, balance herself on the tip of her nose, and dig furiously with her remaining front paw. The she would stop digging, inspect the hole, re-balance herself on her nose, and dig again until the hole suited her. She would place whatever she was burying (bone, biscuit, new dog toy) into the hole and push the dirt back over it with the side of her nose. We could always tell when she'd been burying things....her head would be dirty all the way up to her eyes!

In spite of her ordeal, she remained a loving and loyal companion until her death several years later. Oddly enough, her having lost a leg had nothing to do with her death. One of our neighbors was having trouble with skunks and put out poisoned bait without notifying others in the area to tie their dogs. We found Playful dead, a victim of accidental poisoning, on the back step one morning. We mourned, and our neighbor was genuinely sorry.

We had pets before Playful and after Playful, but none touched the heart of the entire neighborhood quite like that little three-legged black-and-white streak zipping through the yard in hot pursuit of a tossed ball.