The Punkin-Peach Adventure

 

The Punkin-Peach Adventure

 

It all began in the spring of 1980, backstage at the Corpus Christi Little Theater production of Fiddler on the Roof. I was 32, a member of the chorus, and one of the lead actresses arrived, announcing that she had puppies to give away soon.  It seems her wonderful Scottie had given birth to six puppies, sired by an unknown fence jumper. One would have to know that I had adored the Scottie characters in my childhood Disney movies and had long desired to have one for my very own.  I immediately announced that I would take a female.  She was delighted.

I had been charmed by the Scottish brogue of those animated dogs, and also was stirred by my mother’s insistence that she (and therefore we) descended from a long line of Scottish royalty, as in Rob Roy MacGregor, and maybe even Mary Queen of Scotts.  (I only recently found out there is little likelihood that there are any Scots in my ancestry, being more infused with Irish blood!)  I imagined the fun I would have, taking my precious Scottie to the groomer for her haircuts and parading the neighborhood with her happy stepping and red painted toenails.

I went home that evening, excited to tell my family about my find.  Mike reluctantly agreed that it had been a while since we’d had a dog, and our Siamese cat, Kiffer, would probably tolerate her because he was assured of his place in our pack.  The puppies were only a day or two old, so it would be six long weeks before we could get her.

Four weeks passed and I was invited to meet the litter and choose my pick.  There were only two females, so my choice was already limited.  But I was excited at the prospect of playing with six precious puppies and picking the one that chose me. I arrived at her house, almost breathless in anticipation.  And there, squirming before me were six of the ugliest puppies I had ever seen in my life.  It was impossible, and yet, they were all little black, leech-shaped things and their eyes showed no intelligence or spark at all.  I knew, having already promised, that I could not back out of a selection. But how, I wondered, would I ever pick one.  After a few minutes, I selected the runt of the litter, hoping this was an indication that she would at least be a small dog that I could manage. And, of course, I knew that my two young daughters at 4½ and 7 would be delighted with her puppy breath and softness.

Finally, we brought her home.  Mike agreed that, incredibly, she was the ugliest puppy he had ever seen.  My daughters were enthralled and quickly took her outside to play.  Her eyes did not shine with intelligence, looking almost dead. There followed months of trying to house train her, to no avail.  My return from work every day began with picking up little piles and mopping up puddles that showed no attempt to reach the newspaper spread on the floor.  We closed her in the rooms that did not have hardwoods, left newspaper everywhere for her convenience and were rewarded with the same messes each day.  I gave up and accepted my fate.  While my kids adored her, I decided this would not be my dog but I would endure her as long as she lived, hoping that would be as brief as the tenure of my previous pets. 

There were fun things about her.  She loved when we would turn on the hose nozzle and water the plants.  She would run at the spray gulping it down, snapping her teeth as she caught the water with her snapping jaws.  She was a flying dog, running at full speed, leaping off the deck and running around the yard.  She’d fly like a bullet between the corner of the house and the years old crape myrtle that stood less than a foot from the house. She loved to chase and play with the girls, but also cut her teeth on expensive library books that the girls left sitting around on the furniture. She would greet us at the door when we came home in the evenings, lifting her upper lip to grin and sneeze her happiness at our return.

During her first two years, my Dad passed away and I brought his 12 year old dog to live in my back yard. He was a mixed breed wire haired terrier named Chip, who was partially crippled by a stiff back leg, an injury when he was less than six months old.  He had lived outside all of his life and spent the heat of the day under our pier and beam house. Too old to play, he was contented to be fed, and patted and to sleep away the long days and nights in the hole he’d dug under the house.  Then, Sam, my brother’s long haired black lab mix, moved in while Tony traveled the world.  Sam had been neutered so I didn’t worry about puppies, and Chip, well Chip was old and crippled. No need to worry there.  So Punkin was allowed to wander the backyard freely as she reached her first female maturity.  And a few weeks later, it was clear that she was with pup!

I knew nothing about the gestation period of dogs and assumed nature would take its course.  She continued to expand in girth and to leave me messes to clean up.  I would fuss at her as I cleaned and mopped and lamented her stupidity.  Then, one Saturday night, we returned home from an evening of canasta and drinks with friends.  Mike unlocked the door, and we heard the mewling sound of a very small cat? No, it was a puppy which was inching its blind way under the sofa.  We looked at Punkin across the room, sitting next to the nesting box we had prepared for her and she gazed at us with what could only be described as confusion. Up to this point she had felt like an innocent puppy.  And now her body had produced this mewling thing.  Nothing she had left before on the floor had ever squealed back at her. 

Somehow, nature had informed her to remove the sack from this little creature but she felt stymied as to what was next, and she was clearly still in pain.  Suddenly, I knew how she felt, and our eyes locked.  I sent the girls to bed, and settled on the floor beside her box, talking and cajoling her into the box. Mike stretched out on the sofa, and fell asleep.  She would whine occasionally and I would whisper to her and encourage her.  I rested my arm on the lip of the box and she laid her chin on my elbow and gazed up at me with her troubled eyes.  And we bonded.  She knew I had done this before and I knew she was learning her role. It took a couple of hours for the next arrival and she wanted nothing to do with it.  I awoke Mike to help me save the struggling puppy.  He wrapped it and broke the membrane and laid it at her feet and she began to lick and prod him until he mewled and breathed.  Pups three through five arrived faster over the next couple of hours. Then six and seven came as the sun was rising on Sunday morning. She was exhausted, as were Mike and I.  Her puppies were nuzzled up against her belly and she lay trying to rest and recover from the long ordeal. 

Mike and I had to wake the children and get us all fed and dressed for Church. The girls were enchanted with the box full of puppies but we warned them not to touch until Punkin informed us it would be ok.

The puppies were all different colors, but it was clear that old, crippled Chip was the proud Papa. As they grew, Punkin clearly turned a corner.  She dutifully cleaned up their messes and bathed them daily. And remarkably, when it was her time to relieve herself, she would jump out of the box of squirming, constantly nursing puppies, and stand beside the back door, looking over her shoulder at me.  It was as if she was saying, “Oh, now I understand why you fussed at me every day!” She never again left a mess for me to clean up, waiting patiently for my arrival to let her outside.

Punkin was longer and taller and heavier (about 18 lbs.) than the anticipated Scottie of my fantasies. But she was lively and playful and became an excellent Mother.  As she began to wean her charges, we lined up families and gave them away. She was delighted for her newfound freedoms and became a puppy for us again, though wiser and much better behaved. She was now a true, adored, member of our family.

When Vicki brought her three Yorkies to live with us for a couple of years while her career was in transition, Punkin rewarded us with another litter of Scotkies. This time there were five sired by Amos, the larger male of the Yorkies. After these fluff balls were dispersed, we decided it was best to spend the $75 to have her spayed. She was three or so by then. And Mike, the giver of nicknames had begun to call her Peach.

Mike was pretty much a self-taught musician and our daughters were taking violin in the fine arts elementary school they attended.  He would sit at the piano, and he and the girls would play music.  Punkin would sit beside the bench and howl along with them.  She also liked to “sing” when I was practicing the pieces I was singing at church.  And then it became another family game.  Along with that, Punkin loved to play “balloon”.  This game consisted of an inflated balloon being lofted into the air.  Punkin would bark and lunge at it and bounce it off of her nose, then dance around the room after it, lunging and barking and bouncing.  She would sit at our feet as we sat in our chairs and lick the air between us (we didn’t allow her to slop us with kisses). When the receiver of her air kisses said “Punkin, go away”, she would rise, move two steps over, sit in front of the next person, and resume the activity.  She would make her way around the room air kissing everyone who happened to be sitting there.

In early 1994, Punkin suffered an enlargement on one of her teats.  The vet said it was breast cancer and that she was too old to endure treatment.  She removed the breast and sent her home with us to recover and live out her days.  As the months wore on, we noticed that she would continue to sit at our feet, but could not tolerate us stroking her head.  We knew she was in some pain and that we should probably make the tough, euthanasia decision.  But she still played and sang and followed the family in and out of the house. 

She started spending a lot of time under and behind Mike’s chair in a corner of our living room.  My daughters were in college classes and in and out of the house at odd times during the day. One day, in March of 1994, I answered a call at work from Anna in tears. She had arrived home to find Punkin laid out cold in the corner of the room. I called Mike at work.  He had been home for lunch two hours earlier and she was still alive. We rushed home to comfort the girls and to bury our beloved Punkin.  We dug a shallow grave in our mostly limestone back yard where she could bask in the sunshine which she had always loved.  We mourned and missed her. Though we’d had and would have other loving additions to our family, we knew there had never been, and would never be another, more generous soul in our lives than Peach.