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Two animal stories here, one with direct involvement and a second that was more indirect. I was 10 or 11 and had a dog named Sammy. I think she was a Shepard mix because she had the right coloring and some of the shape but she was small compared to other Shepard's. Anyway, the way she had come into my life was pretty awesome. We lived in base housing in Italy and her owner just so happened to live at the end of this long walkway we would all run down to get to the beach/into our forts in the brush. Every day I would stop and play with Sammy if she was outside on her cable and eventually the woman approached me and asked if I would like to have her because she just never had time to play with the dog and had noticed how happy she would get when she saw me coming. A quick talk with my mom sealed the deal and I had a new dog that I took everywhere I could on the island. She was extremely well behaved unless she got loose. Then she would dart off into the unknown and we'd usually get a call from animal control to come pick her up within an hour or two. Fast forward a year and we're leaving the country. I spend the last night in town with a couple of friends and my mom relays to me how Sammy had picked out my suitcase amongst the group and had slept on it the entire night. Mutual love right there. Unfortunately, we had lost some of the screws that held her kennel together so she couldn't be flown out with us. We were leaving two months ahead of my mom and were to stay with our grandparents in New Mexico until she got back to the states and brought us to her next duty station. Fast forward two months and my mom shows up at the school where my grandmother works, it's after hours, I'm paying with a couple of friends in the courtyard out front when a car pulls up and my mom steps out, followed in quick order by Sammy who practically body slams me to the ground. It was one of those joyful reunions like you'd see in a movie where she can't stop wiggling her butt and whining. Well, it's New Mexico.. My uncle has a pitt named Shorty. He's an older dog and I grew up around him. I love this loving dog as well. However, when Sammy gets loose he's often right there with her and they disappear for hours before finally showing up at home for food and a nap. (Razor is an outside, unleashed dog, we live in the boonies) Then one day they don't come back. We waited days without seeing them and then finally, one morning, I'm up at my uncle's place and as I'm walking up to his house I notice that Shorty is laying next to the porch, watching me. I immediately run up to him and am almost instantly shocked to tears. His back right leg is hanging on by a piece of flesh that's about an inch thick and he has a massive puncture wound in his rib cage. Even though he's sitting there like nothing's wrong and even gets up and limps around after me when I go to get my Uncle without a single sound of pain, I know he's not going to be around much longer. In the end, we think they got into it with a bull, judging by the puncture on his rib cage and ended up taking him out back with a .22 to put him out of his misery. I held him right up until the moment that he saw the rifle. He didn't try to run, didn't do anything, just settled his head down on the ground and closed his eyes. I cried like a bitch for over an hour after we buried him. Never did see Sammy again. ---------- Second story, Paco the Ball Python. After we got married and relocated to North Carolina, my wife decided that she wanted a ball python because one of our other friends had a 42" python that we would carry around everywhere. Badass snake. So I oblige her and we get one. He grew pretty quickly from the meager little 10" he was when we got him and soon enough we had a 26" python on our hands who was only getting bigger. He ended up getting big enough that, despite the 8 pound geode sitting on top of the mesh to his terrarium, or whatever else we set on it, he would routinely push open the top and escape. He wouldn't hide though (I'm assuming because the house was relatively cool) but would instead work his way out into the living room where we'd suddenly notice his head rise up about 8" off of the carpet while he scented around. Then he'd crawl towards us and up one of our legs to wrap around a wrist or neck and just chill. The wife called me while I was in California training, upset, as she'd just done a load of laundry and had found Paco in the dried clothes. She'd been searching for him for hours and after she had given up she'd loaded up the washer and didn't even notice the dead snake until she'd dried him and was folding clothes in the bedroom.
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Jun 16, 2015 19:01
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 17:39 |
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