One day when I was young, my father parked the family car
outside a shopping center. But before we
could go inside, suddenly a cute little black puppy wandered up to us. My father claimed that he had seen people
pull up, open their car door, drop the dog onto the parking lot, and drive away. All I remember is that we didn’t go shopping
that day. Instead, we brought the puppy
inside the car with us, and returned home.
I named this new addition to our family Sport.
He was a German Shepherd, or at least a mix with strong German Shepherd
traits. He was only a few weeks
old, and I
could easily hold him in my hands, but my father promised that Sport would grow
with time.
While my parents might have rescued Sport, that did not mean
that they would allow him inside our house. At that time, we lived next door to the church we attended. On the other side of us lay the parsonage, which had replaced our small house as the pastor’s residence at some point
in the past. Behind us lay a trailer
park, where retirees spent their waning years inside large metal canisters on
wheels. Bordering the rear of our
property was a waist-level picket fence.
Between our house and the new parsonage extended a six-foot-high
concrete wall. But only a concrete walkway
separated our house on the other side from the church, and no fence lined the
front of our property. So my father
purchased a metal chain, anchored it in the ground, and built a little wooden house. That became Sport’s home, and I would go
outside and play with him, and throw the ball to him, and let him chase me (at
least to the end of his chain).
This addition to our family did not sit well with a retired couple in the trailer park. My father fielded several conversations with
the man who lived in the trailer directly behind us, a gleaming silver
contraption that looked more like the rear end of a bus than a proper
home. The old man complained that Sport
barked too much. From what my father
told my mother and I, the old man suggested that my father must find some way
to silence our dog. Or he would.
Sport grew with time, and he sprang up every time I entered
the back yard. We would play together in
the afternoons, enjoying each other’s company.
But then, one afternoon, my father noticed that Sport was vomiting white foam. As Sport barked and leapt toward me, at the length
of his chain, my father held me back, and ordered me to keep away
from him while he made a telephone call. After awhile, men in uniforms arrived.
They unhooked Sport from his chain, and led him away. I couldn’t help
but notice, as they pulled him past, the confusion and pleading in Sport’s eyes. But they wouldn’t let me to pet him, or hold him one last time. Then they took him away, and I never saw him
again.
I don’t know if the animal authorities ever discovered why Sport
vomited white foam. At the time, the
disease Rabies was mentioned, but my father also quietly said that he suspected
the old man living in the trailer behind us might have thrown some poisoned
food over the fence. Lacking evidence, it's impossible to blame him, or any other factor. Modern science (or at least a quick internet search) suggests that Sport might have
simply drank his water too fast, or eaten some grass or dirt. So perhaps he didn't have Rabies. But maybe the threat of Rabies was too strong
back then for the authorities to take a chance.
All I remember is that the old man complained, and later, that Sport
inexplicably vomited white foam. All I
know is that a little boy never saw his dog again.
Dragon Dave
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