The Dog with the Old Soul Read online

  In what felt like a one-take action sequence, I threw the car door open, tossed the kitten in, grabbed my keys, started the car, rolled up the window—before the rescued cat escaped! I turned to look at him. He was perched expectantly on my center console, waiting and watching my hurried antics. He was bones. Skin and bones…and purrs.

  Next morning at the vet’s office, they insisted on a name. I stood in front of the receptionist, shaking my head.

  “I’m not going to name him. I don’t want to name him.”

  The receptionist raised her eyebrows and cocked her head, her fingers hovering over the keys of her computer.

  “Please don’t make me name him. I can’t keep him. I have a very small house.”

  She waited. This same scene must have happened a lot here. I wondered if it always turned out the same way. “Okay, we’ll just type in k-i-t-t-y.”

  “No, don’t write ‘Kitty’ on the chart. I don’t want to call him Kitty.” Something told me his name was Simon.

  Simon spent the next two weeks sequestered in my bathroom, my only bathroom. I gingerly opened the door whenever I needed access, pushing my foot in ahead of me to keep Simon from rushing the door, nudging him out of the way if he made an attempt to escape. I needed to keep him away from my other pets, the vet said, until the lab results came in and they gave him a clean bill of health.

  So until that approval came through, I had a four-pound, voraciously hungry, frustratingly messy roommate. A loud roommate who lived exclusively in my bathroom. His tortured cries reverberated off the tile when he heard me stir in any part of the house. In an effort to calm him, I’d visit for long periods of time, just sitting on the edge of the tub. Talking seemed to quiet him down, so I talked. The look in his eyes made me feel that he could answer back.

  “My mom died, Simon,” I whispered.

  “When?” he would purr, rubbing his cheek against mine.

  “Two years ago, but it still hurts.”

  “I know,” he would squeak, “but then somebody comes along and helps.” He reached out a paw to tap my nose.

  Simon talks to everything and everyone. He has a sweet meep, high pitched and soft, when looking up at me; a brrrrr chirp when he asks my older, “can hardly be bothered” cat relentlessly for playtime; and he gives a merrwrrrow to the dog whenever their eyes lock. All very different sounds, very specific and very Simon.

  Simon believes he has an imaginary friend. When he plays with crumpled-up paper, he growls and chirps and looks around and plays…with somebody. Not me. Not my other cat. Not my dog. He is alone. It is the craziest thing to watch. The tiny noises he makes scare the bejesus out of my big, scary dog.

  Since I found him on the way home from a writing class, perhaps he is a writer, too. He has a special fondness for laptop keyboards. The first time it was the letter x. I found him batting something small and black—the key off the keyboard—around the floor, like a hockey player practicing with a puck. The next time it was the t. He leaps up and pounces on the unattended keyboard. No letter is safe as he picks whichever one he pleases to pry off and play with. The third time it was b and e, double the fun. They recognize me now at the computer repair shop.

  The little ice-plant kitty was the most loving creature I had ever met. I thought I’d left my capacity for love squashed flat on the cobblestones in Italy, but Simon taught me my heart was still there, strong and healthy, after all.

  Sometimes I look at Simon and think back to that night on the side of the freeway. I think I saved Simon, but maybe he saved me.

  Where the Need Is Greatest

  Tish Davidson

  I have been a volunteer puppy raiser with Guide Dogs for the Blind for ten years. Donna Hahn has been raising guide dogs for at least twice that long. She has shared tips on socializing puppies, has helped me with difficult dogs and has encouraged me when my dogs failed to make the grade as guides. We have traded puppy-sitting chores and dog stories. Donna has loved every guide dog puppy she has ever raised. But one dog was special. This is Donna’s story.

  Donna could hardly control her tears as she mounted the platform at the outdoor graduation ceremony. A light breeze ruffled the flag. The audience waited, polite and attentive. The graduates sat, alert and poised. The flag had been saluted; the speeches made; the staff and students congratulated. Now it was time to take the final step and send the graduates out into the world to fulfill their mission.

  Donna stopped beside one of the graduates and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Raising a puppy is an act of love and faith,” she began. “When a puppy comes into your home, he comes into your heart. He is a part of your family. You give him all the time, care and love you can. Then, almost before you know it, that curious, wriggling, uncoordinated puppy has changed into an obedient, mature dog, ready to return to Guide Dogs for the Blind and take the next step in becoming a working guide.

  “I’m thrilled and happy that Llama—” she indicated the golden retriever next to her “—has become a working guide. But I’m sad, too, because it is always hard to say goodbye to someone you love.” She picked up Llama’s leash and handed it to Gil, Llama’s new partner. “Goodbye, Llama. You are a special dog.”

  The crowd murmured in appreciation, and some in the audience sniffled audibly and reached for their tissues. Then the graduation was over. Soon Llama and Gil were on their way to Vancouver, Canada, and Donna was on her way home to Newark, California, knowing there was a good chance she would never see Llama again.

  Llama was the third puppy the Hahn family—Donna, John, and their daughters, Wendy and Laurel—had raised for Guide Dogs for the Blind, but he was the first to complete the program and become a working guide. He had come into their life fifteen months earlier, a red-tinged golden retriever with white hairs on his face and muzzle that gave him a washed-out, unfinished look. “An ugly dog,” Donna had said at the time. But soon his looks didn’t matter.

  At first, Llama was as helpless as any new baby. “Neee, neee, neee,” he cried when he was left alone. He woke Donna in the night and left yellow abstract designs on the carpet when she didn’t get him out the door fast enough. Donna patiently cleaned up the accidents. Soon Llama learned “Do your business,” one of the early commands that every guide dog puppy learns, and the accidents rapidly decreased.

  Like all guide pups, Llama was trained with love and kind words, rather than with food treats. Soon he would follow Donna through the house on his short puppy legs, collapsing at her feet when she said, “Sit,” happy to be rewarded with a pat and a “Good dog.”

  Llama seemed to double in size overnight. By the time he was five months old, he was accompanying Donna everywhere. It wasn’t always easy. Llama had to learn to overcome his natural inclination to sniff the ground and greet every dog he met on the street. At the supermarket he learned not to chase the wheels on the grocery cart. At Macy’s he learned to wait while Donna tried on clothes. With a group of other puppies in training, Llama and Donna rode the ferry across San Francisco Bay and toured the noisy city.

  In May Donna was summoned for jury duty in superior court in Oakland. Of course, she took Llama. Privately, she hoped that his presence would be enough to get her automatically excused, but the plan backfired. For a week, Llama lay patiently at Donna’s feet in the jury box while Donna attended the trial.

  All too soon, a year was up, and the puppy that had wagged its way into Donna’s heart was a full-grown dog, ready to return to the Guide Dogs campus in San Rafael and start professional training. There was only a fifty-fifty chance he would complete the program. Working guides must be physically and temperamentally perfect before they are entrusted with the life of a blind person. Donna had given Llama all the love and training she could; now his future was out of her hands.

  Llama passed his physical and sailed through the training program. When it came time to be matched with a human partner, the young golden retriever was paired with Gil, a curator at an aquarium in Canada. Matching dog and human is a
serious and complicated ballet in which the dog’s strengths, weaknesses and personality are balanced against the human’s personality and lifestyle. When done well, an unbreakable bond of love and trust develops between human and dog.

  Gil and Llama were a perfect match, and their bond grew strong and true. Gil had never had a guide dog before. Once home, he found that Llama gave him a new sense of confidence, independence and mobility. Every day they walked together along the seawall to Gil’s work at the aquarium. In time, everyone grew to know Llama, and Llama grew to know all the sights and sounds of Gil’s workplace. For ten years, Llama was at Gil’s side every day—at home, at work, on vacation, and on trains, planes and buses.

  Meanwhile, at the Hahns’, Wendy and Laurel grew up and moved away from home. John and Donna continued to raise pups. Their fourth dog became a family pet. The fifth became a working guide in Massachusetts, and the sixth a service dog for a physically handicapped teen.

  While they were raising their seventh pup, Donna’s husband, John, a fit and active air force veteran, began having stomach problems. An endoscopy revealed the bad news. John had advanced gastric cancer. Thus began a long series of treatments and operations to try to catch the cancer, which always seemed one step ahead of the surgeon’s knife. It was a grim, sad, stress-filled time. Soon John could no longer take any nourishment by mouth. With John’s strength waning daily, the family came to accept that he had only a few months to live.

  In October, with John desperately ill, a call came from the Guide Dogs placement advisor. “Donna, we just got a call that Llama is being retired. He’s been working for ten years, and all that stair-climbing and leading tours at the aquarium have caught up with him. He has pretty bad arthritis. Gil is coming down to train with a new dog. I know John is terribly sick, and the last thing you might want to do right now is take care of an old dog, but Gil specifically requested that we ask you if you could give Llama a retirement home. He can’t keep Llama himself, but he wants him to be with someone who will love him.”

  “Of course we’ll take him,” said Donna, never hesitating.

  Several days later Donna drove up to the Guide Dogs campus to pick up Llama. She paced back and forth across the receiving area as she waited for a kennel helper to bring Llama to her.

  “Do you think he’ll recognize me after ten years?” she anxiously asked an assistant in a white lab coat.

  When Llama arrived, moving stiffly in the damp morning air, it was not the joyous reunion she had imagined. Llama seemed pleased to see her, but in a reserved, distant way. An hour and a half later, Llama was back at the house where he had spent the first year of his life.

  Donna pushed open the front door. “John, we’re home.” Llama didn’t hesitate for a second. He walked in, turned and headed straight into John’s bedroom, as if he had been going there every day of his life. From that moment on, he rarely left John’s bedside. Although he was too old to guide, Llama had found a place where he was needed.

  Llama was a careful and gentle companion for John. When John got out of bed, pushing the pole that held his intravenous feeding bottles, Llama was beside him, ready to protect him, but careful never to get in his way or get tangled in the medical apparatus.

  “I don’t know how that dog always seems to know exactly what you need, but he surely does,” said Donna more than once.

  “He was sent to take care of me,” John replied.

  By the end of the month, John’s condition had worsened. The hospice nurse administered morphine. Donna was afraid the drug would make John disoriented and that he would try to get out of bed and would fall over Llama, so she ordered the dog to leave the room.

  “Llama, out.”

  Llama, who had never disobeyed a command, didn’t budge.

  “Llama, out.”

  Llama didn’t move a muscle and remained planted by John’s bed.

  The next morning, however, Llama began to pace frantically back and forth through the house.

  “What’s wrong with him, Mom?” asked Wendy, who had come home to help her mother.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he’s sick.”

  The pacing continued all day and into the evening. At 9:30 that night, John passed away. Llama stopped pacing and lay quietly by the door.

  “He must have known the end was near,” said Wendy.

  Llama lay at the door, refusing to move, forcing people to step over him. For three days he grieved, along with the rest of the family. On the fourth day he got up, went to Donna and placed his grizzled head in her lap. He had found someone else who needed him.

  Today Llama and Donna are rarely separated. They visit neighborhood friends, both dog and human, daily. They go to Guide Dogs meetings, take walks around the lake and occasionally go to the beach. A neighbor has made Llama a ramp so that he can avoid stairs and get in and out of cars. The dog Donna had given a home and her heart to, and then had sent out into the world to help another, had brought that love back to Donna when her need was greatest.

  I cried the first time I heard the story of Llama. The second time I heard it, I knew it was a story that needed to be shared. Give yourself to a dog, and you will get love and loyalty in return. Dogs know when you need them most.

  Too Many Cats in the Kitchen

  Maryellen Burns

  Knock! Knock! Knock!!

  Six-thirty in the morning! My husband, Leo, and I wake up. Someone’s incessantly knocking on the door downstairs. I panic. Who is it? A loved one had an accident? A neighbor found one of our cats dead in the street? I try to shake off my anxiety and the five cats that had rooted themselves to my lap and legs all night.

  We stumble to the door. My friend Angela is there. “I’m sorry to come over so early,” she says, “but I’m supposed to shoot a commercial for Safeway grocers at seven-thirty and my scheduled location is kaput. You have such a wonderful kitchen. Could I possibly bring a film crew here in an hour?” Her British accent adds an extra note to this early morning request.

  My first thoughts are, Leo has to teach and the kitchen is a mess. We haven’t cleaned up from dinner last night. Piles of dishes are in the sink and on the stove. We’d need to hide cat bowls and kitty litter, and vacuum up mucho cat hair.

  Second thought? Yes! We spent two years restoring our kitchen and are proud of its 1910 Craftsman features: a six-burner, double-oven Magic Chef range, lush redwood-veneer cabinets, a black-and-white soda-fountain floor and old-fashioned comfiness.

  We look at each other. A lot needs to get done. Leo rushes to the kitchen to feed cats, clean and make coffee before dressing and going to work, while I attempt to de-cat the living room.

  An hour or so later a crew of eight gathers on the front porch—producer Angela; three men with camera gear; Rosa Nosa, our fluffy tortoiseshell, who has rushed out to greet them; and three outdoor cats, who scramble to hide.

  Opening the front door is a struggle because Nishan, our little disabled, back-legs-all-tangled-in-on-themselves cat, is parked in front of it.

  I finally get the door open, and a sullen-voiced man, the director, asks, “How many damn cats do you have?”

  “Nine,” I tell him. “Or possibly more. You never know who they brought home last night.”

  “There aren’t going to be any cats in the kitchen, right?” he asks.

  I assure him that the kitchen can be shut off from the rest of the house and it won’t be a problem.

  Brushing cats away from his legs, he hurries through the living room and into the kitchen, as if he knows the way.

  “We need to set up. No time for niceties,” he says.

  I follow him, and there is Rosa, sitting on the butcher-block island, looking every bit the superb hostess she is.

  He picks her up and plops her roughly to the floor. “I said no cats in the kitchen!”

  I pick her up, reassure her and take her outside.

  “What have you done? Angela said your kitchen had a slightly messy, warm, lived-in look. You’ve cleaned it. Now
we’ll have to dirty it again!”

  Angela and I look at each other. I can tell that this guy is a major pain in the neck, and I hope I can get through a whole day with him in my house. He gives the room a cursory look.

  “I like the stove. I want a pot of water, steam rising from it. Mess up the counters. I want fresh vegetables, canned tomatoes, a flour sack spilling out. Move the butcher block to the center of the room. It should be the focal point. What’s that cat doing here? I thought I told you to remove all the cats!”

  Angela picks up the cat. It’s Rosa Nosa again. She starts to purr, presses her red nose against Angela’s face. Meanwhile, Hephzibah and Honky, the two oldest cats in the household, wander in, looking for food and water. They jump up on the kitchen table, demanding attention.

  For the first time, the director spots Nishan hiding under the kitchen table. She scurries out, dragging her useless hind legs. The director looks disgusted. “What is it with these cats? Get. Them. Out. Of. The. Kitchen. Now!”

  “Oh, Terry,” pleads Angela. “The talent won’t be here for an hour. Let the cats be. We’ll clear them out before we start filming.”

  He looks as if he might relent, but something in the tone of his voice spooks the cats. This is not a cat person. They scatter. Except for Rosa, who insists on taking up residence beneath the butcher block with Nishan, her shadow.

  To understand Rosa and Nishan’s relationship, you need to know a little about how we came to keep them. Rosa was born about three months after my mother died, one of six kittens from Little Guy, Mom’s faithful companion throughout her illness. Of all the kittens she was the prettiest, the liveliest, a furry lump of playfulness with an air of responsibility, a dignified poise and a beautiful red patch across her cute little nose. Everything about her reminded us of my mother, Rose. We wanted to keep her but couldn’t justify it, because she had so many offers of a home and we had so many kittens to place. We gave her to Monica, a little girl who lived down the street.