Happy - Part Seven

To his dying day our dog Happy barked at every somebody he didn't know and joyfully welcomed those he did. He growled when we had to picked ticks off his paws, growled if we got too near his food bowl. He did his cha-cha and begged for food scraps. He rolled in smelly, stinky stuff, growled when he got a bath and delighted in getting toweled dry. He pulled burrs from our socks, caught rats and mongooses and leapt from the jeep as often as he could.

He was predictable with his morning and evening routine, making sure we were all up and awake before taking his morning constitutional; making sure we were all home at the end of the day before he did it again and before he ate. And every night he did bed checks.

He would have given his life to protect us.

The tropics are hard on dogs, though not so much now because we have heartworm preventative and meds for parasites and skin problems. But back then dogs didn't usually live much past 8 or 9 years. So we were honored to have our ornery beast around for 12.

But all good things must come to an end. I would like to say he died peacefully in his sleep, but it it was not to be. One morning while on his constitutional he was struck by a motorcyclist who roared off without stopping. Happy walked down our driveway and went to his chain. He lay down, placing himself off duty for the last time and never got up again. He was paralyzed from his neck down. We had no choice. He growled when Dad picked him up to put him in the car and he growled when the vet put the needle in his vein.

He was Himself to the very last, our lovable Ornery Beast, Happy.

I know, without a doubt, he is to this very day running through the tall grass of the Elysian Fields, chasing and catching mongooses, and rolling in smelly, stinky stuff without the concern of getting a bath. He is growling just because he can, snapping out Shakespearian insults like, "You mangled weather-bitten wagtail!" Best of all he is sleeping in the sun with his pal Kitty Puss.

There they are; a plain honey colored brown dog with a funny short tail and a black and white cat. Can you see them? They are walking into a glorious sunset without a care. They are waiting for us to join them.

Happy - Part Six

Happy the dog had several things he loved, besides us of course.

He loved my cat, Kitty Puss. (You can read about the fabulous KP and see pictures of him too!) When we brought Kitty Puss home Happy claimed him by licking him until he was literally sopping wet. He carried the cat around by the head. I mean Kitty Puss's entire head was inside Happy's mouth....They often slept together. After KP died Happy never let himself get close to another cat. He tolerated others we had, but for the most part he ignored them.

Happy hated (oops this is supposed to be about things he loved...be patient) burrs. If he noticed burrs on our socks or pant legs he'd lie at our feet and patiently pull them off. He'd pull off a burr and shake his head to fling it away. The only problem in pulling off burrs is that it made his mouth water which meant wet socks. He loved pulling off burrs.

He absolutely loved to roll in smelly, stinky stuff.

He loved to sleep in the sun. He fall asleep sitting or standing up. Here are the pictures to prove it.
At about a year old.

At ten or eleven. Notice he is on his chain. Which meant he was off duty. Sometimes, particularly when he got older, he would go lie down by his chain and place himself off duty.

He loved to leap. He probably inherited his leaping abilities from his father, who as I mentioned earlier, could, without taking a running start, leap from the ground straight into the back of a dump truck (not a pick-up truck, a dump truck.)

Happy was quite the hunter and loved to catch rats and mongooses.

This leads into his greatest love of all, riding in the jeep. All we'd have to say is, "Jeep?" and he'd start to prance and dance and get all excited and leap into the jeep. He would drape himself across whoever was sitting in the front passenger seat, hind feet in the space between the seats, head and a goodly portion of his front half stretched outside sniffing the wind, floppy ears flapping, tongue lapping at the air. More than once he was able to combine his love of leaping, jeep riding and catching mongooses. More than once he launched himself from the lap he was draped across, flew through the air and caught a mongoose on the fly. No joke, it's true! Granted in those days we went between 15 or 20 MPH rarely doing more than 25, but still, he loved to leap from the moving jeep.

In time we all learned the "feel" of him when he was about to leap out of the jeep, something that happened so fast it was near impossible to stop it. His body would get tense, his hind legs becoming tightly coiled springs, his front paws pressed against either the side of the seat or the side of the jeep and POOF, he'd be flying through the air. It would have been dangerous to him if we had tried to stop his momentum, so we just let him go. Our task was to protect ourselves from his iron clawed paws that would dig into our legs as he sprang out into the air.

He was a flying dog. "Who needs wings when I can leap great distances in a single bound?"

My First Cat

I guess I was about seven when I got my first cat. I got to pick him out of the litter and name him. I don’t think we knew he was going to grow into a big old Tom, so it’s kind of ironic that I named him Kitty Puss.

Upon bringing him home our dog, Happy, who was about six months old, proceeded to lick the poor kitten until he was absolutely soaking wet. Happy used to carry Kitty Puss around. He didn’t pick Kitty Puss up by the scruff of the neck. No…he put the cat’s whole head in his mouth and Kitty Puss let himself be carried around like that, perfectly calm, hanging limply from Happy’s mouth. They were best buds and often slept together.

Kitty Puss’s docile nature made him an excellent doll. I dressed him up in my Tiny Tears doll clothes and pushed him around in my doll carriage. The proof is in these two pictures taken when I was about eight years old.

I would also put my mother’s lipstick on his face and take it off with cold cream. He never struggled, never clawed, never bit, never even growled.

I loved that cat.

But we were not destined to have him for long. He was no more than three years old when he was poisoned. He got very sick and for several days wouldn’t eat. Then one day he drank a little milk and we thought he was getting better. That night we went to Gus and Charlotte’s for dinner. When we got back home I was the first one in the door, eager to see how my cat was doing. I will never forget seeing him stretched out on the floor, his mouth and eyes open….I knew. I screamed and hollered and cried and had to be comforted. I was devastated.

No cat has ever been able to take his place. That goes for Happy too, who lived twelve years. Although he tolerated all the other cats we had, he was never a friend to any of them the way he was a friend to Kitty Puss.

I’m sure the two are lying in dappled shade on the soft grass of the Elysian Fields enjoying each other’s company.