Shopping at Petstore raises money for the Stumpy Memorial Run
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It was President's Day, 1994,
when we met. I had gone to where we now live to feed the cattle.
It had snowed that week and although a lot of it had already
melted there were still deep snow pockets where the drifts had
been. As I parked the truck at the top of the drive, I noticed
a very scruffy looking dog standing under a pine tree where the
ground was clear. Since I had brought Maggie - my Australian
Shepherd with me - and didn't want a dog fight, I yelled to the
mangey thing to get lost. He stood his ground. Not defiant, but
appearing more afraid of the snow walls that surrounded him than
he was of me. I started toward him, hoping my approach would be enough to send him packing. It was then I saw it. Where once his hind left leg had been there was now a bloody mass of meat. Someone, some ignorant, ought-to-have-the-crap-kicked-out-of-him yokel had shot him with a high powered rifle. From the looks of him he hadn't eaten in over a week. His skin was draped over his backbone like a makeshift lean-to and his ribs could be counted from thirty feet away. We tried unsuccessfully to reach animal control. It was a holiday...animals evidently don't need to be controlled on President's Day. The state police said they didn't do animal calls. By the time we had rounded up a cage and a can of Mighty Dog, this poor, scared creature had bolted out of the snow and fallen onto his belly under my truck. Having been around injured animals before, I was afraid if I tried to move the dog that he would surely bite me. The emptiness in his belly was stronger than his fear of me and I managed to lure him into the portable kennel. The vet was alerted I was on my way with an emergency. That was perhaps the worse thirty minute drive I've ever taken. The dog stunk of rotting flesh and he howled the entire time it took to get him to the vet's office. Once there, he and I waited what seemed like hours for the doctor to come into the treatment room. All the while I tried to comfort him with soothing tones and while he howled I found myself welling up with tears. How could someone do this to another person's pet? When the attendant finally came into the room, her first question was, "what's his name?" I didn't know and it wasn't on his collar. "Stumpy," I said in a lame effort at humor to cover up the sadness that was overwhelming me. "If you need a name, just call him Stumpy." He was wearing a brown leather collar with his license number riveted to it which we took off before he was led hopping on his remaining three legs for treatment. As he went through the door with the attendant, he stopped and turned his head to look at me. I will never forget that look nor the meaning it conveyed. "He knows," I thought to myself at the time, "that dog knows I just saved his ass." With the aid of the number on the collar I was able to locate his owners. A nice enough family, I suppose, but they couldn't afford to pay for the operation necessary to save their dog's life. I didn't want to pay for it either. After all, he wasn't mine and I already had two dogs. I went out of town on business that night with every intention of letting the matter go at that. He would just have to be put to sleep. I didn't sleep well that night. Not because I was in a strange bed away from home, but because the image of that "look" he had given me as he went out of the treatment room haunted me. Some sort of bond had been formed. The next morning I hurriedly called to give the OK to proceed with the operation. The owners were contacted by the vet, they agreed to relinquish ownership and signed him over to me. A week later Stumpy, complete with tubes in his front leg and abdomen (to drain the shrapnel wounds from the bullet exploding in his leg), hobbled home with me. His leg had been taken off at the hip. The hip joint was still in place, but it ended there. He was still scrawny and pathetic looking and he still smelled. The first order of the day was a dry shampoo bath. It was hard to tell which one of us appreciated his new odor more. Stumpy was obviously tickled that the smell of impending death had been removed. He spent the night sitting next to me in my chair, intently watching television as if he actually understood what was going on in that box. From time to time and without warning he would quickly turn his head, give me a lick and just as quickly turn back toward the TV acting like he didn't want me to know where the wet tongue had originated from. The rubber tubes in his body stuck out about two inches. Most dogs would have tried to chew on them. Stump never touched those rubber tubes for the first two weeks he was home. The night before he was due to go back to have them removed, I made the comment about the appointment being the next day. No sooner than I had said it, Stump reached down to his front leg and pulled the tubing out. It was spooky. He went for the one in his belly, but I stopped him. That night I became convinced that he was the reincarnation of someone I had known before. I didn't have any idea who he might be; perhaps my father or my aunt who had been as close to me as a sister and who had tragically died too young. Whoever he was, Stumpy was not just a dog. In my mind, he was family returned. He became my pal, my buddy, my son, my little brother, my confidant. He wasn't supposed to be a bed pal. I had bought him one of those cedar filled things that L.L. Bean charges way too much money for. It was beside my bed and, as long as the bedroom light was on, Stumpy would curl up on it. But when the light went off, he would sneak into my bed. To this day I don't know how he did it. It's hard enough for one with four legs to creep undetected up the side of a bed. He would roll over on his back, put his head on my pillow and go to sleep. If he could, he'd weasel next to my side so that my right arm would be around him, belly up with his head resting on my shoulder. He would remain like that all night. Super glue could not have bonded us together any tighter. He knew how to give me a look that instantly told me I needed to scratch his left side. Unable to do it himself, he was always appreciative and gave me a throaty little thank you. When I'd get home I would greet him, trying to make the same throaty little "rrrrrrrr rrrrrrr" sounds he made to me and he would always "talk" back. He probably thought I was an idiot. He seemed to understand me when I spoke English and he probably wondered why I sometimes understood his dog talk, but couldn't speak it without a strange human accent. It took me a year to teach him how to pee correctly. When dogs lift a leg the exercise somehow automatically bends their body so they can get the right angle to kill your bushes. Stumpy didn't have the automatic bend. He probably grew up being a right leg lifter and couldn't get used to having that leg on the ground all of the time. (Come to think of it, my dad and my aunt were right handed too). For the first year, Stumpy always had a yellow stain on his front leg....until he and I got the "left twist" down pat. Stumpy's most favorite thing in the world was going for a ride in the car. He loved to stick his head out the window to pretend he was on a motorcycle. He couldn't do it for long because of the balance problem created by a car's movement, but smooth roads always insured he would put his hair in the air. When not sticking his face in the wind, he would prop himself into the corner of the rear seat and stare straight ahead. He never played in the car. It was not the time for frolick, even when the other dogs were in the back with him. Riding was a treat that required serious concentration for its full enjoyment. He could chew ears and engage in horseplay when out on the ground. He never seemed to appreciate his sister, ReRun, bouncing around on the seat like a rubber ball on a bungee cord. And she, being a Jack Russell, could never quite understand his disdain for her while riding. He loved to ride so much that he would beat anyone to the car door, begging to go with his whiney "take me" whimper. Not wanting to be greedy, a ride to the end of the driveway and back (whether we needed to fetch the mail or not) was usually enough to satisfy him. I can't count the number of times he was driven to the end of the drive; not because we had to go down there, but just because he asked to go for a ride. He was a chow hound and would eat anything he was given....except onions. At the same time he was courteous. Stump was big enough to have been able to kill ReRun with a single snap, but he never once acted ugly toward her. If he had a bone and she didn't, he would sit and watch patiently while she would snitch it from him. He was the same way with anything he had in his bowl. If another member of the family wanted it, Stumpy would stand aside and let his dinner be consumed. He assumed a fatherly role whenever one of his three sisters was around. Don't get me wrong here. Stump was not a wimp. I can still remember the day we had to patch a stranger's butt after she came on the property and jumped out of her car to let us know a foal had rolled under a fence. Stumpy didn't like surprises. He enjoyed most people, but there were a few who occasionally weren't to his liking. For that reason I always made sure I was around to let him know visitors were OK. If I made the first move and touched them he knew things were fine. If they touched me first without me extending my hand there was always the possibility that we could be patching up another butt. Amazingly, his judgement of people was usually right on the money. I suppose because of his encounter with that trigger happy jerk, Stumpy never tried to leave our property. He loved to go for long walks, but he wouldn't go on his own. A gunshot in the distance gave him a severe flashback (something else we had in common) and he would dive under the closest cover. During the day, he and Maggie had the run of the place, but rarely did they stray more than 100 yards from the house; unusual, considering their home has 72 acres. Our drive is over 800 feet long and the house sits on a hill perhaps 100 feet above the road. Recently Stump had amused himself by sitting just outside the lawn fence and watching for traffic down below. I think it started when our normally quiet road became a detour route and traffic increased ten-fold. Unaccustomed to the sound of so many vehicles, all the critters would periodically think something was coming up the drive and start barking to announce the arrival. After a few weeks of mis-fires I think Stumpy decided it was far more prudent to sit out on the hill where he could survey things and know for sure when someone was really coming to the house. It was from that vantage point that he greeted a UPS truck on December 16th. As usual, he and Maggie followed the driver to the door with the delivery and on this particular day, the driver gave Stumpy a much appreciated scratch. Little did he know that within minutes this man would kill him. Stump was never a car chaser. He'd stand by the side of the driveway and bark until he knew who was in the vehicle or he'd tag along beside the drive for a while when someone was leaving. He seemed to know he shouldn't be on the paved part. I'll never know what happened. I didn't see it. The driver said Stump had "run under his back wheels"....but that wasn't true. There was no physical evidence of that claim. I've seen enough road kill in my life to know what an animal looks like after it has been run over by the wheels of a vehicle. If there had been no torrent of blood from Stumpy's mouth he would have looked as though he were just lying there sleeping. I felt his still warm body. There were no broken bones. Perhaps his neck was broken, but all else was normal. Even when the Christmas rush isn't on, UPS drivers are always in a hurry. I suppose they get to go home when the truck is empty. I'm just guessing, but I think this driver wasn't paying attention. He knew there were dogs loose. He was just in too much of a damned hurry or too busy flirting with his female seasonal assistant to watch where he was going. It was certainly negligence. As I knelt over Stumpy, my heart pounding in my ears and my eyes filling, I heard the driver mumble, "I'm sorry, man" and then wisely he left. I was engulfed with nothing short of blood rage. I was armed, prepared to put my best friend out of his misery if he was still alive after having been "run over by the back wheels". Thankfully, there was no need for that. By the time I had confirmed no life was left in my little brother's body, the truck was gone and I had no opportunity to shoot the UPS truck or its driver. And as sure as I sit here now - with tears pouring down my cheeks, head stuffed, trying to cure my sadness and grief by writing this - I would have killed that driver. Perhaps Stumpy had done me one last favor in return for once saving his life. He managed to hold on long enough to keep me out of jail. I hope I never again have to bury such a close friend. I have seen friends, relatives and comrades die. I have lost dear pets. But never have I had to go through what I did while trying to say my final goodbye to Stumpy. I dug his grave down by the creek in the shade of a big spreading tree near where the deer stop to drink on their way through the meadow. It's a peaceful spot, away from civilization. A place where rabbits run freely and where Stumpy's spirit can chase them to his heart's content. It didn't take long to dig the hole with the tractor. It took over an hour for me to say goodbye. Had anyone been near they would have thought the wind or wolves were howling. I could not stop the torturous cries that screamed from my trembling body. Over and over I cried, "I don't want to do this!" I kept telling him I was sorry. Every time I would start to lift him up to put him in the ground I found myself crying harder and hugging his lifeless body, petting him and screaming, "I DON'T want to do this!!" The demons of death were tearing at my insides with razor claws and pepper spray could not have burned my eyes more than the acid tears. "I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS!!!" I was finally able to complete my horrible task. I laid him gently in a corner of the grave, curled him up as if he were asleep, put his head on a small pillow of dirt and kissed him gently on the top of his head. I started back for the tractor, but returned several times for a last hug, a kiss, a scratch behind that left ear he couldn't get to. Then, still heaving and sobbing, I positioned the tractor behind the dirt pile so that I couldn't see his body and I pushed the dirt over him. I drove back to the house in first gear, numb. I tried to think of our good times. It made my sorrow worse. I knew it wasn't over. I knew the grief would stay with me for a long, long time. I remembered reading once where the loss of a loved one causes older people's lives to be shortened. I briefly wondered how many years this was going to take away from me and suddenly realized it made no difference. Perhaps there really is a heaven and I'll get to see him again that much sooner. I wondered if he'd have three or four legs in heaven. I wondered if he will miss me as much as I miss him. My sorrow quickly turned to anger when I spoke to a UPS customer "service" representative later that evening. She said, basically, that there was nothing UPS could do beyond saying "we're sorry". She wanted to know if the dog was on a leash. I told her he was on his own property and didn't have to be on a leash (I took this as an attempt by UPS to claim I was in violation of the leash law in this county). She said there wasn't anything she could do whereupon I told her I was contacting my attorney. She said she would tell her supervisor that. So ended the conversation. Incensed by what I felt was UPS's complete lack of sensitivity, I struck out at them via e-mail direct to their web site: "Today, one of your Gettysburg, PA trucks came to my farm to make a delivery. It drove past two prominently displayed "No Trespassing" signs by the front gate and came up my 800' driveway to deliver something I did not order. On the way out of my driveway, your truck murdered my son. (To you bastards he was "just" a dog, but to me he was much more.) When your customer "service" agent called, she informed me there was nothing you could do about it beyond say you were sorry. SUPPOSE THAT HAD BEEN A HUMAN the truck ran over. Would you just be "sorry" or would there be an investigation followed by a wrongful death civil suit? I saved my son after finding him as a stray with one of his rear legs shot off. He wasn't mine, but I paid for his surgery and subsequent recovery because his owners couldn't/wouldn't. They abandoned him. He knew I saved his life and he reflected that knowledge with his companionship/love. I have never shared my life with another like him in 54 years. He was a member of this family. I would go hungry or do without before letting him miss a meal. And all your company can say is "We're sorry" which translates to "tough shit"? Well, I'd like you to think about this: I won't take "I'm sorry" for an answer. You have deprived me of a very vital part of my life and I intend to make you pay for it in one way or another. I asked for compensation so that we could replace him; your response was, "We won't do that." Fine. Spend your money in the courts of Pennsylvania defending yourself against a Trespass charge (the fine is more than the cost of a dog) and a negligence suit (I assure you treble damages can be awarded for negligence) and anything else the sleaziest lawyer I can find will think up. Then, read all about it on the Internet on your very own UPS Murder web page and on all the Usenet groups the spider can find. Maybe then you truly will be a little sorrier than you are now." Of course, none of that is possible. Pennsylvania views a dog the same way it views a fence post. They're chattels and no matter how great one's emotional loss may be, recovery is limited to replacement value (actual cost to buy another dog) or $500, whichever is less. There is no heart, no compassion, no understanding in the law. The next day I received a call from UPS. Yes there will be an investigation. Yes you will be compensated. Yes you completely misunderstood what the young lady was trying to say to you. Yes we'll be back in touch as soon as we can in a few days. Sure they will! And if by chance they don't. My attorney is prepared to file suit. Stumpy was a fox hound. I wonder what a "human" fox hound costs? Believe me, it isn't the money. But short of committing a criminal act myself there is no other way to get even. Perhaps specifying nothing ever be sent to me via UPS will make me feel better, but Stumpy will never be replaced. He was unique, special and one of a kind. There will always be an empty spot in my life. He will never greet me again. We won't take walks together or go for a ride down the driveway again. He won't sneak into my bed, sit in my chair to watch TV or proudly wear my hat when I stick it on his head. I won't be there when his ear itches - I hope somebody is. And I'm not the only one feeling lost. Maggie is confused. They were play buddies and roomed together. She's been looking all over for him. She looks sad. She spends more time with me now as though together we can somehow conquer this loss. It will pass, eventually, I tell her. Time may heal all wounds, but scars last forever. Down deep I know there will not soon be a time when I can think of Stumpy without feeling the emotion blowing up inside of me nor a time in the near future when his name is mentioned that I won't have to excuse myself to find a room alone where I can quietly let the tears flow. . Nor will there ever be a time when I can see a UPS truck and not think to myself, "there goes another murderer." |
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