Fruit Bat August 25, 2004 ~ 10:18 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , trackback
Detail from a crypt in the cemetery.
I got my first dog when I was 11. I think. I might have been 12. I’ve been allergic to most things most of my life, but I seemed to have finally outgrown my animal allergies at that point, and my mom found a golden retriever that had just been rescued from her owners. These people had beaten her, and left her in the woods for days on end when she broke out of their back yard and her chain got tangled in the underbrush. The kind of people who shouldn’t be allowed to own plants, let alone anything sentient.
Long story short, I got a golden retriever. Her name was Brandy (oh, so original), and they said she was 2 years old, although we later figured she was more like 4 or 5. My mom was similar in body type to the woman who had abused Brandy, so she avoided my mom at first. I was the only other one in the house, and I instantly acquired a shadow. Brandy walked around with her tail between her legs for the first six months we had her because of what her previous owners had done, and she never really got used to my mom’s cane. Our guess was that she’d been beaten with one.
But after months of working with her to show her she had nothing to fear from us, after months of chewed up shoes, clothes, and pads (yeah, that was nasty), she finally seemed to understand that our place was her new home and no one was going to hurt her there. She was the most sweet and loving animal I have ever known, albeit one of the stupidest. The only “tricks” she ever learned were “wag the tail,” “ears up,” and “play paw” (her version of shake). I did manage to teach her to flip jerky treats off her nose into her mouth, but that took weeks. She thought whatever you called her was her name, and so responded at various times to “happy ass,” “Fruit Bat,” and “Guppy,” although the latter two were her favorites. She never really stopped chewing things when she was pissed at us. Once I came into the dining room to see that she had blue foam around her mouth. Turned out she had been eating a Brillo pad. Tasty. Another time, at Christmas, she ate the baby Jesus out of the nativity set. He was plastic and I guess tasted like some of her toys. It was just as well, the cat had been using Baby Jesus as a puck for his personal game of floor hockey.
I have a lot of memories of Brandy, all of them good except for one. As she got older, her hips bothered her, making it hard for her to get up stairs. Even the three stairs up from the backyard were a struggle some nights. However, if she didn’t go outside, we were guaranteed to have Lake Brandy-Piss in the house by morning, so go out she must. One night she went out and decided to keep all the neighbors up by barking instead of going to the bathroom.. I finally let her in, completely frustrated and angry, and gave her a whack on the butt as she came in. She wasn’t expecting it and her legs collapsed under her. She lay there for a few seconds looking at me, totally uncomprehending about what had just happened, and then picked herself up and started wagging her tail at me as if nothing had happened. Hitting that poor defenseless dog was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I can’t think of it to this day without breaking down in tears. Brandy forgave me for it, but I can’t forgive myself.
Brandy died on July 4, 2000. My mom and I were in Florida visiting some great-aunts who were sick, so we weren’t around when she went. We got the news when we made it back to Brooklyn. She was boarded with a woman who raised goldens, and Brandy loved it there, but I still feel bad about not being there for her. Four years later, I still miss her. She was my best friend.
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