Post #49 – Women’s Memoirs, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
Memoir Contest Winners Announced for TableScrap Stories: Memoir and Pets
The July Memoir Contest, the first in our new series we’re calling TableScraps, brought in a number of entries. We want to thank everyone who submitted. There was quite a bit of competition, so if you didn’t win this time, please submit another story in one of our future contests.
Kendra and I are pleased to share the winners and their stories with you. As we have done before, we’re publishing the first place winning story as part of this announcement as well as the names of the Honorable Mentions. We’ll publish those stories beginning in November.
In the meantime, congratulations to our three winners. Since these stories focus on pets in our lives, our first place winner receives a copy of Dr. Greg’s Dog Dish Diet: Sensible Nutrition for Your Dog’s Health.
First Place Winner:
Cindy Wilber, Petey – The Escape Artist
Honorable Mentions
(In alphabetical order):
Judy Fettman, The Pooch Under the Porch
Jorgelina Zeoli, My Horse and I
PETEY – THE ESCAPE ARTIST
By Cindy Wilber
The minute I saw Petey I fell in love with him. He was a gray, wiry-coated miniature schnauzer mix, with a cute little beard under his chin. I asked my husband, “So, what do you think of this little cutie?” He said “I like him, but let’s see what Sadie thinks of him.” We went to the truck and got Sadie. She jumped down and wandered over to Petey. Sadie sniffed Petey several times, wagged her tail then meandered off. That was all we needed – we adopted Petey and brought him home.
Home was our small ranch in Northern California, three and a third acres of fully fenced land situated in the country. At that time Douglas, myself, three horses, six chickens, our dog Sadie and now Petey called this our home. Petey soon loved to explore the ranch. The only problem is that he also liked to explore outside the ranch. He liked to investigate our neighbors land too. When I would go looking for him many times he was nowhere to be found. In the beginning I would panic. I would start screaming for him all over the ranch. (Can you imagine what our neighbor’s thought during this time?) Then I would yell for my husband. “Douglas, I cannot find Petey. Will you help me look for him?”
“Yes, dear I’ll help you – just a minute.”
Then off we went to our neighbor’s property looking and calling for Petey. Next one of us would call our neighbors to see if they had seen our dog. If that didn’t work, we’d go in our car looking down the county roads. Frequently, Petey was nowhere in sight. We waited, and we waited. Eventually he would show up when he was hungry or tired (which was usually within a couple of hours or at least the same day). But it was nerve racking every time it happened. So, Douglas put up an electrified wire under the first board on our ranch fence. That still did not keep Petey on our property. He just jumped over the hot wire and fence board. Hoping to outwit our dog, my husband put up another hot wire between the bottom board on our fence and the second board (it is a three horizontal board fence). He also put up chicken wire on the fence we share with our next door neighbor. That seemed to do the trick, unless the hot wire happened to be accidentally turned off. Or should I say it did the trick unless you left the front gate open for a minute and Petey was out – zip he was gone past the gate to roam the country roads. By this time we learned that if we had a treat in our hands we could often entice him to come to us. He sure knew how to push our buttons… Now you know why we called him “Petey – The Escape Artist.”
But there’s more to this story. Petey had a habit of hiding from us inside the house too. One of us would call his name and no Petey. We would look around the house and no Petey. Then we would look around the beds or chairs and sure enough a little gray tail would be waging back and forth. We’d call his name and his tail would wag faster. It was if he thought we could not see him as long as his head and body were under the bed or chair. It was so precious.
Eight years later, in July 2004 during the annual Garlic Festival weekend, I said to Douglas, “I’m not going to the festival, that’s for sure – no large crowds for me this year.”
“But why? You always love going.”
“I don’t want to run into anybody I know. They’re just going to ask me questions I don’t want to answer. They’ll ask, ‘How is your granddaughter doing?’ What do I say? ‘She’s doing horribly. She is just hanging onto life.’ Or perhaps I say, “She just had a traumatic brain injury and we have no idea how much damage has been done to her brain.” Or do I say ‘I feel blessed every day when I walk into her room and she is still breathing.’”
“I know. I understand,” said Douglas. And I knew he did understand.
I had never felt so hopeless, felt life was so hopeless. I knew that I’d have to put on this big front and act like I’m doing fine. Why did I have to be OK? Because that is what is expected of a Christian, at least that is what I think. All I know is I live from one minute to the next just waiting for the next bad news. What else could happen?
A moment later I walked into the family room of our home and I could see something was gravely wrong with our sweet, little dog Petey. He was lying on the ottoman in our family room his eyes were rolling upwards in their sockets. He was barely panting and making a low squealing sound like he was in real pain. He looked so pitiful laying limp with just enough energy to roll his eyes and “squeal“ for help. I knew there was a serious problem. I gasped and yelled “Douglas, come quickly something awful is happening to Petey. “
Douglas called out “What did you say?”
“I think Petey is having a seizure. I need you right now!”
“What is happening?”
“He’s having some kind of a seizure I think – look at him, this is not normal behavior for Petey! What are we going to do?”
“This does look serious, let’s call the vet. Better yet, let’s take him down to the vet right now.”
As we drove into the parking lot, there was our vet coming out of the office building. Douglas called to him and we both told him what had happened to Petey. He took Petey into the office to examine him. After the examination and some preliminary tests he said it looked like some kind of poisoning and he would need to keep him at the hospital for further tests.
The next day we went down to the vet hospital to meet with the doctor. He told us Petey was doing fairly well but not as well as expected and they would like to keep him at least another night. It was at this point that we talked to the doctor about our granddaughter Fernanda’s TBI. We discussed how stressed we were. We were hopeful that nothing serious was going on with our dog. We agreed to let him stay at the hospital.
It wasn’t until early the next week that the doctor told us it was not poison that had caused his problems but lupus.
“Lupus, you have got to be kidding,” I told the doctor. “I have never heard of an animal getting lupus. Is there a way to treat lupus?”
“Yes, but I must tell you that Petey is very weak right now. We have given him a blood transfusion and he is on an intravenous injection for medicine as well as nutrition.”
“Is he going to die?”
“We are going to just have to wait and see. It would be good for you to visit him daily but I feel because of your schedule it would be better to keep him at the hospital.”
When we visited Petey he was so happy to see us there. I would put him in my lap and smother him with hugs and kisses. His tail would wag slowly and the look in his eyes was so revealing. It was like he was saying to me, “Mommie, I want to come home with you. I need your love and support right now. Please don’t leave me in this hospital with dogs I don’t know, people that I don’t know. Please Mommie, bring me home!” It was excruciating to leave him behind as we walked out of the hospital but our time was also needed in the hospital where our granddaughter lay.
Then the unimaginable happened. Petey died.
“No, no God you wouldn’t let this happen. Not now. Not to our little doggie that we loved so much. No, no, no – this can’t be happening!!!” But, there was no answer, at least no answer that I could discern. Douglas and I were heartbroken. It just seemed like it could not be possible. Not to our little Petey who brought us so much love.
