Dad put little pieces of cardboard all around the living
room so that Lucky would not bump himself on the furniture. He was still
dangerous though and could inflict a savage bite. Velvet was no better; she
also bit and continuously issued odorous flatulence. Poor Lucky suffered a
stroke. (I guess his name “Lucky” was not very fitting.) Dad, who is a doctor, took the dog to the vet.
The vet sadly told Dad that poor old Lucky’s time had come. The stroke had
paralyzed the dog from the waste down, or the middle back, I guess. But my
father could not bear to let Lucky go. He kept the dog alive for another five
years. He had to take the dog out to the yard and actually lift its leg for the
poor animal to pee. The barking stopped but when ever I called dad on the phone
I could hear Lucky’s pitiful wail in the background:
“rooough….rooough”.
“Dad, why don’t you put him to sleep?” I would ask.
“He’s happy, Gar”
“He’s brain dead,
Dad!” It was not until my dad discovered a family of maggots living in the
sheath of Lucky’s penis that my father finally saw that it was time to part
with his beloved pet. I was thankful that he did not decide to raise the
maggots as pets also.
I
phoned my dad one night at eight but he was sleeping.
“You’re already asleep?” I asked.
“I gotta get up at
4” he told me.
“Why?”
“I have to walk Velvet before anyone else in the
neighborhood gets up,” he explained.
Recently I saw that my father had a pretty serious bite
on his hand. When I asked about it he said “It was my own fault, I tried to
touch Merry.”
Velvet has had serious and expensive health problems
since they brought the dog home from the pet shop. They have spent thousands on
vet bills in the last 10 years. On a recent visit to my father’s house I asked
if I could spend the night. Dad said “sure” and led me into the master bedroom.
“But this is your room” I said.
He said “no it’s fine we don’t use this room.” He
explained to me that the dog hurt its paw. “We couldn’t figure out at first how
the dog hurt his paw until we realized the bed was too tall and it hurt Velvet
to jump off the bed in the morning. The dog sleeps with Merry”, he added. So Dad convinced Merry to sleep on an air
mattress on the floor of living room so that the dog would not have to deal
with their huge comfortable king size bed, thus making it available to me.
“Where do you sleep?” I asked my father.
“Oh, I sleep on the couch on my office.” This is a little
wicker couch about 4 feet long in which this 80 year-old man sleeps with his
feet stretched out on a card chair. He’s happy, Gar.
