A Most Unrepentant Dog

by Barbara O'Neal

Funny what memories Christmas will bring....

Once upon a time, I had a dog named Sasha. She was a pirate, a mixed something terrier,  about knee high with a wiry coat that never looked groomed, and a rascally Fu Manchu mustache.   I found her baking in the white hot summer sun in front of Safeway, a puppy who sort of looked like the German shepherd her owner said she was. 

I had a dog.  Had no intention of getting another one, but when I picked her up, she dropped her had on my shoulder and sighed, and that was that. 

She wasn't a German shepherd, of course, and my ex-husband hated her on sight. She returned the favor, and they had a war that lasted nearly fifteen years.  She was a three ring circus of a dog from day one, accomplished at trash diving and Olympic counter surfing, and she roamed the perimeter of the house every hour on the hour, in case some stray crumb might have fallen to the floor.  She was an exuberant, unapologetic, unrepentant scavenger.  

Eventually, she got old.  I thought she was done for one winter when she and my other dog Jack had a fight over cat food and she had a bloody gash that made me sure she'd lose an eye.  (Let it be said that she did emerge victorious—and the other dog got in trouble.)  The eye healed, but she looked even more the pirate with a patch.

But there was her ancientness, looming.

Just before Christmas that year, I was making cookies. I put a tray in the oven, then went around the corner, maybe 15 feet away, to hang a few more ornaments on the tree.  I heard a funny noise and ran back into the kitchen, and there was Sasha, sprawled flat on her belly, limbs splatted wide.  She was having a seizure, her whole body twitching and convulsing, and I thought….oh, this is it. Poor Sasha!

I fell on the floor next to her. Unsure of what I should do, I just put my hands on her, talking soothingly, telling her I loved her, and I put my hands on her sides to see if that would make her stop twitching, or at least make her feel less afraid. "I'm here, baby," I said, "I'm here."

When I lifted her slightly, it must have given her body a little help, because she suddenly heaved and coughed, and out of her mouth flew out a perfectly round ball of butter.  She'd stolen a whole stick off the counter and tried to get outside with it, but before she could make her getaway, the stick melted in her mouth, and settled in her throat, quite efficiently choking her.  When it landed on the floor, she scrambled as fast as she could to grab it again, but I was faster and nabbed it out of reach.  

She leapt up after it, and when she saw she had lost, her only expression was, "Curses! I almost made it."

Sasha's been gone awhile now, but every time I leave butter out on the counter to soften, I think of her and her unrepentant pirate spirit.  Maybe I'll leave some out for her ghost to steal.

Do you have a Christmas memory that comes up in a funny way?  Do you have a bad dog story?