It was the Fifth of July. How did I know? Because my Facebook feed filled up with posters of lost pets. It happens every year. Dogs and cats (and horses and one year even an emu) get lost because they’ve run away from the noise and flash of Fourth of July fireworks. Not our little fat dogs, mind you. They’re relatively unflappable. Johnny says they’re too dumb to get scared.
But this year, with all the “bombs bursting in air” (Roman candles, M-80s, Black Cats and firecrackers, punctuated by the occasional “ratta-tat-tat” sound of our friendly neighborhood survivalists discharging their semi automatic rifles into the sky), even our dogs became frightened. By the time we turned in, Cookie and Pickle were trembling; big-eyed, hoping we would let them sleep in the bed. Ordinarily they don’t get to sleep with us but even my steely resolve melted under the warmth of a sad beagle’s eyes and Johnny lifted them up. Finally, between the comforting warmth of their humans, the dogs slept.
We woke the next morning to find tranquility restored so I took my tea in the garden. The dogs accompanied me – Fat Cookie snuffled around in the garlic patch, looking for a disappearing rabbit. Princess Pickle rolled languidly on a foul smelling thing she’d found in the grass. It was quiet – too early in the morning for the quarrelsome crows. Too early the shrill of the cicadas and the sawed off mufflers that announce the passing by of red neck boys. It was so quiet I could almost hear the blueberries ripening.
I settled into the chair and began to soak in the morning but was disturbed by the insistent barking of a dog. It wasn’t the neighborhood sheepdogs. Their deep-chested barks were easy to recognize. It wasn’t the golden retriever from across the street either. It was a stranger’s bark.
The little dogs and I walked down the road to investigate. We followed the barking for about half a mile and finally zeroed in on the source in a patch of Kudzu. From that thicket of leaves, a single bright eye looked back at us. It was bulldog, gray and white and stuck in the thicket.
I called Johnny and told him what we’d found. He gathered food & water, clippers to clear away the brush and came to help. Johnny talked to the dog first, soft and reassuring. The dog started to emerge from the leaves. His head was massive, powerful jaws, eyes fearful. His fur was sleek but his neck was bound with a too-tight chain imbedded in a hideous circle of torn flesh. Blood stained the white fur on his chest. We guessed that the fireworks from the night before had frightened the dog so badly that he had savaged his own neck to get free. Somehow that strong dog had escaped and run away, until the vines seized his dangling chain and caught him fast against the fence.
Johnny crossed the ditch, still sweet-talking. He held out the bowl of water for the dog to sniff. It drank greedily. While it drank Johnny disentangled the chain from the vines. Finally he got the chain free and handed it to me while he crossed the ditch. The poor creature was skittish and tried to bolt, pulling on that grisly chain. I held fast, knowing that we had to capture it to help it. I sweet-talked the dog back to the house, trying not to look at the gaping cut around its neck.
When we got him back to the house, we fed him. The dog ate ravenously. Then Johnny tried to cut the chain off. He asked me to help hold the dog still. I tried, but the wound smelt like raw meat and made me sick to my stomach. We struggled for a few minutes (bolt cutters aren’t the most nimble of tools), but somehow Johnny snipped through a link and the chain clattered to the ground.
I started to call Animal Control to come and get him but the dog took off down the road, trotting back toward what I thought must be where his people live – the same people that put that chain around his neck. As I watched him go, I said a quiet prayer for the bulldog, hoping that somehow he would be all right.
Today when we got home for lunch, we saw that the bulldog had returned. It stood in the driveway, wagging his tail, grinning at us. The terrible wound still gaped around his neck. We fed him and pinned him up safely in the laundry room, then called Animal Control. They sent an officer out straight away.
The man wasn’t afraid of the bulldog. He picked the animal up gently and put him into the cage in the back of his truck. Although I was relieved that someone else was going to take care of the dog, it still made me sad to see him go. I asked the officer, “Do you think they’ll have to put him down?” He smiled kindly, “Oh no. They’ll patch him up. We have several rescue organizations we work with that will find this boy a good home.”
The officer closed the tailgate, backed out of the driveway, and headed up the road. I watched them for a minute and I realized that my prayer had been answered. Amazingly, that bulldog was going to be all right.