She was crouching at the end of a run. I squatted, beckoned her, and she came crawling, trickling pee but advancing toward her one chance. She rested her quivering head on my knees looking up as if asking permission.
Here was a dainty white dog with black spots – a blend of tough, faithful, alert, fun-loving curs from southern Spain – who had spent the first year of life in hell: Emaciated, ravaged by mange, and brutally beaten, she had been discarded like garbage in a ravine. A British tourist happened to see her and rushed the dying dog to the area’s only veterinarian, in San Pedro de Alcántara, Dr. Salvador Simó Bosch. Putting a substantial sum of pesetas (precursors of the doomed euro) the good Samaritan instructed: “Get her well and find her a home; I’m leaving the country.”
He provided emergency treatment and long-term care to clear the mange and bring her back to health. The money Dr. Simó had received didn’t cover a fraction of what he did for her, which is all the more commendable in a place where, due to the abundance of homeless dogs, chances of finding a home were nil. And so she sat alone in the sterile environment of the clinic, where she first experienced peace and regular meals, albeit behind bars.
Let me set the stage: (1) Majo (see bio) was the light of my life, but he was Bob-X’s dog. Looking for one of my own we bought a Fox Terrier pup, “Chuleta” (see bio), who soon died. (2) We passed over a young female Airedale at a “dog market” because she limped – which is precisely why we should have saved her from being killed as bad merchandise. I regret it every time I see an Airedale. (3) We abducted a brown German Wirehair mix dog from the streets of Marbella. She wasn’t feral but she was born free; there was no ending to her crying and scratching at the door and pulling away until we returned her to her haunts in the restaurant district ... failing to spay her before doing so. We were short on perseverance and long on ignorance. (4) I still wanted my own dog.
Back to the story: I was paying for Majo’s annual shots when without much thought I told the vet that if ever he knew of a healthy female dog ... “It so happens...” he said pointing toward the back. And so I met my dog, which I called “Xuska” -- a derivative of “chusco” which in Spanish means a chunk of crusty bread. We left the clinic together; Xuska at the end of a borrowed rope, eager and with the attitude of one who has just hired a body guard. Bob was waiting with Majo in the parking lot. He took a long drag of his Marlboro and said, “What is this!?”
“Our dog, Xuska.”
“Oh no ....”
“Oh yes.”
Following our example, Majo, an equal-opportunity aggressor toward males and females, growled. Xuska was not going to take no shit from nobody no mo’, and growled back. Despite my best efforts to keep them separate in the cavernous 1972 Landrover SIII, they got into a bloodless brawl. Bob-X stopped the car; “She goes back,” he said. “We both go.”
Xuska did nothing to win Bob over. She disliked men and interlopers from North Africa in particular. She could sniff one in a crowd well before we saw him, becoming agitated and aggressive as he approached. It is a reasonable assumption that her abuser may have had equal contempt for dogs, as people of the Maghreb often do.
Other than an unobstructed view of the Mediterranean and the Atlas Mountains in Africa, living in a highrise apartment had no advantages. We walked the dogs five times a day. Instead of eating lunch at the office, I’d go home to run them in a nearby field, but one day the dogs had vanished from the apartment. Puzzlement then panic. The porter, an unsavory little man, had used his pass key to snoop. I found Majo running in the customary field, but Xuska ... Edificio Gibralfaro faced the N-340 highway that runs along the Costa del Sol and it was paved more with road kill than asphalt. Search parties of friends set off in different directions. One, two days went by ... encouraged only by the fact that there was no white fur on the road.
We had done everything except call the vet who first treated her, warning him that she may be brought in injured .... There was a silence and then he said “She is here.” Xuska had been hit right in front of our building. There were several witnesses but only one rescuer -- once again a British lady (and I use the word advisedly, because I met her and she deserved the honorific) who lived across the highway from us. She was helping her paraplegic husband out of bed when she heard the yelping. She looked out of the balcony and saw a dog lying motionless in the middle of two-way, high- speed, merciless traffic. Still in her nightgown, she grabbed the car keys, ran downstairs, and in a life-defying dash whisked the dog out of the road and drove her to the one-and-only vet clinic, 15 miles away. Once there, she left her name and phone number and ran back to her helpless husband – a gentleman who fully understood that he came second to an injured dog.
“Oh no ....”
“Oh yes.”
Following our example, Majo, an equal-opportunity aggressor toward males and females, growled. Xuska was not going to take no shit from nobody no mo’, and growled back. Despite my best efforts to keep them separate in the cavernous 1972 Landrover SIII, they got into a bloodless brawl. Bob-X stopped the car; “She goes back,” he said. “We both go.”
Xuska did nothing to win Bob over. She disliked men and interlopers from North Africa in particular. She could sniff one in a crowd well before we saw him, becoming agitated and aggressive as he approached. It is a reasonable assumption that her abuser may have had equal contempt for dogs, as people of the Maghreb often do.
Other than an unobstructed view of the Mediterranean and the Atlas Mountains in Africa, living in a highrise apartment had no advantages. We walked the dogs five times a day. Instead of eating lunch at the office, I’d go home to run them in a nearby field, but one day the dogs had vanished from the apartment. Puzzlement then panic. The porter, an unsavory little man, had used his pass key to snoop. I found Majo running in the customary field, but Xuska ... Edificio Gibralfaro faced the N-340 highway that runs along the Costa del Sol and it was paved more with road kill than asphalt. Search parties of friends set off in different directions. One, two days went by ... encouraged only by the fact that there was no white fur on the road.
We had done everything except call the vet who first treated her, warning him that she may be brought in injured .... There was a silence and then he said “She is here.” Xuska had been hit right in front of our building. There were several witnesses but only one rescuer -- once again a British lady (and I use the word advisedly, because I met her and she deserved the honorific) who lived across the highway from us. She was helping her paraplegic husband out of bed when she heard the yelping. She looked out of the balcony and saw a dog lying motionless in the middle of two-way, high- speed, merciless traffic. Still in her nightgown, she grabbed the car keys, ran downstairs, and in a life-defying dash whisked the dog out of the road and drove her to the one-and-only vet clinic, 15 miles away. Once there, she left her name and phone number and ran back to her helpless husband – a gentleman who fully understood that he came second to an injured dog.
Xuska had a broken leg, broken ribs, and a nearly severed tongue ... her
listlessness, however, was most concerning. Could it be internal bleeding,
concussion? I took her home for observation. Walking into the building with
Xuska in Bob’s arms I approached the porter: “Next time my dogs get out I
will kill you; you can be sure of that.”
She recovered and in the process I learned: (1) When a dog refuses even home-made chicken broth, try vanilla ice cream. It’s irresistible. (2) Dogs on a front-leg cast can run as fast as any other dog. Xuska did. (3) Once the cast comes off, swimming is the best therapy. (4) Never give up looking for your lost dog and contact all area vets!
After one year, almost to the date, of living in Marbella, we ran out of money. Because we couldn’t afford two airplane tickets, Bob returned to the USA with Majo to live with his father in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and find a job; I moved to Barcelona with Xuska to live with my parents and reconsider. This could have been the way out of a marriage that should have remained a friendship. I was surprised when Bob called asking me to join him. “Xuska can stay with your parents” he suggested. “So can I.”
I will say it again: There is only one excuse to not take your companion animals wherever you go: You are dead.
A funny thing happened on the way to America. Xuska and I landed at Kennedy International, where we would take a cab and go to La Guardia to catch a flight to St. Luis then Tulsa. This connection per se was touch-and-go, but with a dog and huge luggage it was insane. Let’s go by parts:
All luggage had been picked up and the conveyor belt came to a halt. Xuska’s custom-made plywood crate, which was large enough for a steer in those pre-airline-regulation kennels, was nowhere to be seen. I asked every airport employee “Have you seen a crate ....?” My luggage and coat were unattended in the middle of a concourse and I was running aimlessly, asking, asking .... Then I saw the crate rolling on the tarmac (to which I had no access) on a luggage train headed for another plane. I accosted yet another airport employee, pointed at the crate and cried “Stop it!”
She recovered and in the process I learned: (1) When a dog refuses even home-made chicken broth, try vanilla ice cream. It’s irresistible. (2) Dogs on a front-leg cast can run as fast as any other dog. Xuska did. (3) Once the cast comes off, swimming is the best therapy. (4) Never give up looking for your lost dog and contact all area vets!
After one year, almost to the date, of living in Marbella, we ran out of money. Because we couldn’t afford two airplane tickets, Bob returned to the USA with Majo to live with his father in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and find a job; I moved to Barcelona with Xuska to live with my parents and reconsider. This could have been the way out of a marriage that should have remained a friendship. I was surprised when Bob called asking me to join him. “Xuska can stay with your parents” he suggested. “So can I.”
I will say it again: There is only one excuse to not take your companion animals wherever you go: You are dead.
A funny thing happened on the way to America. Xuska and I landed at Kennedy International, where we would take a cab and go to La Guardia to catch a flight to St. Luis then Tulsa. This connection per se was touch-and-go, but with a dog and huge luggage it was insane. Let’s go by parts:
All luggage had been picked up and the conveyor belt came to a halt. Xuska’s custom-made plywood crate, which was large enough for a steer in those pre-airline-regulation kennels, was nowhere to be seen. I asked every airport employee “Have you seen a crate ....?” My luggage and coat were unattended in the middle of a concourse and I was running aimlessly, asking, asking .... Then I saw the crate rolling on the tarmac (to which I had no access) on a luggage train headed for another plane. I accosted yet another airport employee, pointed at the crate and cried “Stop it!”
He did. Eventually the crate was rolled into the concourse with a wild Xuska
inside, who could have ended as “fragrant meat” in Hong Kong, where she
was headed. As I tried to leash her she slipped my grip and ran. Dodging
people, slipping and sliding, frenetic, she ran and ran and ran. Usain Bold
couldn’t catch a dog, much less so in stilettos and a tight skirt, but I ran as
fast as I could following her path by observing from a distance where heads
were turning and even the attempts of a few good men at catching her.
Suddenly she veered from the concourse into a corridor that led to an office.
She had entered --what are the chances-- the very place where her papers
would be validated; the expert USDA officer slammed the door. Formalities
over, she got a treat, she peed on the floor, and we were on our way.
In those Halcyon days of 1973 the crate and the luggage were undisturbed where I left them in pursuit of Xuska. Would this still be true today? Somehow I arrived to the taxi line pushing three huge suitcases and the ill-conceived 3x3-ft crate while pulling the still frenzied dog. One by one the cabbies turned us down. The last cab belonged to a Brooklyn-bred man in his 50s. He felt my pain. He tied the monster crate to the top, crammed the suitcases inside with me, and sat Xuska by his side. Finally in a friendly environment, Xuska accepted the salami sandwich he fed her bite by bite while he pointed at the distant landmarks for my benefit. “Don’t worry! It will be tight, but you’ll make it.” And so we did. He refused payment much less a tip. I will never forget him.
In Tulsa, Xuska was my friend through thick and thin. She was also my parents’ friend while I worked in Chicago and they were alone in Tulsa. She was bullet-proof, her intelligence unerring. But life –to paraphrase Isak Dinesen — is an exquisitely effective machine to turn playful, bouncy puppies into blind, sickly old dogs.
My parents and I pampered her. Then, one day she started breathing like she had run a race ... and she had: life. I sat by her bed reminding her of our past feats. Eventually her breathing became sparse and in a couple of hours she expired. As she lay in state in the main living room, my grief, fueled by copious drinking, reached Wagnerian heights. But for once I had no regrets. I had been fair to my Xuska, my Chewy, my Boogy ...
If there were eternal life, I'd like to spend it with all the nonhumans I’ve loved, helped, or should have helped, and those I killed. But if granted only one companion for eternity ... it would have to be Xuska.
In those Halcyon days of 1973 the crate and the luggage were undisturbed where I left them in pursuit of Xuska. Would this still be true today? Somehow I arrived to the taxi line pushing three huge suitcases and the ill-conceived 3x3-ft crate while pulling the still frenzied dog. One by one the cabbies turned us down. The last cab belonged to a Brooklyn-bred man in his 50s. He felt my pain. He tied the monster crate to the top, crammed the suitcases inside with me, and sat Xuska by his side. Finally in a friendly environment, Xuska accepted the salami sandwich he fed her bite by bite while he pointed at the distant landmarks for my benefit. “Don’t worry! It will be tight, but you’ll make it.” And so we did. He refused payment much less a tip. I will never forget him.
In Tulsa, Xuska was my friend through thick and thin. She was also my parents’ friend while I worked in Chicago and they were alone in Tulsa. She was bullet-proof, her intelligence unerring. But life –to paraphrase Isak Dinesen — is an exquisitely effective machine to turn playful, bouncy puppies into blind, sickly old dogs.
My parents and I pampered her. Then, one day she started breathing like she had run a race ... and she had: life. I sat by her bed reminding her of our past feats. Eventually her breathing became sparse and in a couple of hours she expired. As she lay in state in the main living room, my grief, fueled by copious drinking, reached Wagnerian heights. But for once I had no regrets. I had been fair to my Xuska, my Chewy, my Boogy ...
If there were eternal life, I'd like to spend it with all the nonhumans I’ve loved, helped, or should have helped, and those I killed. But if granted only one companion for eternity ... it would have to be Xuska.
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