Ponsón

Adopted 22 January 1976 in Tulsa – died 24 April 1988 in Tulsa

On an icy evening rush hour, leaving the grocery store on 15^th Street near Peoria I heard the yelp. In the dark, the driver may have not seen the gray dog now lying stunned in the middle of traffic ... but the thump? A dog, a pothole, a child ... “just let’s get the hell outta here, Pete!” Other drivers, equally blind or heartless, didn’t even slow down, let alone stop, to avoid hitting him again. His small body somehow stayed between the tires. I left the sac of groceries on the sidewalk and ran to the dog at the risk of being hit or bit. I picked him up and took him to my Honda 500. At that hour, sans $500 dollars to spare for the emergency clinic, there was nothing to do but take him home.

On closer inspection he had no apparent wounds. He had recovered enough to hide under the dining room server and meakly growl at inquisitive dogs and cats coming to check him out. Next morning Dr. Mike Lanning found nothing wrong but bruising, estimating his age at about two years old. No collar ... no luck door-to-door ... no “lost” notice ... no responses to “found” notice. Once again, with unassailable logic I reasoned that it was easier to keep him than to find a good home.

His cuteness –shaggy dogs always are— was highly motivating. Right-sized at about 30 lbs, docile, and the most endearing manner of looking askance -- exposing a whole lot of the white -- when he wasn’t sure of what was expected of him. Irresistible. Pack mates Majo (blogged 8 OCT 2011),  Xuska (blogged 2 JUL 2012), and the cats deemed him unobtrusive. Bob-X saw him as reparations for Bruja (blogged 10 JUN 2012).

Names matter; they contribute to the personality by association. Blithely I called the adorable cur “Potpourri” to denote the bouquet of breeds he was. “Purri” for short eventually evolved to “Ponsón” -- the creation of friend Diana McAninch, who also tried to persuade him to run away with her to Chicago. Because all my dogs since Majo have had their own chant, Ponsón got his “Ponsín-Ponsón-Ponsín-Ponsón- ....” ad infinitum, which would launch him into a happy twirl of expectation of who-knows-what.

With Bonus (blogged 26 APR 2015) there was a cordial David vs Goliath relationship. With Xuska and later Jefe (blogged 22 FEB 2017) a symbiotic coexistence. Whatever circumstances led Ponsón under a car, he ended up in a better place.

With Jefe and Bonus

Ponsón’s happy existence was marred only by his propensity for hot spots which quickly became extensive and severe – raw and oozing as if excoriated. It was alarming but Dr. McCoy had good results with a compounded ointment to be applied at the first sign of redness. It worked for a while.

What started as another systemic infection on a Friday, rapidly degenerated into a total system failure, mainly of the kidneys. By Sunday Ponsón’s chest was raw on both sides despite the ointment.  Unable to leave his bed, his suffering was obvious and ending it couldn’t wait until morning. Ever-faithful Dr. McCoy came to the house.

Finding the vein took time. When the poison finally hit blood, Ponsón howled; sounded like a woman attacked. McCoy was visibly upset; the dog kept screaming. His expressive playful eyes were now crazy open and damning. It was the worst version of the rare 5% euthanasia procedures that go wrong.

Emotionally drained, Dr. McCoy didn’t spew platitudes like “He didn’t feel it; body reflexes don’t equate with suffering...” vets reach for in such instances. Ponsón stopped suffering at 7:05 PM.

Such was the frightful ending of my congenial and much remembered Ponsín-Ponsón.