Many moons ago I had an Alaskan Malamute named Shadow. She
was a very large dog. Her vet referred to her as a throw-back because her
appearance was so strikingly like her ancestors – the Alaskan wolf. She was
mostly white with a ghost gray streak down her back. As she aged, the gray in
her coat grew darker, but not by much.
Every year she shed her under coat that kept her warm in
winter. She really didn’t need the coat in Texas , but it was part of her nature. So,
every spring, we would do what was called “pluck the dog.” You could,
literally, gently pull on her coat and a huge wad of the soft hair would come
out. She loved it. She would lie at your feet for hours and let you pluck
fistfuls of hair to get her cool. It would take us weeks, and the hair would
have filled a copy paper box. One year we thought it would be easier to shave her.
We did so, but left her with a gray Mohawk down the middle of her back. She did
not like the way she looked and tried to hide until her beautiful coat grew
out. Try hiding a dog that weighed almost 100 pounds. Not easy.
Another thing about her and the heat was the fact that she
loved to put her feet in water to cool off. We gave her a baby pool to have in
the back yard for those times when she would be outside. You would find her sitting
in the grass with her front paws dipped in the pool to cool off. Winter was the
total opposite. She loved it. Before she would drink out of her water bowl, her
natural instinct was to pop the top of the water with her paw to break the ice.
I don’t think it ever iced over, and most of the time the bowl was in the
house. But that was her habit she inherited from previous generations.
I had started the routine of getting an ice cream from the ice cream
truck on the days I had to mow the yard. I usually bought two ice creams – one for me and one for Shadow. I would get a flavored pop and Shadow’s was plain vanilla.
On this day, engraved in my noggin forever, I was digging for change prior to the truck’s arrival and was rushing because I thought I was going to miss him. There was not a
chance of him passing by on this particular day. (Thirty minutes later and I would have been wishing he had.) It just so happened that the
house across the street from mine was getting a new roof. I raced outside to
discover that one of the roofers was holding the ice cream truck hostage in the
middle of the street with an air powered nail gun. He was buying time for his
buddies as they scrambled off the roof! (This confirmed the fact that we never grow up. The sound of that hideous music the ice cream truck plays - which can be heard above screeching fire engine sirens - strikes to our very core. No matter who we are or how old we are.)
On that unusually hot
day I sat out back under the tree, unwrapped Shadow’s treat and held it out for her to lick.
BAM! She snapped it with her tremendous jaws and it was gone. I had to wrestle
the stick from her. I thought, “Man, that was fast.” And proceeded to unwrap
mine. I started to put it to my mouth and she lunged for it. I said, “No Ma’am,
this is mine.” and swiftly turned so I could eat it. She was right on me, so I
jerked away and popped it toward my mouth with her trying to lick it at the
same time. Please take note that I was not intelligent enough to stand and run
away.
Have you ever placed your tongue on the bottom of a frozen,
metal ice cube tray? Yeah, you guessed it. I put that frozen ice cream to my
mouth in a swift turn. It promptly froze to my upper lip. Next thing I knew I was racing to the house with an ice cream frozen to my face, my lip trying to rip
off with every bounce as I ran for water. All the while this dog, who could stand
taller than me, was trying to snatch the treat. I made it to the kitchen to discover that I was too short to get my head under the sink tap to run water on
my lip to loosen the arctic goodie from my flesh. I had a flash of genius and
turned to the bathtub faucet.
Picture a small woman hanging over the bath tub, water running, and a giant dog climbing into the tub to lick the ice cream water
as it flowed like a creamy Niagran cascade of Dreamcicle. I am thankful I
didn’t have to call 911 to rescue me. There would have been a film at eleven. The clip would have been titled The Hound of the Dreyersvilles.
