I’ll never forget my first look at that shiny black, happy-faced dog we called Clyde.
Mike got up one morning and heard barking at the front gate. He opened the front door and saw what he thought was Princess, our black lab, outside the fence asking to be let in. He opened the gate. Four of our other dogs piled out through the doggie door into the front yard, and there was an instant gang of dogs playing and roughhousing. I came into the kitchen for my first cup of coffee. Mike asked me if I saw anything strange through the kitchen window. I didn’t until he took me through the living room and pointed to the dog bed in the corner. Princess was the only dog in the house at that moment, and she was sound asleep.
“Who the heck is that?” I asked him.
He relayed the earlier events.
“What are we going to do with another dog?” was my only comment. We already had five of them.
About that time, Melissa, my niece, came out of her bedroom rubbing her eyes to clear them of sleep. She looked through the kitchen windows and spied the new dog playing with the others. “Where did he come from?” she asked nobody in particular.
The other dogs trooped in through the doggie door into the living room and made their way to their favorite places to lie down. Clyde followed them in like he’d been doing it for years. He spied one 48-inch round dog bed in the corner, headed straight for it, and claimed it for his own. He lay down, flopped over on his back, flung his legs out as best he could, and fell promptly to sleep. We discovered he was a he. It was also obvious he recently had surgery to alter him because there was still a stitch exposed. Melissa woke the dog and began to play with him. “Can we keep him?” she begged.
The dog looked to be about a year old and nearly grown. He was a handsome dog in all respects. His black coat gleamed. He was in good weight. He wasn’t wearing a collar but had the appearance of being well cared for.
I looked at Melissa while she pleaded with her eyes. “Melissa, this dog belongs to someone. They’ve just had him altered. He’s healthy and in good shape. I bet there’s a young person your age who is missing their dog right now. Why don’t we put signs up in the neighborhood and see if we can’t find his owner?”
We spent an hour in the kitchen writing “Found Dog! Call to identify!” followed by our phone number on a stack of cheap paper plates. I grabbed the staple gun, and we drove through the neighborhood, tacking up signs.
We didn’t hear anything for three days. One of our neighbors saw the sign and came to the door, identified Clyde, apologized for his escape, and took him home.
The next morning, Mike heard the barking at the front gate and let Clyde back in. He flopped on his favorite dog bed and went to sleep. Mike called the neighbor at a decent hour. She picked him up and took him back home.
The next morning Clyde was waiting at the gate for Mike to let him in again. He stepped into his truck with Clyde behind him. Clyde hopped on in. Mike returned the dog to his home. Clyde was back at the front gate the following morning, as usual. Mike called the neighbor one more time.
“If he wants to be with you and you don’t mind keeping him, why don’t you just keep him?” the neighbor suggested. She went on to tell Mike a bit of his history. Relatives of hers in San Diego County paid quite a bit for the dog as a young puppy. They brought him home and put him in their back yard all by himself. They both worked during the day, so the puppy had the run of the yard. He was playful, of course, and as a Labrador Retriever, a natural water dog as well.
The relatives had built an extensive Koi pond in their back yard. The dog loved that Koi pond and enjoyed the Koi in it to death. Unfortunately for Clyde, the pond had cost them quite a bit to have built, and the Koi in it were expensive too. They were not too happy with the situation. Rather than spending money for training, or securing the Koi Pond Area from the dog, they decided to send him to their relative, our neighbor, for a year or two until he magically grew up and became a good dog. Our neighbor wasn’t vested in the dog, so she gave him to us.
Melissa was thrilled. She had a new dog to decorate for Christmas. She had a special dog to spend time with. Our cat found a buddy. Tiger slept on the dog bed with Clyde. The dog and the cat groomed each other. Clyde had his ears cleaned by a raspy cat tongue, and Tiger had his coat washed thoroughly by the dog.
Clyde was a natural escape artist, as we should have known because of the circumstances when he joined our family. He would escape between our legs if we opened the outside door.
He wandered through the neighborhood. There wasn’t a human being or another dog he didn’t like. He approached people and other animals with a friendly expression and wagging tail. He made friends all over the neighborhood. He had the lady up the street who gave him cookies. He had the lady that let him in her yard to play with her young dog for the afternoon. He had the couple who fed him weenies, and so many more.
We put a tag on his collar with his name and our phone number. When he disappeared, we waited for the call and drove over to pick him up. He was always glad to see us and hopped up into the truck like he’d been waiting for us for hours.
When our Australian Shepherd pup needed a friend, Clyde stepped up and became her personal chew toy. He was always patient with her until she was nearly grown. He never growled at her, but he did take off when she was too aggressive with him in her play.
He walked beside us to the barn, wagging his tail unless he spied a rabbit or a squirrel. He was off in a flash after it. He never caught one, but sure enjoyed the chase.
The saddest day at the ranch was when Clyde’s heart gave out on him. He was at the vet’s while they worked on him. They called us and gave him medication to keep his heart working until we got there. We got to spend his last minutes with him.
I know he is waiting for us at Rainbow Bridge. When our time comes to cross over, he’ll be there to escort us over, bright eyed and tail wagging as always.
