| Fritzi
Pulling into the driveway of the forlorn looking farm, I remembered how different it appeared 20 years before. The house, now gray with age, had been a crisp white when my grandmother had been alive. The rose bushes, a scraggly weed-choked mess, had been trimmed and ablaze in color.
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But one thing was the same. A dog, a shepherd mix of some sort, was tied to a tree and stood watch over everything.
This dog was blacker than the last dog I remembered, Princey. But the dog appeared to be just as threatening as she barked and snarled at me. I was grateful |
for the chain that held her at bay.
"What's the dog's name?" I asked Uncle Gus, one of two lonely, angry brothers who still lived on the place.
"The dog has no name," he replied tersely. "It's Stanley's dog."
Later, I confronted Uncle Stanley. "You should give that dog a name," I said. "Even a dog deserves to have a name."
"The dog's name is Fritzi!" Stanley barked back, giving up the information more grudgingly than the big black dog with tan paws would have given up a bone -- if she had had one in the first place.
Each time I drove from New York City to the northern Connecticut farm, my pockets held jerky or biscuits or dog treats. Standing just out of Fritzi's reach, I would toss the morsel and she would catch the rare delicacy in her waiting teeth.
"You're spoiling her," Gus grumbled each time.
Stanley only glared. But I persisted, fearing that some day I might have to deal with this dog that intimidated me so thoroughly.
Stanley died.
Gus continued on as ever, keeping the dog for protection, keeping her tied up all the time.
Then word came that Gus had fallen ill and was hospitalized with congestive heart failure. After visiting the hospital, I went to the farm to check on Fritzi.
It had been almost a year since I had seen her and I wasn't prepared. She weighed about 40 pounds, not her former 75 to 80 pounds. The chain she was tied up with had become part of her neck, her skin and fur growing over it. Her front teeth were worn down to the gum, the result of having tried to gnaw off the chain.
"Oh, Fritzi," I lamented, realizing that the only humane thing to do would be to have her put out of her misery.
As I walked over to the tree to untie her, she wagged her tail, sat down and lifted up her paw to shake hands. With that one gesture, she saved her life. |
