The Little Dog Abby

Dad’s second-to-last dog was a little mutt named Muffy. My friends the Medrano sisters found her abandoned on a busy street in Colton. They thought that she needed to be rescued and that Dad needed a dog for company.

Muffy was a happy dog. She didn’t jump up on people when they came to the house; instead, she would rat-tat-tat her feet on the floor like a staccato drum-set.

We tried, but we couldn’t train Muffy to stay out of the street. One day, that killed her.

My twin, Peter, hated to see our tender-hearted old father heartbroken. So he found Dad a new puppy. She was little and white, and Peter chose her because she was the shyest among her brothers and sisters. Peter figured that a meek, quiet dog would suit our meek, quiet Dad.

Peter surprised Dad with her one night. Dad was as happy as a ten-year-old boy with his first puppy. He named her Abby.

Dad loved Abby, and Abby loved Dad. When he napped, she napped. When he watched television, she sat on his lap. They ate dinner at the same time.

Dad's home-health-care aide would take Abby in the backyard and throw a ball to exercise her. But unless Dad was there watching, Abby and the aide just watched the ball bounce into the distance. But if Dad was there, Abby happily and vigorously chased the ball.

Abby loved to run. That’s what she did when she was happy and excited. She would run back-and-forth from room to room, or up and down the hallway.

She would run in the front yard. But the front yard had tricky terrain. Sometimes Abby would miscalculate her trajectory over one of the low rows of decorative bricks. Then, she would trip her feet on a brick and tumble all catawampus.

In his last years, I was Dad’s evening-and-night care-giver when his regular care-giver went home. I would cook his dinner; I would make sure he did not fall; I would help him choose a channel when he lost the ability to understand and operate the television remote-control. I put him to bed.

One day, dad broke his hip. He had hip-replacement surgery, and he went to a convalescent center to recover. I knew he missed Abby, so I asked the personnel there if I could bring Abby for visits. They said that I could, so I did. It was good for both Dad and Abby.

After I started bringing Abby, other people also started bringing their bed-ridden loved-ones’ dogs. Apparently, until then nobody had thought to ask if it was alright to bring pets.

One day, a woman came into Dad’s room. She asked for a favor. She said that her mother was in one of the other rooms, and that her mother’s dog had died while she was in the convalescent center. She wanted to know if Abby could visit her mother? The visit took place, and the visit with Abby made the frail woman happy.

Dad died in the convalescent center shortly after that – a complication from his surgery. We grieved Dad, but we also worried that Abby would not get over Dad’s death.

But in the time that I cared for Dad, Abby had bonded closely with me. She became my dog.

Peter and I lived in our Dad’s home while starting our law practice. We stayed in it after Dad died.

But it was a problem that we couldn’t take Abby to work (she desecrated the carpets there). And staying home alone traumatized her. When I visited her during the noon-hour, she would be upset and be hiding under hanging clothes in my closet, and she wouldn’t come out to greet me.

The cure was a new dog – a puppy, Bella – to keep Abby company. They became good friends, and Abby stopped being upset when she stayed home.

In time, Peter forfeited his life-long bachelorhood and married Tanya, his bride from Belarus. Peter and Tanya decided that they needed privacy for their marriage to thrive, so I moved out. I left little Abby behind. It was for the best – she had more company with Bella and Tanya than she would have had if she had stayed alone during the day in my house.

I visit Abby. Abby has grown old. The once little running dog now scarcely moves around. Sometimes I stop at the old house in a rush on the way to another appointment. Abby wants to come to the door to visit with me, but her old body doesn’t take her around well. When I come by the old house in a rush, she wants to see me, but she has to be disappointed.

When I do see her, I see how old she is. One of her eyes is milky; the other is a little milky. When she sits, I watch her slowly put her fanny on the floor, and the effort and languid pace of that operation reminds me of the space shuttle docking with the space station. She no longer runs. She wears a diaper, and Tanya cuts a hole in the diaper for her tail. Her tail is what tells me that she’s happy to see me.

Tanya’s mother visits from Belarus. Abby loves Tanya’s mother. She follows Tanya’s mother around the house as best she can, and, at night, she follows Tanya’s mother into her bedroom and sleeps next to her. I don’t know where this affection sprung from so suddenly. Maybe – maybe – Tanya’s mother somehow reminds Abby of Dad.

I don’t know. But I’m always glad when Tanya’s mother visits, because it’ s a happy time for Abby. Abby is old and I should visit her more often.

Through the years, Abby has been a living link to Dad. When she's gone, that link will be severed.