Unlikely Friends
For the two or three of you who haven’t heard me preaching for the last few years, my wife and I have an animal sanctuary. At one time, we had 55 animals. It’s down to about 30 now, but that’s still a lot. One of the animals we had early on was a crazy, half-wild dog named Bear. I even wrote a book about him and his companion, Whiskers. Here’s the cover. Bear is the black dog.
Let me set the record straight. Bear was not the best of dogs. We took him in because the neighbors were intent on sending him to the pound. He had bitten several people and was a terror of the neighborhood. He raided local farmers’ chickens, hunted his own food in the woods, and had a vendetta against all delivery men. He also “ran with” a local female mutt who was almost as bad (Princess).
The Inevitable Happened
Then, one day, Princess gave birth to nine adorable puppies. Against sage advice, we took one, and I was forever glad we did. The dog turned out to be one of the best dogs I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying a lot as I have seen quite a few.
He was friendly to a fault and seemed to love every person and animal. He played with the pigs, ran with the horse, taunted all of the dogs until they succumbed and played with him, but most surprising of all, he befriended a duck we had gotten. Yes, a duck. Something his father would have had for lunch.
He ran with this duck, played stick with it, and swam with it every day. Here’s one of the videos. The quality isn’t that great, but you can get an idea.
One of my favorite dogs, Slick, with his best friend, Louise the duck.
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Slick and Louise finishing their swim</font color=”red”>
Slick and Louise going for a walk</font color=”red”>
Slick and Louise swimming, their favorite pastime </font color=”red”>
Slick and Louise playing with a stick</font color=”red”>
The next morning, when Slick demanded to go out, he ran to her sleeping spot, but she wasn’t there. He then began searching the property. He went to the pond first, then he went into the woods. He must have looked for an hour. I called him numerous times, but he continued to look for her. It was obvious what he was doing.
I won’t go so far as to say he mourned her, but for several days, he didn’t go swimming, and he stayed in the house. After that, he returned to his normal personality but with one exception—he never went back to his daily swims.
Slick died not too long after from a rare fungal infection, and we buried him next to Louise on a small hill overlooking the pond.
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Giacomo Giammatteo is the author of gritty crime dramas about murder, mystery, and family. And he also writes nonfiction books, including Simply Put: The Plain English Grammar Guide and the No Mistakes Careers series as well as other books on grammar, fantasy, publishing, writing, and children’s fiction and nonfiction.
When Giacomo isn’t writing, he’s helping his wife take care of the animals on their sanctuary. At last count, they had forty animals—seven dogs, one horse, six cats, and twenty-five pigs.
Oh, and one crazy—and very large—wild boar, who used to take walks with Giacomo every day.
He lives in Texas, where he and his wife have an animal sanctuary with forty loving “friends.”
