It was a warm Saturday morning during the summer, and I just finished putting rubber bands around all the newspapers I had to deliver on my paper-route. I shoved the newspapers into my big canvas pouch that read “Columbus Dispatch” in big neon orange colors and headed out the door. My dogs, Lady and Muttley, stood right by the door dancing and prancing around. They loved accompanying me on my paper-route and couldn’t wait to get out the door.
This was our daily routine. And they both knew when I was wrapping up my papers that we would soon be headed on our long walk to deliver our papers.
Lady was always the first one to dash out the door and Muttley was always right behind her. You had to be careful when you opened the door with Lady around, because if you didn’t, she would run you right over. She was big and very strong.
Lady was a Doberman Pinscher mixed with what some call “working Dobe”. Working Dobes were more muscular than your typical Doberman Pinscher. Muttley was an old stray my aunt Judy rescued from the streets.
My aunt found Muttley and took him in but he was somewhat of a trouble starter and didn’t get along with other male dogs. She already had two small dogs; a Yorkshire Terrier and a small, black miniature poodle named Angie. Muttley looked like he had some pit-bull terrier in him and a couple of other things. He was black with two grayish white paws and a white chest. His right ear and tongue were chipped, and he had cataracts and walked funny – almost sideways. He also had epileptic seizures all the time. Needless to say, he was old and had seen better days.
Judy couldn’t keep him because of the conflict with her dogs and feared she might have to turn him over to the humane society. She called my mother and told her about Muttley and my mother decided to take him in.
Now, although Muttley was falling apart and old, he was still feisty, mean, and very horny. Every time he got out the house, we would find him stuck to some neighbor’s female dog. I know what you’re thinking but neutering a dog when you’re poor and lived in the ghetto back in the 70’s and 80’s just wasn’t a thing.
Because of Muttley’s weird, sideways walk, my mother also called him sidewinder, and “Muttley, Buttly, Beasley, corn-chip” because of the tears in his flesh on his tongue and ear that looked like chipped beef. We surmised he must’ve been in a bad dog fight to lose a chunk of his ear and tongue before we got him.
Every dog we had ended up with our last name “Beasley”. My mother thought it was cute. She called our dogs her hairy kids and told my sister and I that they were our hairy brothers and sisters.
In the beginning Lady and Muttley didn’t get along, but they eventually became what mom called “running buddies”.
Ok, back to the story…. So, this day, Lady, Muttley, and I headed out to deliver papers as usual. Even though Muttley was old as hell, walked sideways and could barely see, he did his best to keep up with Lady. Lady was strong, fast, and full of energy.
With my Columbus Dispatch bag in hand, I opened the front door and quickly moved to the side so that Lady could bolt out the door without running me over as she so often did. Muttley followed right behind her. They usually ran up ahead of me and knew the route just as well as I did. I crossed the street. Lady and Muttley were already on the other side and then Lady bolted across Hamilton Avenue.
Hamilton Avenue was a busy street and most drivers drove through it at about 40 to 50mph even though the speed limit was probably about 30mph. Trying to catch up with Lady, Muttley started across Hamilton Avenue, but he wasn’t fast enough. A big lemon yellow, 4-door Lincoln Continental hit Muttley right in the side and sent him spinning in the air. His body dropped close to the curb. It happened so fast. I ran over to Muttley to see if he was dead or alive. I just knew he was dead. That Lincoln Continental hit him at about 50mph and Muttley lay there motionless.
The driver of the Lincoln didn’t even stop to see what he hit. He just kept going. A few seconds later another man drove by and saw me hovered over Muttley crying, he jumped out of his car to see what was going on.
He looked down and saw Muttley lying there. When he realized it was a dog, he let out a sigh of relief and said, “Oh, it’s just a dog, I thought a child was hurt”, and then ran and jumped back into his car and sped off. I couldn’t believe his comment, but I was too worried about Muttley to think about it. I looked down at Muttley and started to cry. By then Lady had turned around and was standing by us trying to figure out what happened. She looked at Muttley and sniffed him and then ran back into our yard.
Muttley was bleeding internally, and it was coming out of his ears and butthole, and his left eyeball was hanging out of its socket and dangling by a few veins. He didn’t appear to be breathing. I dragged Muttley out of the street and onto the sidewalk so that he wouldn’t get run over again and quickly ran into the house to tell my mother what happened even though I didn’t want to tell her because I knew it would devastate her. But I had to.
I ran into the house and screamed out, “Mom, Muttley was hit by a car and he’s dead”. She ran out of her room, and said, “Oh my God, what happened”? I told her he had been hit and that the car that hit him just kept going. She asked me, “How do you know he’s dead”? I told her, “Because, he’s bleeding from his butthole, his eye is hanging out and he’s not moving or breathing”. She broke down and started crying and then told me to get a sheet or something and cover him up and drag him into our yard so that we could bury him.
I didn’t want her to have to deal with it, so I told her I would do everything. I grabbed a big white sheet and went back to the place where I had dragged him up onto the sidewalk. I covered him with the sheet and somehow managed to drag him into our front yard. Then I ran around to the back yard and got a shovel so that I could start digging his grave.
Before I started to dig, I uncovered and looked down at him. He was a mess. I didn’t want him to be buried with his eyeball hanging out of its socket. I wanted to close his eyelids like they do in the movies when people die. So, I took a corner of the sheet and grabbed his eyeball and pushed it back into its socket. It plopped back out. I grabbed it and pushed it back in again. It plopped out again. I became frustrated. But I was determined to get his eyeball back into its socket and to give Muttley a proper burial, so I went into the house to try to find something to keep his eyeball in his head.
The only thing I could find was Scotch Tape. I grabbed the Scotch tape and ran back outside to fix Muttley’s eyeball. Once again, I took his eyeball and placed it back into its socket. With my other hand, I managed to close his eyelid. Even though the eyeball was starting to swell, I managed to tape his eyelid shut. The tape didn’t stick to his fur very well, so I had to use long strips all the way around his entire head.
Once I had his eyeball taped in, I covered him back up with the sheet, grabbed the shovel and began digging the hole where he would be buried in the front yard.
When I was on about my 3rd shovel full of dirt, I looked over at the spot where he laid, and the sheet began to move. I thought I was crazy, but then it moved again. It was like watching a ghost get up and it scared me a little. The next thing I knew, the sheet was standing up.
Muttley had somehow managed to get up. I dropped the shovel and immediately took the sheet off him. He was stumbling all over the place. I kept trying to get him to lay down, so that he wouldn’t hurt himself more. I couldn’t believe he was alive. I ran into the house and screamed, “Mom, Muttley’s alive, Muttley’s alive”! She said, “Oh my God, we have to take him to the vet”. She grabbed her keys, ran out and started the car and told me to pick him up and bring him to the car.
I grabbed Muttley and met my mother around back. She opened the hatchback part of her green Chevy Chevette and we put Muttley inside. Then she looked at Muttley and turned around to me with a puzzled look on her face and said, “Why in the hell does he have tape around his head”? I explained to her that I had to tape his eye back into the socket because it kept popping out and was only being held on by a few veins. She just laughed and we headed off to the vet.
The vet was able to put him back together. The bill was close to $2,000, which was a lot of money in 80’s, but Muttley was back in action and that was all that mattered to us.