It was Saturday morning during the summer and I had just finished putting the rubber bands around all of 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 Muttly 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 Muttly was always right behind her. You had to be really careful when you opened the door with Lady around, because if you didn’t she would run you right over. She was pretty big and very strong. Lady was a Doberman pinscher mixed with what some call “working Dobe” working Dobes were a little thicker and more muscular than your typical Doberman pinscher. Muttly was an old stray my aunt Judy had rescued from the streets.
My aunt had taken Muttly in and found out he was somewhat of a trouble starter. Judy already had two small dogs, one Yorkshire terrier named Alphie and a small, black miniature poodle name Angie after me. Muttly looked like he had some pit-bull in him and a couple of other things. He was black with two grayish white paws and a white chest. His right ear and his tongue were chipped, he had cataracts and he walked a little sideways. He also had epileptic seizures all the time.
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 Muttly and my mother decided to take him in. Muttly did not get along with other male dogs and although he was falling apart and old he was still very feisty, mean and horny.
My mother named Muttly and also called him sidewinder sometimes because of the way he swayed to the side a little when he walked. She also called him “Muttly, Buttly, Beasley, Corn-chip” because of the chips on his tongue and ear. Every dog we had ended up with our last name because of my mother. She called our dogs her hairy kids and told Odessa and I that they were our hairy brothers and sisters.
In the beginning Lady and Muttly did not get along, but they eventually became what mom called “running buddies”.
Ok, back to the story….So that day, Lady and Muttly and I headed out to deliver papers as usual. Even though Muttly was old as hell, walked sideways and could barely see, he did his best to keep up with Lady. Lady was strong and fast and full of energy.
With my bright orange, 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. Muttly 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 Muttly were already on the other side and then Lady bolted across Hamilton Avenue.
Hamilton Avenue was a pretty busy street and most drivers drove it at about 40 to 50mph. Trying to catch up with Lady, Muttly also started across Hamilton Avenue, but he wasn’t fast enough. A big lemon yellow, 4-door Lincoln Continental hit Muttly right in the side and sent him spinning in the air. His body dropped close to the curb. I watched it all happen. It happened so fast. I ran over to Muttly to see if he was dead or alive. I just knew he was dead. That Lincoln hit him at about 50mph and Muttly lay there motionless. The driver of the Lincoln didn’t even stop he just kept going. A few seconds later another man drove by and saw me hovered over Muttly crying, he jumped out of his car to see what was going on. He looked down and saw Muttly lying there. He then let out a sigh of relief and said, “Oh, its 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 Muttly to think about it. I look down at Muttly and started to cry. By then Lady had turned around and was standing by us trying to figure out what had happened. She looked at Muttly and the sniffed him and then ran back into our yard.
Muttly was bleeding from his butthole, and his left eyeball was hanging out of its socket and was dangling by a few veins and he didn’t appear to be breathing. I dragged Muttly out of the street and onto the sidewalk so that he wouldn’t get ran over again and quickly ran into the house to tell my mother what had just happened. 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, Muttly was just 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.
I uncovered Muttly and then looked down at him. He was a mess. I didn’t want him to be buried with his eyeball hanging out of its socket and I wanted to close his eyelids like they always do in the movies so I took a corner of the sheet and grabbed the eyeball and pushed it back into its socket. It plopped right 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 Muttly a proper burial so I went into the house to try to find something to keep Muttly’s eyeball in his head. The only thing I could find was Scotch Tape. So I grabbed the Scotch tape and ran back outside to fix Muttly’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 really 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 – right in the front yard.
When I was on about my 3rd shovel full of dirt, I looked over at the spot where Muttly lay and the sheet started to move. I thought I was going crazy, but then it moved again. It was like watching a ghost and scared me a little at first. The next thing I knew, the sheet was standing up. Muttly had somehow managed to get up. I dropped the shovel and took the sheet off of him. He was stumbling all over the place. I kept trying to get him to lay down, so that he wouldn’t hurt himself anymore. I couldn’t believe he was alive. I ran into the house and screamed, “Mom, Muttly’s alive, Muttly’s alive”! She said, “Oh my God, we gotta take him to the vet”. She grabbed her keys and told me to pick Muttly up and bring him to the car.
I grabbed Muttly and met my mother around back. She opened up the hatchback part of her green Chevette and we put Muttly inside. She looked at Muttly 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 was hanging out.
Muttly made it to the vet and they were able to put him back together. The vet bill was close to $2,000, which was a lot of money back in 80’s, but Muttly was back in action and that was all that mattered, at least to Mom.