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{SFTH} *Shep The Wonder Dog* 5/23/01
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SHEP THE WONDER DOG
By Mark Crider
Shep looked big as a car to a four-year-old. He belonged to the people
across the street from the Clarks who lived three houses down from us
towards Oak Park. They didn't really own him. The way we looked at it,
he was the property of all us little brats that lived on Oak Park Avenue
during the war. My mother said he was a German Police Dog and anything
German or Japanese was bad back then. I would always bring it up that we
were German and she would say, "Go on outside and play."
Looking back, Shep was a pretty smart dog. He could chisel you out of
most of your sandwich, cookies, or whatever you had, but he couldn't get
much of our Fleer's Double Bubble gum. It had just been invented and
sold for a penny a piece. When Plemon's store had it, they would only
allow one piece per person from a shipment. I guess sugar rationing was
still on. We brats in the neighborhood -- guess there were ten or more
of us -- remind me today of Our Gang, with me playing Spanky. I was
always into deep doo for something, however good or bad it might be.
Most of us had Radio Flyer wagons that we could pull around.
They were all in different stages of disrepair, but we had figured out
how to jam a stick into the spot where the handle joined the front wheel
yoke and the handle would stick up about the height of Shep's back. We
would tie a rope to this, then put a loop around Shep's body and he
would pull us around like the stagecoach horses in the movies. We would
all take turns riding when we would go to Oak Park. Each of us would
get to be pulled five or so house lengths then another would get in for
their turn. Seemed like this went on for the longest till one day we
brats found out that the neighbors that owned him were moving and we
inquired if they had kids where they were moving to for Shep to play
with. They said that they wouldn't be able to take him with them and
were going to give him to the pound. Talk about a bunch of unhappy kids,
but when we found out that they kill dogs that are there for a few days
and aren't adopted, a bowl of Prozac for breakfast wouldn't have made
our spirits any better.
A new family was moving in down the street. I had seen them for a few
days now, going back and forth in and out of the house carrying stuff
from a little trailer behind their car. They had a little girl and I
noticed that she was always sitting on the porch or in the shade of a
tree in the front yard and her mother carried her everywhere. Being the
nosy type, I went and started asking questions, introducing myself and
the rest of the gang. Then I asked if the little girl she must have
been my age could go to the park and play with us. We all had
permission to go and the mothers between here and the park watched as we
made our journey to play, then returned. She told us that she had to
carry Gloria everywhere because she had had polio and that she couldn't
carry her that far. Bingo! We went and got a wagon, hooked it up to
Shep, and rode up like Roy Rogers to save the day. We took her to the
park every day, put her in the swings, pushed her on the merry-go-round,
and did doubles on the seesaws because she couldn't use her legs.
Then the dark day loomed, the folks were moving the next day and we
didn't know what to do. We just sat around moping, sometimes crying
because we were going to lose Shep. Holy Cow, they were going to kill
him. We all begged our parents till they threatened us with our lives to
let us adopt Shep, all to no avail.
We were all sitting on the curb in front of my house, in total tears and
runny noses, watching the people loading the last of their stuff when I
had this brainstorm. "Let's go sneak a bunch of groceries from our
houses, put them in a wagon, hook Shep up to the
wagon and take them to Gloria's house, then tell her mom that if she
will adopt Shep, we can keep playing with her in the park and we will
furnish all his food. Her mother looked us over in silence; I guess
looking at our dusty, tear-streaked faces from our sitting by the street
all morning crying. I could see tears starting to well up in her eyes as
she looked at the wagon piled up high with food. Cans of everything
imaginable, Spam, spinach, corn, packages of bologna, loaves of bread,
just everything. Shep just stood there, waiting for a command to do
something. I finally said, "They are going to kill him if you don't.
Then we won't be able to take Gloria to the park and play with her
either, someone else chimed in.
She said, and the words hung like a dark cold cloud over us as she
paused, "I guess we'll just have to keep him then. Hooray! We all
started dancing around, shouting and carrying on. She finally said for
us to take the food back home, that she would get
regular dog food for Shep. Several of us said we didn't want to because
we didn't like the stuff anyway, but she insisted.
Well, time rocked on and, lo and behold, Gloria's father came home with
a puppy that looked like a little Shep. He said that older dogs train
younger ones to do things easier than people do and they have a better
attitude toward their work when they learn from
other dogs. It must be true because it wasn't long before "Miss Doogey"
and Shep were competing to get hooked up to pull Gloria or any of us in
the wagon. Mr. Sullivan built a miniature buggy in his garage, just like
in the movies, to fit on a sidewalk. It had two poles and traces to hook
up Shep and Miss Doogey, and they would bring Gloria everywhere we went
so she could play with us.
I have some pictures of that somewhere, probably in my mother's old
cedar chest. I think I'll get one out and frame it. Might remind me from
time to time why I always take food and stuff to P.A.L.S. where they
save animals instead of killing them.
Mark Crider
cccoat@swbell.net
Send Mark an e-mail and let him know what you thought of his story!
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Sandra and I live in West Corpus Christi Texas on our sanctuary that is
frequented by folks on the 'Birders Trail'. Migrating hawks roost and
share the property with ducks, swans and other nervous inhabitants when
they are around.
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Thought For The Day:
"People are alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ."
Verse for the Day:
"Many a man claims to have unfailing love, but a faithful man who can find?"
Proverbs 20:6
Kid's Thought for the day:
"A 5-year-old girl was explaining how the brain works, by
making other parts of your body move. Her dad asked her how the
messages travel down the spinal cord, and she explained that
there are nerds in there that carry the messages."
Parent's Thought For The Day
"Babies leak. From both ends." --Bruce Lansky
Coach's Thought For The Day
"Football is a game in which there are 22 players on the field
desperately in need of rest, and 65,000 people in the stands
desperately in need of exercise."
Deep Thought For The Day:
It's always bothered me when people say "It's always in the last
place you look." Of course it is. Why would you keep looking
after you've found it? Do people do this?
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REQUESTS:
Dear Michael and SFTH readers. I want to take this time to thank you for the many e-mailes that you sent letting me and my family know that you were praying for my Daddy ( Roy Shelton ) He is doing some better but still needs prayer. His lungs are just so bad that the Dr's tell us that his breathing will only get worse with time he is 81. I believe in the power of prayer and God's perfect will to be done. I Love my daddy very much and I am sure God will take care of him and when it is time God will give me the strength to except. Dads blood suger is still up and down so please remember this also when you have your prayer time. I again want to thank all of you may God- Bless you ever so much.
Working for His Kingdom, In Jesus Name. Mira Shropshire, Reidsville NC
jimmira@earthlink.net
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/_/\/\ MICHAEL T. POWERS
\_\ / THUNDER27@aol.com
/_/ \ "For I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but
\_\/\ \ Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live for the Son
\_\/ of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Galatians 2:20
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