When I was in sixth grade my family owned a dog named Holly. My parents introduced her to me when I was too young to appreciate a sweet, loving mixed-breed dog.
Holly was a fifty-pound poodle-fox terrier. She had long, shaggy, gray, matted hair. My father had to give her many baths in our bathroom upstairs. In the wintertime, he gave her a sweatshirt to wear and she proudly ran downstairs to show us her new look as we were sitting around by the fire. She was wagging her tail and strutting her stuff because we said she looked cute in the #12 jersey. But when she jumped on my mother’s lap she almost broke the chair. “Oh, Holly,” my mother said as she moaned underneath the licks and the claws. “Get off!” she yelled and Holly reluctantly obeyed. “She thinks she’s a lap-dog,” my mother joked and everybody laughed and Holly sensed that she was accepted again.
Holly barely passed the test as an indoor-outdoor dog. She ran with my friends and me through the woods and all over the neighborhood but when my best friend’s labrador retriever swam with us in the river and started pulling us around by the tail, Holly got jealous and started barking like crazy. She didn’t like the water. Our golden and my friend’s lab swam around and chased geese and ducks but she wouldn’t so much as put a paw in the water. She made up for it, though, by barking all night because we made her sleep in the garage. The neighbors yelled, “Shut the mutt up!” but my parents refused to let her in and I got angry.
Holly took her watchdog responsibilities way too seriously. She harassed everyone and barked at the paperboy all the way to town. He was a popular kid in my class and I was embarrassed as he angrily complained about what happened.
Soon after that I was riding my bike with Holly in the neighborhood and I said, “Ya wanna run, Holly? Ya wanna run?” and she was excited because she thought I wanted to play with her. “Come on! Let’s run!” I challenged her and she followed me as I rode up a long hill. “Come on, Holly!” I taunted her. “Come on!” She barked and chased me all the way up the hill. When I got to the top I turned my bike around and headed down, as fast as I could. “Come on, Holly! Come on!” She was running with me and barking. “Come on, Holly!” I repeated all the way down the hill and she got winded and started to growl. I was effortlessly flying downhill and saliva was coming out of her mouth. She was foaming and trailing as I said, “You’re not so fast, now, are you?” while trying to keep my eyes on the road (keeping a watch out for cars) and looking at her for her reactions at the same time. When she started falling behind and growling at me I thought my little plan was working. But it was short-lived because I thought she was going to have a heart attack and die and I started getting alarmed. I had to slow down because I felt guilty and I stopped. With mixed emotions I praised her (probably the wrong approach then, reinforcing her perverted idea of what a watchdog was supposed to do but at least she didn’t die). I wanted her to recover and I was grateful when she did. I realized I would’ve have been the one to blame if something unfortunate happened to her.
Not too long after that, there was a dog show at my school and it was Holly’s big chance to repay me for what I did. Why my mother entered Holly into the show was anybody’s guess.
I had to help out at the show and it was one of the worst days of my life. Holly was in watchdog mode; she would not stop barking. “Let’s take her home, Mom.” “No. She’ll settle down.”
The show was held in the gym but I spent most of the time in the bathroom. “Is that your dog?” they asked me and I denied it and went back to the bathroom. How long can you fake going to the bathroom? They must have thought I had a problem. I had a problem, allright.
Holly won a trophy that day and she acted like a lap dog again in the car. She won Most Outspoken or Most Congenial or something. The judges said she wanted it the most. My mother joked about it for weeks.
I remember Holly lying around in my bedroom, with her chin flat on the floor while my brother and I were doing things together. I looked at her and her little attentive eyes looked up at me, hopeful that I was going to play with her or give her food but I rarely did. She wouldn’t always obey me but she was looking to me. Did she like me? I don’t know. Dogs, being pack animals, often only act like they like people. But in retrospect I think she was bored; she had little to do. She really did like me (most of the time, especially when she ran around with me) but she put up with a lot of my selfish behavior.
That’s when we were moving out-of-state and my mother left Holly at a local animal shelter. It was a time of sadness and excitedness for my mother – sad that she had to abandon Holly and excited that she was moving to a new place. I didn’t think much about the loss of Holly until years later. I was growing up and going through changes at school and work; I hardly ever thought about her – except to joke about the time I challenged her to run up and down that hill and almost killed her. My extreme cruelty. Now, I feel sad. She died long ago. She’s in the ground somewhere; only a memory. But I’ve never been that cruel again.