Our Long Wait Is Over

It was a matter of time. First, Susan Lucci finally wins a Daytime Emmy. Now, at last, a beagle finally wins the famous Westminister Dog Show in Madison Square Garden. The pooch is called Uno, and I am wondering whether it was named after a card game or a deep dish pizza joint. Nevertheless, since a beagle is the only type of dog I have ever owned, this win was very special to me.

I think back in time about Tuffy. A full breed beagle. Not a speck of mutt DNA. I got her for my ninth birthday. My dad bought her for $15 from a pet shop that he delivered fuel oil to. I look in the newspapers today and see that beagles now sell for upwards of 500 bucks. Inflation extends now even to our house pets.

I remember the day that my mother brought Tuffy to the vet for the requisite spaying. I said goodbye to her in the morning before I headed off to school. I was convinced she would die on the operating table. I got so worried in my class that I had an anxiety attack and wound up quivering in the nurse's office. Of course, Tuffy survived the surgery and lived another 17 years.

I remember the morning ritual. My mom would release Tuffy from the leash next to her cushioned box. She would race down the hall into my bedroom, jump on my bed to wake me up, and then, just as rapidly, leave.

The dog had a built-in clock. She timed the eating patterns not just of my folks, but my grandparents downstairs. Precisely, at 430PM, Tuffy would head down and literally open the door to my grandmother's kitchen. Even if it was closed shut, she would manuever her paws and turn the doorknob herself. Indeed, my grandmother was the one most reluctant in our house to include a dog in our world. Yet, Tuffy probably spent more time with her over 18 years than she did with anybody else. From what I have been told, the last thing my grandfather ever saw was Tuffy. In failing health and breathing heavily, he sat up in his easy chair to see Tuffy cocking her head to hone in on the sound of his rales. My grandmother said he smiled at the dog and then leaned back for his very last breath.

While Tuffy often traveled with us all when we did our Sunday visits to relatives, there was one day where she was left home. And probably wanted to show us her displeasure. She stuck her nose into my grandmother's candy dish and ate a handful of Hershey's Kisses. Without removing the tin foil. Needless to say, her bowels that week were painful and glittery at the same time.

I guess Tuffy was really no different than anybody's dog. She fell in my cousin's pool and dogpaddled out. She got stuck in a snowbank after a winter blizzard. On long car rides, she would sleep on the top of the back seat. If my father stopped short, she became a canine projectile right across the car. Once, she ran away and came back an hour later. Probably because it was mealtime. She would bark only when the front door rang. She hated the mailman. We once found her on top of my grandmother's kitchen table munching on the remains of the Easter ham.

In retrospect, once I got into high school and college, I spent less and less time at home. And with Tuffy. So, I probably was shortchanged in the pet department. But, still, when she had a tumor on her jaw at the very end, nobody in the family would make the call to put her out of misery. I had to be the one who said it was over.

After all, she was my dog. And now, a very special beagle belongs to everybody.

Dinner last night: Orange Chicken at the Cheesecake Factory.