Where you take over and I put my feet up – although not today since I’ll be in the neighborhood parade. Happy 4th, everybody! And now over to Big Tiny’s Mom, for this excellent contribution. (Send anything about anything to peter.b.abrahams@gmail.com.)

The Story of Sapphire

I was born in the early 50s when life seemed much simpler. The youngest of four children, my early childhood involved an outdoor dog named Blackie (probably for the same reason I currently have a fur baby named Gray) and outdoor cats that would have litters of kittens. This was considered normal in my small town. Most people did not bother with spaying and neutering their pets. My mom had grown up on a farm in Nebraska and animals were expected to “pull their weight” in whatever way was needed (killing mice in barns, for example). Dad never had any pets growing up and he was forever frustrated by the outdoor animals in his garage and yard. At some point, Blackie crossed the Rainbow Bridge and the family had been dogless for some time.

When I was around 10 or 11, I went to the neighborhood grocery store and found a very small black puppy hiding among the empty boxes outside. I promptly loaded that puppy in my jacket pocket and took it home. “Look, Mom, what followed me home from Klecka’s! And it’s a boy puppy!” I exclaimed upon getting home. Mom’s response was “sure, it did and no, it’s not.” But something in that tiny black puppy spoke to both my parents and the puppy was, indeed, home to stay. And not as an outdoor pet. She was the family’s first indoor pet and Dad’s first pet love. She would sit beside him after he got home from work and read the daily newspaper. He walked her in the evenings (no fenced in yard) and she became his. He took early retirement from his job at a chemical plant and took correspondence courses to get another degree in accounting. Sapphire would sit at his feet while he studied and aggravate him by following him on his bathroom breaks and sit outside the door and cry for him.

I left for college and a guy I dated owned a dachshund that had puppies. So, of course, I brought home another puppy (although this time with parental permission). Barney became Mom’s dog and Sapphire’s best friend. Those two dogs got to go on vacations with their people and lived the best life. They rode with us when my parents and future husband took me back to college after summer breaks. Hotels had to be pet friendly.

There was about an 8 or 9 year age difference between Sapphire and Barney that kept Sapphire young at heart. One summer, Dad was home alone with the dogs (Mom had taken a trip to Nebraska to visit her folks) and Sapphire suddenly died. He called me, who lived the closest to them at the time. I was able to go help him bury her and keep him company for a while.

It has always amazed me how special Sapphire was to the man who had never expected that bond with a pet. Until both my parents passed, there was at least one small dog living the good life with them.