Herbie

When I was in third grade, Dad took the family for a drive. We ended up at a kennel. I remember a large yard with dogs running all around. There was this one puppy, a young Basset Hound (about six months old), that ran in front of us. As it passed in front of us, its front legs seemed to buckle. Unfortunately, his back legs hadn't gotten the message that he had "tripped" so they continued to run. This caused the puppy to slide along on his chest for a few feet. That was our first encounter with Herbie. He came home with us that very day. Officially, on the Pedigree, his name was "Fields Colonel Herbert", but we never addressed him by his rank. He was just "Herbie". As we had no fenced-in yard, he would run freely around the neighborhood. We didn't worry about him, he stayed pretty close to our house when he was out. He would be in and out all day, and would sleep indoors at night. He was one of those dogs that was born with patience. He had to have patience, with four kids to play with. We lived in Largo, Florida at the time. That area of Florida was terrible for dogs. He would come home infested with ticks. At first, we didn't realize he might be infested, until one of us kids would find a tick on ourselves. That dog would sit patiently while Mom would get tweezers and pull ticks off of him. He didn't yelp, or try to run away, even when we pulled them out of his ears or from between his toes. I think he knew that we were not hurting him intentionally; rather, for his own good.

He went out one night like he always did. While watching television, we heard skidding tires and yelping. He had been walking across the road, and a car came up the street. He didn't get out of the way quite fast enough. Of course, we all ended up outside. The car had run over, or at least "pinched" one of his hind feet. The driver had stopped, and had carried him up to our house. (Are there still people like that nowadays?) Herbie was limping around while my parents were talking to the apologetic driver. I guess some of the neighbors had heard the tires and yelping, because soon there were lots of people out in our front yard. I remember the boy next door must have been in the bath when it happened, because he was standing out in the yard with everyone else, wearing only a bath towel wrapped around his waist. We then noticed something: the larger the "audience" was, the more severe Herbie's limp became. What a ham! He was practically back to "normal" the next day.

After we left Florida, we went to Tucson. We had a small back yard that was "fenced" by a cinder block wall. That was where Herbie spent most of his "outdoor" time. I say 'most' because I think he missed big yards and/or no fences. So, when given the opportunity to escape through a door left open too long or too wide, he boogied. Cries of "Herbie's out!" would ring out from kids all along the street. Those that weren't afraid of him would assist in catching him and returning him to the house. Mom would put an old bedspread on the couch at night, and he would sleep there. During the day, the spread would be folded and put on the floor in the entryway, and he would take his naps on it. We used to say, "time to make Herbie's bed" before we would go to bed every night.

A few times during his life, he would contract "mange" or something similar. He would get big red "raw" patches on his body. It always looked like he had a bad case of "road rash", and it must have hurt a lot. Mom would take him to the vet, and he would prescribe a medicine that came in an aerosol can. We were to spray the raw patches with it, and the stuff was supposed to go away. We could tell after the initial application that it must have stung like crazy. You could almost "see" him grit his teeth when it was time for his treatment. He would sit there, and maybe flinch a little when the spray hit the wounds, like maybe there was a lot of alcohol in it. But he would not try to get away, or snap at us. After his treatment, he knew to go to the back door. He would be let out and then he would go nuts! He would run all over the yard and raise a ruckus, like his tail was on fire. After a few minutes, the stinging would stop, and he would settle down and come back in and everything was fine until it was time for another "treatment". Then the whole scenario would repeat.

I don't know how or why Dad picked Herbie for us. There were certainly younger, more "puppyish" dogs to choose from. I had "made friends" with a couple of daschunds at the kennel while were looking around, but Dad wanted a bigger dog. He made the right choice. Herbie lived a long life (more than ten years) and never changed. Never got grumpy, just older and grayer. The last month or so of his life was tough for him, and all of us. I remember that late fall/early winter day that Mom took him to the vet. He had gotten weak, and moved a lot slower. That doesn't mean HE slowed down, he still attempted to welcome you home and still thought of himself as our watchdog, but even his tail-wagging was slower and more feeble. Anyway, Mom had taken him to the vet, and I had gotten in my car to go somewhere and passed her on her way back from the veterinarian's office. I figured she was coming home "alone", but when I got home, Herbie was still with us. He lived another month, and passed away early Christmas Morning. Mom woke me while it was still dark, and told me he had just died. She had sat up with him all night trying to keep him comfortable. Wanting to get him out of sight before the other kids got up, I told Mom to get me a couple of garbage bags. One went over the front, and the other went on from the rear. I then put him in a box and put his body out in the garage. I woke my brother Bryan and told him what had happened, and together we cleaned up the kitchen floor. Everything was cleaned up before my sisters got up. Our family had a Christmas tradition. Anything "from Santa" could be opened, played with, etc. immediately. However, before we could open presents under the tree, we had to have breakfast. We usually had a coffee cake that Mom would make. (Do you know how LONG it takes for a coffee cake to bake when there are presents waiting to be opened?) We were sitting at the table eating breakfast, when my sister Sandy looked around and asked, "Where's Herbie?" We informed her and the others that he had died. My brother and sisters started crying. Sandy was hysterical, and cried the longest and loudest. Finally, everyone settled down, and we went to the living room to open presents. Since Mom and Dad were divorced by this time, Dad wasn't there, but he was going to come by and open presents with us. When he got there, I was worried that he might say something "wrong" (inquire as to where Herbie was, or how he was doing) and get Sandy started up again. So I tried to catch his eye soon after he got there, but I couldn't quite get his attention. The longer he was there, the more tense Mom and I got. Finally, I asked him if he would like a cup of coffee. He replied, "Sure, thanks". I said, "Good, you can come fix it". He laughed, rolled his eyes, and followed me into the kitchen, where I quietly informed him of Herbie's passing. He thanked me for telling him, and for telling him in the manner that I did. He treated me as a man, an equal, that day. I had always wondered at what point in his life a boy became a man. Not physically, but emotionally. When could a boy call himself a man? I now know that on that Christmas morning, I became a Man. My mother told me pretty much the same thing a day or two later. What made me a man? Being able to "take charge" in a bad situation? "Knowing" how to break the bad news? Buying a car? Having a job? My parents were different now: they were fellow adults and they treated me as one from that day on.

I later learned from my mother that my father wept that day. Not only for Herbie, but for all of us. Herbie had been around for most of our (the kids) lives. Dad knew the pain we were feeling, and knew that there was really nothing that he could do to ease our pain.