"Award winning essay."
Mitsy's Miracle: The true story of a plucky beagle who found her way home
It will be a quiet moment like this as I sit with Max A Pooch I recall my first dog Mitsy taught me about courage and not to give up, and most of all how truly incredible dogs are.
Mitsy was a little beagle hound who had a big
heart, incredible spirit and boundless energy.
Together the two of us rambled in the nearby woods and fields; the iconic
boy and his dog. I’d watch admiringly when
she flushed a pheasant or chased a bunny. She’d watch with amusement when I
splashed in a nearby pond clumsily attempting to catch frogs and
pollywogs. She slept on the foot of my
bed, and I was always awakened by her in the morning as she licked my face saying,
“It’s time to get up.”
One summer my parents left Mitsy with a
friend while we were on holiday. They thought
it would be a much more pleasant experience for her than staying in a boarding
kennel. As soon as we returned from our
vacation my father received a phone call from their friend who was “dog
sitting” Mitsy. He explained that Mitsy had scooted through the door
the previous evening and disappeared into the darkness. He had searched for her,
but couldn’t find her. We were all heartbroken and immediately drove the twenty
five miles to his house to look for her.
We placed an ad in the newspaper and posted
lost-dog signs on telephone poles, but there was no response. I was
heartbroken. During the first few days Mitsy
was gone I cried myself to sleep. My
worse fear was she’d been struck by a car and died alone on the shoulder of a
road, and that image haunted my dreams.
Each morning I looked out of my bedroom window hoping to see Mitsy.
After a few weeks had passed my parents
attempted to convince me that she was gone and nothing would change that sad
truth. They offered to get another
puppy. “I’ll have no part in
that.” I told them, “Mitsy is coming
home!”
One morning
as I looked out of my bedroom window I was amazed to see the body of a small
emaciated, filthy, beagle lying on our lawn.
Its eyes were filled with vile puss.
The dog was so still I thought it was dead. I couldn’t believe what I saw as I ran from my
bedroom shouting, “Mitsy! She’s outside.
She’s returned!”
Dad said, “Impossible! It can’t be Mitsy..
How could she ever find her way home? It’s more than twenty five miles from
where she was lost.”
I
was right. It was Mitsy. Tears welled in my eyes when I looked at her. She was still as death. Her ribs were
protruding and her stomach was shrunken so much that I could have encircled her
abdomen with my fingers. My heart stopped, I thought she was dead. Then she
looked at me and weakly wagged her tail. She tried to stand and walk, but she
collapsed and laid on the ground whimpering.
We
immediately took her to the veterinarian and he diagnosed her as having
distemper and several other maladies. His advice was “Your dog is so sick it
will be best to put her down.”
Dad
hesitated then he said, “I’ll stay here with her son you go to the waiting room
with your mother.”
“Noooooooooooo!”
I wailed, “Mitsy deserves a chance to live… she didn’t find her way home just
to have us kill her!.”
As
I pleaded Dad looked at Mitsy, and she stared back at him, wagging her tail
feebly as if to say, "Give me a chance. He’s right you know." Then Dad looked at mom and knew that he would
get no support from her.
The
veterinarian said, “She can’t stay here she’s too contagious. If you take her
home it’s going to require a lot of
time. Your work and her suffering may be for nothing. You’ll have to bottle feed her and clean up after her. Are you willing to put in the effort?” We
shook our heads yes.
In
less than a year Mitsy was accompanying me again as we rambled in the nearby
fields and woods. It was like old times.
No one could explain how Mitsy had found her way home. I thought her
return was miraculous.
Mitsy
died seven years later when she was eleven and I was seventeen. I buried her at
the edge of the garden where she had loved to sniff for and to chase bunnies. I
found a flat rectangular rock in the nearby field. Tears streamed down my face as I chiseled the
word “Mitsy” on the surface of the rock and
placed it on the ground as a headstone
for my childhood friend.
Today,
decades later I still remember Mitsy and how she travelled and travailed to
find her way home. She made my childhood
richer and taught me that there are things that happen that can’t be explained.
Those things are called miracles. I’ve
also learned that as time passes and families dwindle, even memories of
miracles fade until all that is left is a man who remembers a plucky little dog
who found her way home.
