When birds of the feather flock  together

one of them always winds up flying into a window

 

On the second day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Two turtle doves, 
And a partridge in a pear tree. 

 

 When I was about 11 I bought a pure bred Alaskan Malamute puppy for 75.00. He had a lightening bolt mark on the top of his head and the first trick I ever taught him was ” Kissie Face “

I named him Sham, for the horse in the book ” The King of The Wind “. Sham also means ” Sun ” and I thought that was pretty funny. My Dad and his cousin tried to get me to name him Buck or Bear or something snow dog related.

” He’s not a snow dog ” I told them, ” he’s my precious little baby.”

Look- it made me sick to just say those words, I can only imagine what my Dad and his Cousin thought.

Back to the story-

I taught Sham important commands like sit and stay  and leave it ( which were pretty important considering how big he seemed to get everyday )

Only I taught him those commands in every language except English.

At that point my Dad was convinced me AND the dog deserved each other and he I’m not sure but sometimes I’d hear my Dad yelling in French for Sham to stop barking.

Me and Sham grew up together and he died just after I turned 22.

And then one night, on a lark I went to the Humane Society and there in the first kennel was a Siberian Husky….I turned to the chart on the wall across from the cage and started to read about this dog when the cage door flew open and hit me on the back.

I turned around and the dog….Mr. Innocent was sitting at the back of the kennel.

Wagging his tail.

I closed the gate and it happened again.

I grabbed the chart off the wall and to the dog that had one blue eye and one brown eye and a smile and said ” fine, I get it already, let’s go home”.

I found out two little things at the adoption desk- my new dog was named BUCK and that night was going to be his last night on this earth.

I took him to my parent’s house and introduced them to Buck ( boy did Dad’s eyes light up)- until I said I’d changed his name to Tristan.

” Where the heck did that name come from? ” My Dad said with this little vein pounding in his forehead… to let you know it’s  the one that practically popped ( so he told me ) everytime I opened my mouth.

Tristan Farnon I said, from ” All Creatures Great and Small ”  Which was one of my favorite TV Shows. And then I pointed out that Tristan and the actor who played him were both British and my Dad asked me if I had something against Alaska and it’s dogs why not adopt a nice poodle or something?

Ha Ha Dad.

Anyway a week later it was Christmas and my Mom who is not really sentimental about pets set aside the poultry for the Cats  and a bunch of scraps … and I’m talking enough table scraps to feed a dog the size of a horse…which is pretty much what Sham was.

And then from the living room I heard her call for Tristan and she said Merry Christmas and I heard her give him his food.

Just over ten minutes later my sister comes screaming out of the kitchen that Tris is dead ” and Lina killed him! “

( don’t ask me why but my sister calls our Mom Lina- it’s her name, in return my Mom calls Es ” Anita’s Sister ” )

So I run in the kitchen and Tris is face down in the roasting pan that we used to give Sham his ” holiday dinner ” 

Sham could put that amount of food away in about 15 minutes and  I figure that Tris put away about half of what was in that pan in about the same amount of time before he passed out.

I pried his jaws open and he took a breath, belched and went back to sleep.

I asked my Mom what was she thinking giving Tris the same amount of food as Sham and she said, ” Well they’re both dogs aren’t they? “

It’s a good thing my Mom doesn’t drink.

It’s a blessing really.

Oh.

Happy Holidays.

Only 11 more days until I reach

The Inner Circle of Hell

CHRISTMAS.