A Little Puppy Fiction

Just before my dog and I crossed the street to find some clear sidewalk, I saw a man waving for me to approach. The night before, Saratoga Springs had received 20 inches of early-spring snow, and most of the sidewalks weren’t shoveled yet. Marlo, my Saint Bernard, was loving these arctic conditions, as one might expect, though I was a lot less enthusiastic. Seeing the stranger waving at me, I continued down the remaining stretch of shoveled sidewalk to where he stood beside his car. The man beckoning us, middle-aged, robustly ovoid in stature, and dressed in a black windbreaker and gray pants, smiled expectantly as we approached. 

“Hey, buddy!” he said as the dog sniffed his trouser leg. “Do you remember me?”

I asked if he’d met my pony-sized friend, and he said, “Oh yes, absolutely. I’ll never forget it.”

Then he went on to explain how, two or three summers earlier, we two had passed his house when he was watering the lawn. It was a hot day, he said, and my dog looked thirsty, so he offered him water from the hose.

“He seemed so grateful for a drink,” the man said. Then his salt-and-pepper mustache turned downward at the ends as if he were summoning the minutest detail of the memory.

“Oh, that was nice of you to do,” I replied.

At this, the fellow’s expression grew suddenly wistful, and he added, “After I gave him a drink, he licked my hand, like he was saying ‘thank you.’” I thought the man was about to well up when he bent over and stroked Marlo’s head. “You wouldn’t believe how many people I’ve told that story to.”

“Really?” I said. “That’s wonderful.”

“He looks so grown up and healthy now,” the man continued. “But I remember you told me he had lots of allergies. Did he get over those?”

“Allergies?” I asked, thrown off-guard. “Oh, right. Yes, he grew out of those. He’s incredibly healthy these days. Thank goodness.”

This information seemed to make his day. “I’m so glad to hear that. He’s such a sweet dog.”

Now, pointing to the man’s car, idling in his driveway, I asked if he was on his way to work.

“Not work,” he said. “I go visit my mother at the nursing facility five days a week. I stay there for eight hours every day.”

“Wow,” I said, genuinely impressed. “You’re a good son.”

He glanced down at the toes of his black oxfords. “Well, I’m all she’s got…”

We chatted a little more, and then I told him I’d better get the dog home for his breakfast.

The man smiled again and said, “I’m so happy he’s doing well. Will you bring him by every now and then so I can say hello? It makes my day.”

I promised that I would because I only lived a few blocks away. And then Marlo and I crossed the street and made our way home.

Later that day, I told my wife Barbara about the conversation. When I finished, she asked, “He said he met Marlo several summers ago?” 

“Yeah.”

“And the man remembered he had lots of allergies?”

“Uh, huh.”

Then she gave me a sad, knowing look and said, “He was thinking of Lando, wasn’t he?”

I nodded. “Yeah, but he seemed so happy to see him again, you know? It would have broken his heart to hear he died.”

Lando was our first Saint Bernard puppy, who died two years ago after an aggressive tumor was discovered in his lung. He was only 20 months old at the time. Along with his many other health challenges, the puppy was allergic to substances as diverse as turkey, beets, and kangaroo—a fact I sometimes shared as a way of joking about expensive dog diets. I didn’t know at the time that his allergies indicated he came from a genetically exhausted bloodline—that he wouldn’t see his second birthday.

“So what are you going to do if you see that man again?” asked Barbara. “Are you going to tell him?”

I thought for a minute—about how the fellow told people about Lando licking his hand, and how seeing Marlo brightened a day the man would spend with his mother in nursing care.

“Nah,” I said.

Barbara nodded. I knew she’d have made the same choice.

Perhaps maintaining that bit of canine fiction is presumptuous or patronizing or something worse. I don’t know. Here’s the deal, though: I’ve seen that man twice now in two years and, if I ever see him again, I reserve the right, for both our benefits, to pretend it’s Lando on that leash, that he grew up big and strong, and that he still remembers that cold drink from the garden hose.