A Dog Story - and some extra dog stories

Our Dog Story

About a year and a half ago, our beloved family dog Daisy was hit by a car. It was really hard for our family to handle. But a year ago, Erin found an identical dog at the animal shelter, which was difficult to do because she was a rare breed called the Carolina Dingo. We named our new dog Java, after Erin's hometown and spent the next 9 months training her to be as good as Daisy was.



This spring however, when it became obvious that our lives would be flipped upside down on account of little Josiah Nathaniel, we realized that keeping Java would be difficult to do. We would be spending much of our time in the hospital away from home, and the additional pet hair and junk a dog brings into a house would not be good for Josiah when he did come home. Therefore, we gave our beloved dog to our friend John Mark Redwine, who has done a fantastic job with her so far. We will miss her, but we know she is in good hands and that we will get to continually see her from time to time. She is a great dog.

Because of the nature of this post, I was reminded about two of my most favorite dog stories.

Dog Story #1

We have a great nurse at MUSC who takes care a Josiah on a regular basis. Her name is Sarah, and she has a Walker Coon Hound that she found and rescued a few years back. This dog's instincts are to hunt and chase, and while Sarah says he is pretty well behaved on a normal basis, any time that he is off the leash and sees a cat, rabbit, or squirrel... the dog snaps into hunt mode, and is gone. so that's the background... here is the story.

Sarah met a friend on the beach, for what was supposed to be a low stress walk on the beach with their dogs. While strolling along the beach, with the dogs off the leash playing in the waves, Sarah's dog noticed a dolphin in the water, and immediately snapped into hunt mode. Yes, you read me correctly... the dog spotted a DOLPHIN.

Before Sarah could do anything this dog had swam out to sea, past the breaker waves into open water. Within minutes, the dog was only a barely visible speck from the shoreline and was totally oblivious to Sarah's whistling and shouting. As a crowd began to form around her, Sarah decided to call the beach's public safety phone-line and explain to them the situation. She was quickly informed that this department's purpose was to help humans not pets, and that they would not do anything to help. Sarah's friend suggested that she try to swim out to the dog, knowing that public safety would be obligated to rescue them both. When she informed the official on the other end of the line that this was her intention, he patched her through to the coast guard who might help if they chose to. Within minutes after talking to someone from the coast guard, Sarah learned that they happened to have a helicopter flying nearby, and that they would fly over to assess the situation.

Thirty seconds later, the coast guard helicopter tore across the sky overhead, barely skimming the trees. Meanwhile, Sarah's dog fortunately had been carried by the current to the beach of a small barrier island about a mile off shore. He was only just barely visible to Sarah, but now the situation was a little more stable, and much less frightening. As the helicopter hung overhead, the small crowd of spectators grew to include a man on a jet ski, a kayaker, and a small coast guard boat. Any one of these people could have gone out to retrieve the wayward hound dog.
Instead, while Sarah watched in amazement a basket dropped out of the chopper, and a man slid down the rope close behind. The moment that followed was a Hollywood type of scene, where the rescuer dropped to his knees on the beach with his arms open, and Sarah's coon hound ran to him and jumped into his open arms. A few seconds later, the dog was lifted into the basket and whisked back to the shoreline where crowd of beach goers whistled, clapped, and cheered as he was lowered back down to safety.

Sarah went home that night and baked 12 dozen cookies, which she delivered to the Coast Guard barracks early the following morning... What a dog story!

Dog story #2

I spent 4 years in the Marine Corps, marching as a saxophone player in the Parris Island Recruit Depot Marine Band. Every Friday morning, thousands of people would come on to the base to see their son or daughter graduate from boot camp, a gruelling 13 weeks of misery. The graduation ceremony was a very detailed military parade, with 500 or more recruits graduating each week. Part of the ceremony includes a portion where the band marches the length of the parade deck and back. Out in front of the band is the band drum major, a person who embodies military precision and excellence.

Also on the parade deck was the Marine's mascot, an English Bulldog. This particular dog was very young, because his predecessor had died only a few months prior of a heart attack. The dog was required to wear a doggies marine corps uniform, and has its own uniform requirements and physical appearance requirements to maintain, which is the responsibility of his handler.

As well as I can remember, this was the 1st time that the dog was allowed to be out on the parade deck in front of people. As we were rounding the halfway point, the bulldog got loose. He ran everywhere! He visited some of the recruit platoons, swung by the reviewing stand, and he even paused to take a dump to the pleasure of the roaring grandstands. His poor handler was running in all directions behind him trying to grab this rotten animal before he did any more damage.

Then it happened.... The dog saw our drum major spin the mace (the big shiny stick he carries) to cue the band to march at a very difficult step in front of the reviewing stand. The dog proceeded to attach our drum major while he attempted to strut his stuff. It jumped up and tried to bite the mace out of his hand, and proceeded to hit by it firmly in the process. Then in retaliation, the dog latched on to the drum majors trouser pant leg, who then was forced to drag the animal along while the stands erupted into laughter. It was all we could do in the band to keep playing noises. I say noises, because it was definitely not music coming out of our instruments... ...at the end of the day, that dog handler got into a great deal of trouble. Also, our drum major's trouser leg was torn to shreds... but it was a good dog story!