If the above photo is too big again (and once more, it has shown up bigger here than it did when I brought it up on my computer. I'm utterly confused) someone please re-size it and BK, you can remove this. The story of Humbug: She was found the November after Hotspur died. We did not want another dog at this point in our life. But it was fate. I had come home from an event an unplanned way I never come...and there she was, standing in the middle of the road in the rain, thin as rail (9lbs) anemic because the fleas crawling over her had sucked her dry and wheezing...on death's door...staring vacantly in our headlights. A collar, no tags. Clearly abandoned. What are you going to do?
I got out of the car, got an old blanket from the trunk, wrapped her in it, and Julieanne held her in her lap when we took her home. We put her in the laundry room, tried to get her to eat and drink, she wouldn't. A trip to the Valley to an all-night emergency room. We did not know whether she would live out the night. They thought maybe she was six months. And weren't sure what the wheezing was. She survived the night. I had to pick her up the next morning around seven (after a $200 bill), because they don't keep them during the day and take her to our vet. They thought her closer to two years. It turned out the wheezing was caused by a punctured thoraxic cavity. They kept her for a week to ten days, filled her with drugs, got her on solid food again. She was something of a medical miracle for them (and the vet has used her case in conferences...they always thought of her as the miracle dog). And slowly on the road to recovery to where she could come home. And, unfortunately, like it or not, we were now her home. You save her life, she's yours. Besides which we had spent two thousand dollars on her. She owed us. We called her Humbug (Humbug Fezziwig) because we had planned to go back to Ky. for Christmas and we weren't sure she wasn't going to ruin the holiday for us and make it a humbug. Also because when we found her she was full of 'bugs" and she was "humming" from the puncture. In fact, at night when she slept, the wheezing got so loud, we had to make a decision whether we could actually put up with it. We decided we could...and ultimately didn't have to, because as she healed and gained weight, the wheezing went away. She came into the house with some reluctance because Julieanne, though a sucker for animal waifs and orphans, was not ready to transfer her allegiance from the recently departed Hotspur over to this interloper. I wasn't delighted with the bind the critter had put me in, but when I finally brought her home from the vet several weeks later and she walked down the steps from the drive onto the patio to the front door of this house she had only been in briefly once like she'd been doing it for years and it was her home, my heart went out to her. She became fierce defender of home and hearth, as I found out a few days later when some plumbers were doing some work in the yard and she went barking against the glass door at them.
We went on our Christmas vacation. We boarded her at the vet's which became her home away from home. She and Cully both love the vets and were adored and spoiled creatures whenever kept there.
She also wormed her way into Julieanne's heart, but she more or less became my dog, sleeping in my office on the couch while I worked (Cully has always been undisputedly Julieanne's. He 's up there sleeping by thre front door right now expecting her home. He's still got a couple of days to wait). There was always her mysterious past which we could never fathom and she could be tetchy and crotchedy at times when touched the wrong way and you never touched her while she slept (unlike Cully who is an old lump). She never licked. But she'd crawl on your chest and lay there with her nose practically against your own and stare at you. Though there was always a wild streak in her, she became the sweetest, gentlest thing. When Cully came into our lives a few years later, she let him know the pecking order, though they were great pals too. Both sleeping on the bed. She never quite knew what to make of the arrival of Mosby the Grey Ghost...our cat...and he delighted in taking swipes at her, much to her consternation. Sometimes you'd hear her whimpering at the bottom of the steps. It was because she wanted to go up, but saw the cat lurking at the head of the stairs, laying in wait for her. After having her nine years, she passed on very quickly (within a week) struck by a blood count problem...white cells, red cells, I never understood it (I think her constitution was always a bit delicate) and we had to put her down. Almost as wrenching as Spur. We think she was a full-blood English cocker, but can't be sure.
Again, the picture is her in Harlan Ellison's lap on our back balcony.