Oogy The Dog Only a Family Could Love Read Free Page B

already there, lying on the bed. His eyes follow me. I tell him I need to go to the office and that I feel bad about it, but it cannot be helped. I pull on the clothes I am going to wear for the day and go over to the bed. I touch my nose to Oogy’s side and run my hands down his back to the soft skin of his narrow waist. “Time for me to go,” I tell him.
    As I walk into the hall, he uncoils himself and joins me on the landing, where he waits for me to start down the stairs. As soon as I take the first step, he barrels past me, rushing to the bottom of the steps before following me into the kitchen as though he’s attached to me like some white, furry sidecar.
    I pour what I promise myself will be my last cup of coffee, heat it in the microwave, and amble back into the family room. Once I am seated on the couch, Oogy climbs up beside me. This is our morning ritual, a few minutes together, just the two of us. He sits while I lazily trace a finger over his massive chest. His eyes close and open, then close again. Something in the street catches his attention; he stares through the privet hedge outside our house. Then, his curiosity satisfied, he turns around several times and lies down, his head in my lap. I like the way he stretches his massive body. He feels comfortable, relaxed. He feels secure. I am glad that we have been able to do that for him.
    With my index finger, I circle where his ear used to be, then run my hands down the muscle of his rib cage and back up to his neck. Lately, he has not been scratching the hole where his left ear was, which is good, because he has a history of infections there. Everything is quiet now. The cartoonlike fervor of morning rush hour has passed. I run through telephone calls I need to make at work, e-mails I must send, letters I should write. I have to mail a form for Noah’s lacrosse club; I put my keys over it last night so that I would remember to take it today. Oogy snorts softly several times and lets out a loud sigh. I place my lips just back of his ear hole and breathe into his neck. “Oo-gy pie,” I say. “Pie dog. Mr. Pie.”
    I have heard that when you leave them, dogs do not know that you are coming back, so every time I leave, I try to let Oogy know that I have every intention of returning. I need to go to work, I explain. I tell him I will be back in the late afternoon to take him for a walk. It will still be light out, I say. The boys will be home while it is still light, too. Mom won’t get home until it’s dark. I feel compelled to reassure him. I think it is important. Absentmindedly, I trace the scar from the surgery that runs from the top of his skull to underneath his lower jaw.
    Oogy is asleep, snoring deeply, and I am reassured by his very presence, moved by the love with which he has repaid us.
    Some months after Oogy had come to live with us, Noah looked up at me from where he was lying alongside Oogy and said, “I really feel bad about what happened to Oogy, but if it hadn’t happened, he wouldn’t be here.” The worst thing that ever happened to Oogy was also the best thing. It is but one of the contradictions that have defined his experience. He was a fighting dog who would not fight, with a personality and character that led to the most horrific of experiences imaginable, then saved him.
    This is Oogy’s story. It is, in the truest sense, a one-in-a-million tale. To tell it accurately necessarily intertwines other stories, those of the people who saved Oogy and all the people who love him, including my family. Part of the wonder has been how, over time, all who have come in contact with Oogy, learned his story, and experienced his genuinely gentle nature and noble bearing have been touched. And because I talk to people every day who have rescued many, many pets of their own, this is a testament to their collective efforts as well.
    “You’re here now,” I tell him. “It’s okay.”
    In his sleep, Oogy’s legs begin to twitch; he must be