Excerpt
Chapter 21
HOLD ON TO YOUR SEATS AND DON’T GET UP…
as promised, here is the tale of Miss Pearl Bailey,
that Double-Dealing Dog!
After having had all that male canine testosterone drained from my days, what learned
for most was sweet and loving female companionship. Like my Kelsey. I imagined a
dainty, classy fem fatale who could live up to the name, “Miss Pearl Bailey! What I
met in that glowing Carolina winter afternoon was a rough and tumble tom boy. She was a
hunting machine from stem to stern, the type that would smoke any form of prey from out of
the bush, from shoreline saw grass or from below the earth’s surface. She would dig down to
Hell’s Gate and snarl at the devil to open it should she sense any form of worthwhile quarry.
The lavender ‘pearl’ studded collar that I bought as adornment did not suit her in the least.
This tempestuous streak was apparent from the very first week. Arriving in Florida after I
had proudly prodded her for miles that we were almost to paradise’, she promptly proceeded
to dig up an in-bloom Bird of Paradise plant nestled at the entranceway of our front door.
Ugh! Patience – she’s 5 months old, remember?
Within days, the path of destruction she left in her wake was pandemic; she pulled up
two exquisite miniature-specimen palms flanking the planter boxes in the rear deck area and
annihilated them to smithereens. Next, she escaped to the neighbors’ and dug holes in their
perfectly manicured yard. She broke leash and swam 60 yards out into the Gulf of Mexico
leaving me alone on shore to wonder if she could really swim. If there was a dog Olympiad,
this dog could have medaled in about five events.
Oh, and she had no use for female companionship. At this stage of my life, I had hoped
for a sweet girl-dog who would listen up and go with me everywhere. I longed for a dog-spirit
that would attach itself to me; what I got was a man-crazy, demon dog, into everything that
she shouldn’t and nothing that she should. My peaceful, temperate days were turned into a
nightmarish frenzy, every waking hour consumed with the prevention of destruction! She
had the uncanny ability to move North, South, East and West all at the same time. The
Professor took to calling her a blvald (pron. buh-vohl), Yiddish for by force! She was a force
of nature. It can be said that she certainly possessed a bounty of exuberance for life! And
try as I may, I was unable to break her of it!
And then there was that face. Oh, such beauty should be outlawed. The most fetching,
golden brown eyes were accentuated by thick long cream-colored lashes. That face should
have come with a remedy. She was a heartbreaker.
