LUKY
OUR SINGING TEACHER HAD TWO DOGS; BOTH UNNERVED ME.
They prowled around her front yard slavering, seeking whom they might devour.
To me the height of bad form is to sound one's car hooter outside anyone's house, but when we used to go in for singing lessons, I hooted until she came out.
We eventually telephoned first: "Kindly tie up the Hounds of the Baskervilles, we're on our way."
Our loss
My own dog Snowy, who should have been called Dusky because we didn't wash him enough, was killed some years ago.
We got him and Bully, the mastiff, when first moved to a house in a new neighbourhood.
My husband had hung ferns trailing from the eaves which looked terribly pretty.
He had brought one of them in the morning, and that afternoon the fern was gone: someone had simply unhooked it.
So we got the dogs.
We bought Bully and Snowy two kennels, a big one and a small one, but they remained unoccupied except by Bully's store of food and other treasures.
Even in the heart of winter, Bully, Snowy and our cat slept on the lawn, under a sheltering tree, in one another's paws.
It always gave me such a happy feeling in my heart, as if our Lord had blessed our home with peace.
In the daytime, however, there was nothing peaceful about Bully and Snowy; they roamed the neighbourhood chasing cars and motorbikes.
Although we took to locking them into the courtyard all day, visitors would often leave the gate open.
Out they would rush to pursue some luckless driver.
When we tried to keep them in the garden, they made holes under the fence and got out that way.
We'd patch up the hole with sticks: next morning, another hole would be made.
Person unknown
The end was predictable.
Someone, I don't know who, killed Snowy.
One day he was simply gone, and when my second daughter went out with his food, she couldn't find him.
"Somebody got him," my husband said bleakly, "Heaven knows they had irritation enough; I told you long ago this would happen."
I didn't believe him. "He's just lost. He'll come back."
But he didn't - not alive, that is.
Grisly deed
It was between three and four weeks later, when my second daughter, our dog lover, had just got over her grief, that some jester deposited the remains of Snowy into our front yard.
Though badly decomposed, his coat now looked like a grubby little mat, and there was a look of agony about his bared teeth. It was poignant.
Snowy, though totally disobedient, had not deserved his end at the hands of a ghoul, and only a ghoul could have thought up that final gesture.
Chase was off
Bully and the cat were very nervous.
They circled Snowy's remains, and Bully at least was still heartbroken.
She no longer went out of the courtyard, even if the gate was left open, and she no longer chased cars or motorbikes - which was our one consolation.
We didn't talk about Snowy to each other.
My husband did ask: "What kind of person could have done such a thing", but there are some thoughts you shy away from and none of us answered him.
Yet I suppose the others, like myself, still sometimes wonder how Snowy died - and hope, like me, that his end came swiftly
Catherine Nicolette
Sigh. Snowy. Yes, I remember that affectionate little spirit, so loyal and steadfast, and so small.
A few weeks before a man had passed our gate, and appeared to be approaching the gate handle.
I - unseen by him - was coming home unexpectedly early from work.
He turned towards me as I came up, and looked somewhat threatening.
Snowy flew out from the courtyard, and stood between the man and me, barking bravely at the man.
The man looked at him with utter hatred, and told him 'Ek sal jou kry. Wag net, ek sal jou kry!'
[I'll get you. Just watch, I'll get you].
Mysterious disappearances
I watched as the man went away. There was something about him.
I would not have been surprised to find if he was not the one linked to the mysterious disappearances of hanging baskets and other garden items.
If my memory serves me, the latest was the garden spade.
Snowy looked lovingly at me as he panted patiently, waiting for my pat.
I was worried, and spoke to Dad about it. We kept a good eye on Snowy and the animals for some weeks.
When all was quiet, I stopped worrying. The thefts, too, had stopped.
Soft snores
I continued to go to and from work, stepping one frosty morning over the animals who had slumbered overnight on the top step in front of the Kitchen door.
Large Bully had his paws outstretched. Little Snowy had curled up within his paws, his own paws outstretched.
The little cat was cuddled within Snowy's paws.
On top of the two, Bully's head was resting, keeping them warm as he softly snored.
I grinned as I quietly left them to their sleep.
I had washed Snowy the day before, drying his hair with my hair drier, and combing his coat beautifully. The first thing he had gone and done after his wash was to joyfully wallow in a mud patch left after the garden had been watered.
Gallant protector
The day we found Snowy I will never forget.
The poor little darling was left with his face frozen in agony, thrown at the spot in the front gate where he had so gallantly protected me.
Dad and I buried him. Every bone in Snowy's little body had been broken. Every tooth in his head had been broken too.
He had obviously been subjected to horrendous torture for hours, if not days before death had mercifully took him. Dad and I decided it best not to describe how badly Snowy had suffered, as the family was already so distressed.
Dad and I had noted one thing though. An implement had been left next to Snowy's body which I assumed had been used to torture him.
The missing garden spade ...
I learned a lesson that day. Many animals have bright and loyal spirits, loving to the end.
And I learned that evil exists. I had met him.
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