This is a story I originally wrote for Halo Magazine, which is published by the animal shelter where I volunteer. The Christmas puppies (or kittens) usually hit the shelter around March or April, right about the time puppy and kitten season starts.
The Christmas Puppy
Money was a little scarce in the Kramer household this year, and Joe Kramer’s lips tightened a bit when he found the picture of the bicycle tucked into his lunch pail. Again. His son, Paul, was seven, and for Christmas this year he wanted a bike just like the one his best friend Steve was getting.
Steve’s dad was a lawyer, and could afford to spend a fortune on what was essentially a toy for his son. Joe worked at the lumber mill, and the shift foreman had told the crew just last week that hours were going to be cut over the next couple of months. This meant no overtime for Christmas, which meant no extra money. Rotten luck all around, especially with the new baby set to arrive in late March. What this meant in practical terms was that Sarah would be out of work for at least three months, more if she had as tough a time with this one as she’d had with Paul.
Joe was not in the best of moods as he arrived home. Seeing that Paul had drawn a circle around the bicycle ad in his evening newspaper - and who in the world had 800 bucks for a kids bike - did not lift his spirits any. He folded the paper over quickly, so as not to see the offending bike ad anymore, and there on the following page was the answer to his problem!
The ad read, "Puppies, Puppies, Puppies! Christmas Puppies at Blowout Prices!"
Joe lowered the paper and allowed his mind to wander a bit. He remembered his dog Spot, companion of his childhood, and how much he’d loved the silly mutt. Slowly the corners of his mouth began to lift, and he found himself nodding. "Let’s see Steve’s dad top this", he thought, and began to grin.
On Christmas morning Paul’s disappointment at the no-show bicycle was soon erased by delight when he pulled the lid from the big box with the red ribbon. Out tumbled a whirlwind of soft brown fur, big brown eyes, and oversized paws. Delighted, Paul immediately christened his new friend Ramsey. Joe privately thought it was a silly name, but the puppy’s name didn’t really matter. What mattered was that Paul had forgotten about the 800 dollar bike as soon as he saw the 35 dollar puppy.
Over the next few weeks, Joe found no reason to regret his purchase. Granted, the mutt seemed to prefer making his messes on the carpet in the living room instead of on his newspaper in the basement, but Joe was certain that if they just kept rubbing his nose in it and then whacking him a good one the puppy would eventually catch on. Ramsey was darn cute most of the time, though. Paul had taught him to jump up with his front paws to give face licks, and Ramsey had quickly learned that putting his head on the lap of any family member sitting at the dinner table would result in a treat.
As January turned into February and February headed towards March, the rapidly growing Ramsey started to become a bit of a problem. Joe was finally getting extra hours down at the mill and Paul was busy with school and peewee hockey, leaving Sarah, nearly nine months pregnant, home alone with Ramsey most of the time.
Ramsey had changed from a cute little puppy into something that resembled, as Sarah put it with increasing irritation, Godzilla invading Tokyo. He was rapidly fulfilling the promise of his overlong legs and outsized paws. At five months old, he weighed well over 50 pounds, which made his trick of jumping up to lick an unsuspecting face frightening to Sarah, who already felt clumsy and off balance. He had knocked Paul down several times, and the boy spent less and less time playing with him.
Sarah also complained about the dog’s toilet habits. Ramsey had never quite caught on to the idea that he was to go outside or on the newspaper in the basement, and the messes he made now were not the little puppy accidents of three months before. Sarah fretted about the safety of the new baby constantly. Although Ramsey had never so much as showed his teeth or growled at anybody, she worried that such a large and clumsy animal would injure a newborn infant.
Joe called the local animal shelter, who advised him to have the dog neutered and enroll him in a puppy class. Joe hated the thought of making Ramsey less of a man, and anyway who had 100 bucks to blow on a vet bill? The idea of taking a puppy class was just stupid. Spot had never been to a puppy class, and he had been a fine dog. No, the problem was Ramsey himself. The dog was too big, and too dumb, to be a good pet for his boy, especially with the baby due so soon. Sarah shouldn’t have to deal with this stress at a time like this, and Paul had become kind of afraid of the dog. No, the only solution to this mess was to get rid of the animal.
To Joe’s surprise, the pet store wouldn’t take Ramsey back. Joe didn’t understand, it wasn’t like he was asking for a refund - although one would have been nice, considering what a dud the dog had turned out to be. He didn’t really want to take the dog to the pound, and was almost resigned to keeping the animal and trying that puppy class. This decision stood until Ramsey left another big surprise on the living room carpet, which Paul didn’t notice in time and tracked all over the house. Sarah had what Joe’s mother had always described as a ‘conniption fit’, and the following morning Joe found himself walking through the door of a drop-off area at the local animal shelter, his left fist clutching a paper sack with Ramsey’s bowls and chew toy inside. In his right hand was one end of a length of clothesline. On the other side of his makeshift leash was a wildly bouncing and barking Ramsey, happily unaware that he was never going to see his beloved home again.
There was a sign above the door that read: "Our shelter is filled to capacity and we have no room for more animals. Animals abandoned here are put to sleep. Please work with us and call our Save A Pet hotline, so that we can help you to save the life of your pet."
Joe read the sign, but quickly recognized it for what it was, an attempt to bamboozle people into keeping oversized, dirty and potentially dangerous (ok, so Ramsey didn't look very dangerous with his wildly wagging tail, but there was the new baby to think of) animals instead of turning them in. Just a way for these shelter people to get out of doing any real work for a living, and he wasn't going to buy into that. He pushed Ramsey into an empty cage, the last one left as the big ones were full of barking dogs and the smaller ones housed several terrified-looking cats. He walked away without looking back as Ramsey stared after him, suddenly uneasy and voicing a quiet, frightened whine. Joe threw the bowls and the chew toy into a bin, letting the door close behind him as he walked out of Ramsey’s life forever. The shelter people would find Ramsey a good home. That’s what they were there for.
Shortly after Joe drove away, a tired looking young man entered the drop-off area. One by one he took the dogs away, until finally he arrived at Ramsey's cage. By this time, Ramsey was completely bewildered and badly frightened. Where were his people? Where was his familiar home, with his bowls in the kitchen and his chew-toy under the dining room table? Why was he in this place with all of these other dogs and its strange, antiseptic smell?
The young man's hands were gentle and his voice was kind, so Ramsey followed him out of the cage and through a corridor into a shiny room with more antiseptic smells and a steel table.
"Looks like another Christmas puppy, Doc," the young man said to the woman in the white coat who was bending over the table and writing something on a battered clipboard. "Male, unneutered, probably five, six months old. Seems healthy enough, but scared to death. Not aggressive, though."
The veterinarian looked at Ramsey, and sighed. "How much cage space do we have back there?" she asked, not sounding hopeful.
"You know that as well as I do," the young man answered. I'm doubled and sometimes tripled up in all the runs, and I've got no smaller cages left at all. I even have two living in your office," he said, ducking his head. "All Christmas puppies like this one. ‘Tis the season, after all."
The doctor sighed, then turned towards a cabinet and removed a bottle and a syringe. "Sometimes," she told the young man, who bent down to lift Ramsey onto the table, "I really hate my job."
"Pity about this poor guy, he seems like a nice dog," the young man said. He patted Ramsey’s head as Ramsey whined softly and tentatively thumped his tail. "Why couldn’t these people have gotten the kid a bike or something?" He patted Ramsey again as the veterinarian made her injection. A moment later he eased the dog’s lifeless body onto the table. He ran his hands over Ramsey’s soft fur one last time and stepped back, shaking his head.
"Really a pity," he repeated, as he opened a cabinet and pulled out a heavy plastic bag. The veterinarian made another note on her clipboard.