A Dog Story

By Beth Carpenter

The beagle in my Christmas Town story, A Gift Horse, was partly inspired by a funny-looking little dog we owned many years ago. I wasn’t able to dig up a photo, but he had big ears, long wiry hair that stuck out at odd angles, and a white stripe in the middle of his head that could stand on end. My best description is that he looked like a cross between Eddie from Fraiser and Stripe from Gremlins. He was very loving, but just in case, we never fed him after midnight. 

  

It wasn’t his looks, though, that inspired the character in the story. It was his ability to escape.

We named the dog Barney. We should have named him Rover. Barney loved petting and he hated being confined. He could scale a six-foot welded wire fence in less than a minute. Later we moved to a different house with an eight-foot wooden fence. That one took a little longer. Maybe five minutes. He would jump onto the fence near a corner, and then ricochet onto the other side, jumping back and forth and working his way to the top. It usually took him two or three tries to make it over.

Tying didn’t work either, as he was adept at slipping his collar. He seldom went far; he just had to chase a squirrel or investigate an interesting smell. If he didn’t immediately come when I called, I could usually find him hanging out near the dumpster of the Chinese restaurant a block from our house.

Once, though, one of Barney’s escape attempts backfired. We’d left him inside while we went to a movie, and when we returned, he was silhouetted in the window of our bedroom. And other than a tiny twitch of his tail, he didn’t move. When we went inside, we discovered he’d jumped into the space between the window and the storm window, and somehow in the process caused the window to release and close behind him, sandwiching his body between the two panes of glass. He was very glad to see us.

Another move and many years later, the day came when Barney slipped his harness, climbed the fence, and disappeared. I checked the local shelter twice a week for several months, but never found him there. Almost a year later, I drove past a house in a neighborhood not far from ours and spotted a black-and-white wire-haired terrier tied up in the front yard. It looked like Barney, only this dog was rounder.

I stopped to investigate. When I walked over, the dog wagged his tail and wiggled, excited to see me. It really was Barney. A man stepped out and told me he was watching the dog for his daughter, who had just adopted him. It seemed there was another private shelter across town that I didn’t know about, and someone had taken Barney there. At the shelter, he’d been sort of a mascot, following the volunteers around and begging for treats. Quite successfully.

So Barney moved on to his new owner and no doubt new adventures. Maybe the extra bulk slowed him down enough that he stopped climbing fences. I hope so, anyway.

Get ready!

A Gift Horse and the other eleven 12 Days of Heartwarming Christmas stories will release on Oct. 9^th.  The series prequel, A Christmas Carousel Proposal, is already out, and you can get it free when you sign up for the Christmas Town Newsletter HERE.

Preorder A Gift Horse now: Amazon   Barnes & Noble    Kobo   iBooks   Google