Mr. Lugg

The First Dog in My House

The First Dog in My House

Don’t mistake me, I like dogs. There was always a dog in the house when I was growing up. There was also a cat but when I came along, Mother thought it would not be safe to have the cat around a baby and so she gave the cat to one of my baby nurses. It always seemed strange to me that she never talked about Fluffy. Did she really love Fluffy? Could anything be given away?

Our Connecticut house was closed up during the WWII when I was 5 and we went to live in NYC. Dad’s job in the Army in WWII meant he had to report to duty in Newark, NJ every day but Mother refused to live in NJ. She said there was no “decent” place to live in Newark, the social life would be zero and the inconveniences of shopping for anything would be just too much. So we moved into an apartment at the Barclay Hotel and Dad commuted from Manhattan to Newark. It was far different from living in a large house with a huge yard but I liked the apartment. It meant I could be close to people without too much effort and that made me feel warmer deep down inside myself.

 I decided that I was going to make friends with Sandy, the middle aged cocker spaniel who hadn’t really taken to me at all. I didn’t understand why Sandy hadn’t been given away too, just like the cat. When I asked Mother, she looked at me oddly. “Well, Fluffy had claws that might have really hurt you. Besides, cats like to lick all sorts of things and I didn’t want Fluffy to lick you with a dirty tongue.”

A couple of nights later, Mom and Dad went out to a cocktail party and Catherine, the nanny was giving my younger adopted brother his dinner. I was in the living room when they left watching Sandy who was brown all over and sort of melted into the rug. I thought that it would have been much more interesting for him to have other bits of color on him. Sometimes when I was taken for a walk, I saw dogs and cats that were dressed up with fancy collars and sometimes, sweaters and vests. But Sandy never had any special clothes. I thought that was unfair. I thought he should have at least one outfit. I also felt a little sorry for him because Dad said “he’s getting old” in a sad voice. I guessed that “getting old” was not a good thing.

He was about a foot away from his dinner bowl and he looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to eat or not. So I decided that this would be a good time to try make friends with him. He never seemed to like it when I tried to pet him. Maybe he was jealous of me because I got so much attention when I was adopted and he wasn’t the biggest attraction anymore.

It seemed to me that the way to start was to ask him some questions. And the first thing to talk about was his dinner.

He was just sitting looking at it. So I bent down, and tried to ask him if he wanted his dinner now or not. I began pushing the bowl toward his nose and then pulled it back and forth trying to get him to tell me if he wanted to eat or not. Of course, he would understand that I was trying to be nice to him. And that I wanted to be his friend.

After about five of my “questions”, Sandy gave me his answer. He lunged at me and grabbed my left hand in his mouth and bit down hard, making my hand bleed. I decided that he was never going to be my friend as I pulled my hand away.

I now had another problem. As I walked around the living room crying silently and sucking the blood out of the painful bite on my hand, I knew that I couldn’t let Catherine know what had happened. She was definitely not my friend. She had made that clear by always ignoring me and clucking incessantly over my brother, Ted. I had to keep this injury out her sight or I was going to be in big trouble with her and Mother.

I saw one of my Dad’s handkerchiefs that had been left on a small table and wrapped it tightly around my hand. Then I walked into my parents’ bedroom and climbed up on the bed trying not to think of the pain in my hand. Being there put me as far away from Catherine as possible as she was giving Ted his dinner in our bedroom on the other side of the apartment. After a while, I went back into the living room, found one of my books, climbed up on the sofa and spread the book out on my knees. I put my injured hand under the book to steady it (and conceal the handkerchief) and then turned pages with the other hand.

It was the story of Goldilocks and the three bears. I felt sorry when the bears were being thrown out of their beds by Goldilocks. But in my life, the bear in my life, Sandy was throwing me out of his room, the living room. In real life, I thought, people were supposed to be in control of things, especially dogs. But I certainly was not in control of Sandy. Everything seemed to be upside down.

But right now, the most important thing was to stay out of Catherine’s sight. I managed to do that until Mom and Dad came home. As it was not too late, Ted, Catherine and I greeted Mom and Dad in the living room. I kept my left hand behind my back.

Catherine told Mother, “Both of them were as good as gold”.

Mother looked at me. “What’s the matter with your hand, Patty?”

“Nothing.”

Mother whirled on Catherine. “What happened?”

Catherine stared at Mother. “Well, Mrs. Marvin, I don’t know that anything happened.”

Mother stepped forward, pulled my hand out from my back and saw the bloodied handkerchief.

Her eyes drilled into me. “What happened?”

“Sandy bit me.”

“Catherine, get that wound attended to and then come talk to me. Alone.”

Catherine turned white as a sheet. She bathed my hand and put a bandage on the place where I would carry two small scars from then on. Stomping out of the bathroom, she went to talk to Mother without giving me a glance or a word.

I went into the living room.

Dad immediately swept me up in his arms. “Now tell me what this is all about.”

I told him, sobbing, that I wanted to make friends with Sandy and that Catherine liked Ted and not me and that I didn’t have anyone to talk to and that I didn’t like being alone and that if I had Sandy as a friend, I wouldn’t feel so alone so much of the time.

He rocked me in his arms and told me he was sorry that I felt alone. He promised me he would spend more time with me and would make sure that Mother would not get angry with me over what happened. His eyes were misty but his hugs made me feel so much better. I hopped off his lap and asked him if he would put the radio on so I could listen to some music. Nothing was upside down anymore.

And to make things even better, Catherine didn’t work for us beginning the next day.

About the Author

I was adopted as an infant into a rich CT family. I adored my father and couldn’t understand my mother. I had an adopted brother and a nanny I didn’t like. This wartime story has a happy ending.

I published my memoir “Surviving High Society” last year

Elizabeth Marvin Mulholland

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