A BLACK KNIGHT STORY
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I was seventeen when I met Black Knight. I had just suffered the loss of a good, loyal Collie, and had decided I was not ready to go through it all again for awhile. It was then that my father heard the postman’s wife was giving away puppies. I finally couldn’t resist going to the town post office with a friend just to take a look. And there he was, my Black Knight. He was a tiny little thing, the runt of the litter. He had a scab on his nose, and a disproportionally big belly that jiggled right and left as he walked. I couldn’t resist him.
On the contrary of what his majestic name might suggest, Black Knight was a mutt. He was a Lab and Weimaraner mix. But what he lacked in pedigree he had in personality. He was a fun loving dog. He was very funny and mischievous, too, and had a knack for getting in trouble. He was also the clumsiest dog I have ever known. I have enough “Black Knight stories” to create a complete cartoon series. I could tell you all about the day he got pinched on the nose by a crab, or the day he got sprayed by a skunk. Or the day he climbed up the highest point of a rock ledge at the popular Farmington Shoals, in Georgia, and decided to “sprinkle” all the sun bathers underneath him. Or the occasion when he gave some topless sun bathers a big scare, and made them run around half naked on a public beach. My parents used to own a farm in Georgia, and some of his best episodes happened there. I will never forget the day he got himself lost in the middle of a wheat field. Trying to find his way out, he would jump like a rabbit as high as he could, take a quick look from side to side, fall back down, and then do the same thing again a little bit further. Or the day he decided to climb up a hill which was almost vertical, and flipped over backwards in the best cartoon style; he then got up and went on to try it again, as if nothing had happened. Or the occasion when we were racing each other on top of hay bale rows, jumping from one to another, and he decided to skip to my side exactly when I was in the middle of a jump, sending us both to the ground. I could go on and on. But there is one special story I recall with affection. I am a scuba diver. One day, a friend of mine and I decided to dive a lake in Georgia, and we took Black Knight with us. I left my friend on the bank with Black Knight, and went diving. I did not realize that Black Knight was following my every movement from the bank; and as soon as I disappeared in the water, he started barking and whining desperately, escaped from my friend, and followed me into the water until the point where I had submerged. And there he stayed for over an hour, swimming in circles around the bubbles which were coming from my tank, barking and whining. Until I finally surfaced, right in the middle of that confusion of paws and claws, and realized I had not only a companion, but a caring friend. Black Knight was always friendly with everybody, and all my friends knew him well. He actually became famous among them, due to all the funny stories about him, many of which had been witnessed by those same friends. I would not see some of them for years, but whenever we happened to meet again they would always ask: “how is Black Knight, that crazy dog of yours?” Black Knight was happy to welcome my wife to the family as if he had known her all his life. And with his simplicity, congeniality, and genuine display of affection, it did not take him long to win her love, and also make her feel as if she had known him for a lifetime. Especially during his youth, he had a mind of his own, and whenever possible he would run away to have one of his private walks. He was well known in our old neighborhood, and people would call to let me know where he was headed, or sometimes even bring him back home. One of the funniest things about him was his peculiar canine reasoning. He seemed to believe that if we were calling him, but we were not within his sight, he did not have to pay any attention to us. He would totally ignore us, until we pretended to be angry. Then, he would stare at us with the embarrassed expression of a child that was caught doing something wrong, droopy ears, and tail between his legs. We could never resist him. Vertical Divider
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He was completely harmless. All he had to intimidate people was his size. I remember the day I told the people installing our home alarm system that I did not intend to spend any money securing our backyard shed. The reason I gave them was that my dog would guard it. They gave Black Knight a glance, looked at each other, and then burst laughing, as one of them said: “Oh, yeah. He’s gonna lick them to death!” They were right. It was just a matter of looking at him to understand that he would never be able to harm a fly. As a matter of fact, one of the funniest things was to watch him stand motionless while our pet rabbit amused himself by running figure-eights around his legs. Everything was just fine with Black Knight.
As he grew older, his face and front paws started growing very gray, which gave him a lot of charm. Unfortunately, he also became weaker, and started having several old-age problems, including hip disfunction. However, in spite of the many visits to the vet and several painful treatments, he never lost his good humor. He never changed a bit. In his heart he was still the same puppy, and he was always jumping at the sight of either myself or my wife, always happy to see us, always ready to play. One of our last memories of Black Knight was the day the backyard gate was left open and he escaped, although he had not run away in years. It was as if he had felt that would be his last chance for a long free walk. He was gone for hours, and with the help of some friends we looked for him throughout the whole neighborhood, with flash lights, until one or so in the morning. We were extremely worried, since he had his hip problem, and he was also limping from one of his back legs, due to a serious cut that had become infected. And we lived close to a very busy intersection. Besides everything else, it had been raining hard that evening. We finally found him, wet, dirty and tired, but all happy and cheerful, as always. I remember we felt as if he had been reborn; it was as if we had been given another chance to enjoy his company a little bit longer before it was time for him to leave us. A few weeks later, on a hot summer morning, my brother-in-law, who was staying with us, decided to go outside for a swim. He ran back in to tell us he thought there was something wrong with Black Knight. We rushed to him, and realized he had gone sometime during the night. Our vet told us it was probably a heart attack. He was 13 years old. We cremated him, and spread his ashes around a tree on the farm where he had spent a happy youth. Our deepest regret was not having had the chance to be there with him, to see him off, to say good-bye; to show him one last time just how much we loved him, how much we were going to miss him. Now we realize that was a selfish thought. It was a lot better for him this way: it came quickly and unexpectedly. Maybe it was better for everybody. Black Knight, old buddy, if you can hear us wherever you are, we just wanted to say good-bye. And thank you for having enriched our lives in more ways than we will ever be able to describe, just by being you. * Written by Gisele Marasca (from the perspective of her ex-husband, Doug Lester) ©1999 Gisele Marasca |