Scarred by Jezebel

On my way out of my neighborhood this morning I saw a local mechanic’s lot being patrolled by a German Shepherd. As I made my right hand turn onto Sunset I thought about two things: my grandpa’s dog, Prince, and my dog, Jezebel, both German Shepherds.

Prince was a great dog. I was somewhat afraid of him as a child, because I was always warned to leave him alone. At family get togethers he stood, chained in the garage (with the doors up so he could watch us), watching us eat and have a great time. Prince wasn’t allowed to join in our festivities, and this is probably part of the reason I feared him as I was used to dogs just being around. So Prince being excluded sort of let me know that he was something special, not just in that he also shared my Grandpa’s last name.

We could pet Prince when we first showed up as long as Grandpa or Grandma was with us. He always seemed to have a bowl of wet dog food that looked and smelled horrible. I believe he ate ALPO, not sure if that’s correct but the can had an illustration of a dog on it and a very short name in block letters at the top. And I’ve always just sort of remembered it as ALPO. When he dumped the can into Prince’s bowl it was akin to watching a large dog shit in the yard, and made a strange sucking sound as it moved out of the can, followed by a huge plopping sound as it hit the bowl.

Prince seemed impartial to this canned food. But he’d always maw it down as if someone were going to take it. And we made sure to be nowhere near him when he was being fed, something else that probably attributed  to my fearing this dog. But I always loved to pet Prince, he was Grandpa’s dog, and what young boy wouldn’t love his Grandpa or his Grandpa’s dog.

I’m not sure how long into my love/fear relationship with Prince that he developed a hip issue. Of course later in life I’d come to know this as a common ailment to German Shepherds. And it’s really such a horrible thing to watch a noble dog go through. They still want to please their masters, but they just can’t stand. They try though, and it’s pretty sad. I remember it being a horrible thing to watch, and I still have a few  images burned into my mind of Prince sitting in pain on the floor at the open garage door. He’d become very tempermental and we really not allowed to pet him anymore, we could only watch his slow demise from the safety of the driveway.

My dog, Jezebel, was the best dog ever. Seriously, she was. She wasn’t just a member of our family that shared my last name, she was a sibling. I slept on her and next to her, at least when our cat Zulu wasn’t hogging her, and for the longest time she was the ONLY pet allowed to sleep in the house. And in my young mind that elevated her above Prince, who slept in a detacted garage. Plus, I could pet her whenever I wanted, even when she was eating. She was a good dog.

Every day when I’d come home from school, she’d be out by the road waiting on me. She’d wag her tail and get noticeably happy, and we’d play or run around the yard. Whenever anyone messed with Jezebel they not only had to deal with Dad, but they had to deal with Zulu. Yes, the cat. And usually Zulu was quicker to react.

Zulu was a cat with a bad attitude that really only liked a couple of people, and you learned real quick if you were one of those people. He had sharpened knifes attached to all of his digits that he didn’t hesitate to use if you were on his shit list. So you learned to stay off his shit list, and if he hated you, you just learned to stay away. He hated the neighbors, but loved Jezebel. And I’ve gotten off topic.

Well as I mentioned Jezebel used to wait for me everyday at the road, just waiting on me to get home from school. On one morning we pulled up to find her and the neighbor’s dog wrestling around by the road. We climbed off the bus and moved out of the way. As the bus pulled away the dogs’ wrestling match moved to the street and Jezebel ended up getting run over by the rear wheels of the school bus.

It was seriously one of the most tragic things I’ve experienced. She was still alive, but not doing well. I remember them loading her into a wheelbarrel to move her from the road, and the bus driver continued on his route. I of course was crying and hated pretty much everyone at that moment. Jezebel was dying, and while I’m not sure I really understood what death was, I knew enough to know that she’d no longer be around.

She didn’t live much longer if even completing the transport over to our back yard. And that may have been how I learned about death. There are several images that run through my head about that moment, the same images that ran through my head this morning right after I saw that German Shepherd. So as I pulled up to the red light a few blocks later I was pretty sad, and I really couldn’t get those images out of mind for the rest of the trip.

It amazes me that something that happened close to 30 years ago still effects me so much. It’s not something that I’d say I think about often, if even in the last couple years. For some reason seeing that German Shepherd this morning, standing there staring at me, standing there at the edge of the mechanics garage, reminded me of Prince, which reminded me of that horrible incident with Jezebel. And those horrible memories  came flooding back. But so did some of the good memories.

Damn I miss that dog.