Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul by Jack Canfield Read Free Book Online Page A

and listen to whenever he wants to hear Kayla’s voice. We call it puppy love, twenty-first-century style!
    Zardrelle Arnott

Bubba’s Last Stand
    A dog is a dog except when he is facing you. Then he is Mr. Dog.
    Haitian saying
    During the four years I spent as an animal control officer, I learned that dogs are the first to know when spring has arrived. Dogs who never venture farther than their own backyards will somehow find themselves across town following the scent of spring. Bubba was no exception.
    Each year, animal control received several phone calls complaining about Bubba—always in the spring. Bubba, an ancient, overweight and most often cranky bulldog with a profound underbite, snored in the shade of his yard all summer, and seemed content to stay behind his fence during the winter. But as soon as it began to thaw, Bubba began to terrorize the city.
    Actually, Bubba was too old to terrorize anyone. His once tan and brindle coat was mixed with so much gray that he appeared at least twenty years old, and I noticed the beginning of a limp that had the definite look of arthritic hips. He never chased anyone; I don’t think he could have if he tried. Still, his appearance and his perpetual nasal congestion, combined with his bad attitude, made people uncomfortable when he got loose.
    Sometimes he would get it in his head to sit outside the local deli and glare. The deli owners tried throwing roast beef at him but he just sniffed at it, gobbled it up, growled and stayed right where he was. Most people just got out of his way when they saw him coming; then they called animal control.
    His owner, Tim—a thin, silent man who appeared ageless in that way men do after working outdoors most of their lives—usually showed up at the pound, apologized, asked someone to tell me to drop off his ticket and took Bubba home. He wrapped his thin arms around Bubba’s very large middle and heaved him into the back of his pickup truck. He never complained, never asked for a court date. He just apologized and paid his fines.
    Tim didn’t seem the kind of person who would be interested in having a pet, especially one as difficult as Bubba. Tim lived alone in a large dilapidated Victorian house that was in a perpetual state of renovation. He had never married, and no one really remembered if he had any family. He didn’t seem comfortable showing affection to anyone, least of all a fat, grumpy bulldog. And Bubba never let anyone touch him, except for Tim, and even then he didn’t look too happy about it. Yet year after year Tim spent a lot of time leaving work to come and drag his grouchy, old dog home.
    One spring, it seemed as though Bubba had finally gone into retirement, only growling at passersby from the comfort of his yard. That was why I was a bit surprised when I got a call on an unusually warm June day that a very ugly, old, fat and wheezing bulldog was causing a problem up at the high school. How did he get all the way up there? I thought to myself as I drove to the school. The route from Bubba’s home to the high school was all uphill. I had seen Bubba recently, and he surely didn’t look as if he could make a trip like that.
    I pulled into the high school parking lot and saw the gymnasiumdoors open, probably for a cross-breeze. Bubba must have entered the school through the gym. This should be fun. I grabbed a box of dog biscuits and the snare pole and threw a leash around my neck. No animal control officer had ever actually touched Bubba. The equipment was going to be of no real use—he would likely never let me near him. I had to figure out a way to get him to want to leave. I hoped the biscuits would do the job. Entering the hallway, I saw lines of teenagers standing in suspended animation along the walls. One called out to me, “Every time we even go to open our lockers, that dog growls at us. He’s going to eat us!”
    Sure enough, there was Bubba—holding the entire hallway hostage. I could see himstanding,