He was a puppy, actually.  Couldn't have been more than a few months old.  He had been seen around the neighborhood, a stray.  Our neighbor had seen him in the Walgreens parking lot about a mile away eating a McDonalds burger wrapper.  So, God had decided to smile upon this little pup and lead him to our door where Janet found him.

His life was changed.  He was her second dog.  Probably my seventh or eighth.

We kept him and and named him Scruffy.  He chewed on everything.  Once after discovering that he had chewed a pair of my shoes, that was the last straw.  Janet was taking him to the pound.  In the parking lot she decided she couldn't do it and drove Scruffy back home.  He stopped chewing after that.  I think he had some idea of the close call he just had.

He was terrified of linoleum floors.  He got over it eventually but we wondered what had happened in his short life up to that point that had made him so scared of a solid floor.  He grew up to be about thirty pounds, real curly white fur, kind of like a smaller version of the Shaggy Dog.  I always called him a cartoon dog because that's what he looked like… something from a cartoon.

I used to take him out to a field that was by the apartment complex.  You'd go out the door - after crossing the linoleum kitchen floor - turn left, cross a small parking lot, and into the field.  I always used to get scared every time he'd head out the door and dash full tilt toward the field.  I just knew he was going to get run over by someone speeding through the parking lot.  Once someone was coming through and saw him in time to stop.  Unfortunately, Scruffy wasn't able to stop in time and ran smack into the left front tire of the car, which had already stopped.  Like I said, he ran really fast.

He liked to chase me if I'd run in the field.  Scruffy understood running as meaning you wanted him to chase you.  It was usually a short chase because he was fast…

Janet and I moved into a house.  The inside of the old house was kind of a circle.  I could run through a back hallway, through the kitchen and dining room, into the living room and back into the hallway.  Scruffy couldn't catch me there because he'd slide on the hardwood floors and he'd yelp like he was crying while he'd chase me.  Of course, if I had socks on the race was a lot closer.

He knew "speak", "sit", "sit up", "lay down", "shake", and no telling what other words.  If you mentioned the word "bath" to him he would try to casually ease off into another room.  He definitely knew what "You want to go outside?" meant. The rattling of a leash sent him into an excited fit because he knew he was going for a walk.  It was more like he walked you.  I always swore he could have pulled a sled all by himself.  He was like a horse where you always had to be pulling hard on the reins to keep him at a walk.  Any slack and he'd be off as fast as you cared to run behind him.

He could catch tennis balls.  He loved for you to try to get it back.  Socks too.  Scruffy was the only dog I ever knew that loved to growl ferociously while he was playing.  People would think he was going to just rip your throat out but that was how he played.  He never bit, but boy you'd think he was just going to tear your hand off.  He would chase anything you threw but you'd have to take it from him after he got it.  If you would say, "Give me that!" while tugging on it he'd growl fiercely.

You could get down on the floor and hug him.  If you growled he'd growl back.  If you moaned, he'd moan, too.  Long deep moans.  If you snarled, he'd snarl like a rabid attack dog.  Then he'd go look for his ball.

He could say, "I love you." Well, actually it was more like "bow woo woo" but it was close.  Real close.

Once while giving him a bath I noticed a peculiar reflection of light in one of his eyes.  Then in both eyes.  The vet said he had "juvenile cataracts" and would eventually go blind.  It progressed quickly.  He could no longer catch tennis balls and when he'd dash around the back yard trying to get you to tug on the sock or grab the tennis ball in his mouth, sometimes he run right into a lawn chair.  We had a "veterinary ophthalmologist" do cataract surgery on one eye.  It seemed to work a little for a while but he eventually went blind.  After that he got around by smell, memory, hearing, or a combination of those.  It sure didn't seem to bother him… except when he ran into lawn chairs.  Most of the time you wouldn't even know that he couldn't see.

Then we moved to Paducah.  He learned his way around his new house pretty quickly.  This back yard was bigger and fenced so he could really roam around.  He never became an "outdoor dog" though.

Even though he was blind, it never stopped him from always being ready to play.  He would still chase tennis balls as long as you didn't throw them too hard and he could hear where they stopped.  Or, sometimes if he was outside and he'd just walk up on one, sniff it, pick it up, and start running… growling.  We had to be careful where we left the yard furniture.

He slept right up on the bed.  He'd wait by the bed, making occasional impatient movements or an occasional paw across the side of the bed until you snapped your fingers.  Then, suddenly he'd appear right on the bed next to you.

For some reason he hated to be picked up.  He'd let you but he'd tense up and stretch his paws all out and if you managed to keep from being clawed you were lucky.

He was a camping fool.  The woods were a great adventure for him.  Probably the smells.  They say that when you lose one sense your other senses are enhanced.  I think that's true.  Scruffy had ears like a bat and he was an avid sniffer.

Everybody loved Scruffy.  Even people that didn't like dogs became buddies with The Scruff.  He could be very affectionate without jumping all over you or bathing you with slobber.  Everyone also loved the growling thing he did.  It would take a while to convince them that he was just goofing off.  He would snarl viciously... tail wagging the whole time... pulling on one end of the sock while you pulled on the other.

Once we used Hartz Blockade on him for fleas.  He spaced out just standing in one spot for hours appearing to stare off into space.  We decided not to use Blockade on him any more.  Ortho Sevin dust worked real well.  In Paducah we finally got rid of most all the fleas in our yard and didn't really have to get after them too much, mostly after he'd been somewhere else.

When Alison was born he smelled her and decided she could stay.  She loved him.  He tolerated her.  I told him if he ever bit her he'd make a really pretty white throw rug.  He got the message.

Then we got Max.  Rescued him actually, from the neglect of my mother.  So then we had two dogs for a little while.  Max was… is a Lhasa Apso.  We still have Max.  He's no Scruffy.  They got along. 

We had them both neutered.  A little late in the game for ol' Scruff but he and Max were kind of a little excitable together… if you know what I mean.  I don't think Scruffy was ever the same.

As Scruffy got old he slowed down a little and gained a few pounds.  Even got a little cantankerous at times.  He'd have to be helped onto the bed sometimes.  It was the only time he didn't mind being picked up.

Eventually we noticed him having problems getting up the steps into the back door.  Also, the rare "accident" in the house was getting a little more frequent.  We knew that Scruffy would bust rather than go in the house so we thought Max was doing it.

We didn't realize it but Scruffy was sick.  We thought it was just slowing down because of old age… that, and I figured he was still mad at me for getting him neutered.  Finally he got so feeble we knew something was very wrong and we took him to the vet.

His liver was failing.  Had been for a while.  His hematocrit was something like 14.  If I remember my Navy Hospital Corp lab training I think around 40 is normal for humans… and other red blooded mammals.  Red cells were low.  Scruffy was anemic.  A human with a hematocrit level of 14 would have been admitted into ICU in critical condition and given a transfusion.  Scruffy was given some medicine by the vet who sent the rest of it home with us to give him ourselves.

That picked him up a little.  He had pretty much stopped eating.  He would just lay in the back bedroom under a sewing machine.  Never came out unless we brought him out to take him outside.  I couldn't even get him to growl… or even moan.

Once while I was at work, Janet saw him coming down the hallway toward her.  He had left the bedroom because it was coming out and he knew it and he wanted to get outside to do it.  Unfortunately, he was too weak to hold it and it was leaking out his backside as he came down the hall.  It was very sad.  Scruffy knew.

The one afternoon Janet called me at work, "Scruffy has died." I wasn't there.  But a few minutes later I was.

I came home to find him lying on the driveway (in the back yard) in the shade where he liked to sprawl out on warm days.  Janet had let him out, it was such a nice day, and he laid down under the camper and died.  He lived with us for almost 12 years.

I wrapped him up in a blanket and we took him to the vet's office.  They buried him for us in a grave they have on their property.  Now, the highway department is planning to tie US Highways 60 and 62 together right about where the veterinarian's office is.  Oh well.  Scruffy won't care.  The vet's not too happy about it, though.

He was a good dog.  He was my buddy.  He was happiest just hanging out with us.  When I came home from work it was like I had been gone for days.  He knew the sound of my truck - that little "whistling" sound that the older Toyota 4-Runners made because of that one fan pulley on the top - and he'd know I was coming up the street before anybody else in the house would.

I guess Max doesn't mind not getting blamed for accidents in the house anymore.

Sometimes I really miss that damned dog.  Max is okay but he's dumber than a nail.  Being one of those purebreds I think has damaged his chromosomes.  That, and spending the first two years of his life with my mom.  But Scruffy was the smartest, most expressive, perceptive, and downright happy dog I have ever seen. God smiled upon us, too, that day in 1988.

02 April 2002