Page Four
So who should come along next and fall in love with the shaggy puppy with the pleading eyes and the need for love (and the need to get the hell out of that pet shop) oozing out of every pore? My mother. As I was living in Western Mass at the time of this great event, I wasn’t part of the purchase. But I have no doubt that had I been there, I would have connected to Mugsy in that store like flies on poop. And I should right here in the beginning add that if indeed Mugsy’s reactions were extreme over many things, that he also loved extremely. With his whole canine heart and soul and tenacity and ferocity. The kind of indefatigable love of which many poems and legends and novels have been written over centuries.
Much of what I learned about him in his first year came over the telephone, but on the few occasions when I did meet him face-to-face, I could see that all the telephone tales were true. This was one wacko and wonderful and difficult and endearing puppy.
I was 37 then, and my mother 59, when the life-changing purchase of this particular wire-haired terrrier mix (mixed with what?) was made. It certainly changed his life, and it changed the life of most of my family as well. Even though I lived my own life miles away with my own family of many non-dogs (cats, rabbits, fish, hamsters, mice, a guinea pig, birds), the adventures of raising Mugsy came in those phone reports, and were vivid enough when my daughter and I went “home” for visits.
Some of the other things that brought on peeing or nipping or snarling and growling, or piteous crying that sounded just like a human child? Leaving him alone, excluded. Shutting him away from the goings-on. Getting anywhere near his food dish when he was eating. Trying to take something out of his mouth. Accidentally stepping on one of his paws. And I’m sure there were more that the distance of years has pushed into my passive memory.
One of the things that plagues me to this very moment is this: Where in the hell did he get that colossally stupid name? Yeah, yeah, there may be droves of you out there with animals named Mugsy, and I don’t care. It’s a stupid name. I may have been told, back in 1990, exactly how he got that name, but if so, my memory of that has been lost for years. Did the first woman who bought him do that? Did the pet shop do it after that woman brought him back and told them what a nut he was? Did my parents do it, or my daughter? I still don’t know. All I know is that I hated that name, and that when in 1998 he became my dog, I decided to change his name to Murphy, something with just a bit more dignity. And I did try for a while to remember to call him Murphy, and he did begin to answer to it sometimes. But I was living under a great deal of stress at the time(which has happened to me on a regular basis all my life), with a mentally disturbed woman who, among other things, had a penchant for stepping on Mugsy’s paws and making him nip her. And she was warped in several other ways, too. Under all the stress, and with other animals to care for too, and with a part-time, volunteer job in a bookstore, I just couldn’t discipline myself to use Murphy consistently. So Mugsy he was, and Mugsy he remained until the moment that he died in my arms.
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Another chapter in bill’s story:
Bill was Charlie’s vegetable-seller, even though bill’s vegetables were free.
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