Photograph by Jack Dodson
animal bones and junk. Then I gave her a bath, which she hated. The tub’s water was dark brown when we finished, but she was as glossy black as a newborn seal. I phoned my wife, Wendy. We were still technically living in Maine — or she was. I was commuting every two weeks between our house on the coast of Maine, the Sandhills, and Hollins University in Virginia, where I was serving as writer in residence. “Listen,” I said. “I found a stray dog. She’s a pup — a retriever of some sort. She was running wild.” Wendy knows me so well. “You want to keep her, right?” The idea was totally impractical. We already had two needy golden retrievers and were preparing to move our household permanently to North Carolina. “Oh, no,” I said. “Well, maybe — but only if I can’t find her owner.” “Right.” She sounded amused. “Have you given her a name yet?” A name suddenly came to me out of the ether, the perfect name for a second-chance dog that had magically jumped into my arms. “I might call her Mulligan. Mully for short.” The ancients believed that when you give something a name, it’s yours for life. That night I heard snoring and rolled over to find Mully lying upside down with her handsome head on the pillow beside me. When I spoke to her, her dark eyes glistened and her shaggy tail thumped. She seemed so pleased that we somehow had found each other. We’ve been inseparable ever since. She’s accompanied me on road trips to Maine and the summit of Grandfather mountain and just about everywhere I’ve gone for the past seven years. The smartest dog I’ve ever owned, and possibly ever seen, The Mull, as I now commonly call her, quickly took over running the lives of the goldens and won the hearts of any human she came into contact with via her cheerful personality and soulful brown eyes. When I worked in the terrace garden of our former house and grabbed a quick nap in my favorite Adirondack chair afterward, she was always close by keeping watch for deer or any other wildlife foolish enough to enter her large fenced domain, always ready to go for a walk around the neighborhood on a straining leash because, as I learned the hard way, she had such a wild streak in her she simply couldn’t stop herself from bolting after a rabbit or squirrel. After all, they were once supper. Sometimes I worried, in fact, that I’d taken her away from a life in the wild that suited her. Her heritage, I discovered, was that of a working field dog. A friend familiar with the finer points of dog breeding informed me that she was probably a mix of border collie and flat-coated retriever. A flat-coated retriever is a skilled and highly intelligent hunter, a gundog that originated in Great Britain and was known for its ability to retrieve game birds. Perhaps this explains why the first Christmas she was with us I heard a faint noise in the dining room after the family had moved to the living room fire and got up to investigate and found the remains of the Christmas ham missing from its platter. Upstairs in the seldom-used wing of the old house, I found The Mull lying on a bed working on a naked ham bone, surrounded by a small mountain of empty dog and cat food cans she’d pilfered from the garbage and had carried up to her own secret dining chambers. Not long before we moved to a newer house with an overgrown two-acre garden out back, I found the well-hidden gap in the fence where our youngest The Art & Soul of Greensboro
golden — Ajax the Escape Artist, as I call him — slipped through on several occasions to go visiting in the neighborhood. He was a gift from me to my bride for our tenth wedding anniversary, and he’s totally a mama’s boy who pays absolutely no attention to anything I have to say. Not surprisingly, though, The Mull ratted him out every time he escaped, racing back to report the break-out with agitated barking and a look of complete disgust on her pretty face. It was my wife who pointed out the obvious about my beautiful second-chance dog. “She could easily slip through that fence and take herself hunting any time she likes. But she knows it would make you crazy and break your heart if anything happened to her. ” She’s right, of course. Even more telling perhaps, after seven years together, the leash is no longer necessary. The Mull responds to my voice as if she understands everything I say to her, which is a better average than any of our grown children. I’ve heard it said that rescued dogs have a gratitude and loyalty you can see and feel every day. In truth, few things have brought me more contentment and joy than my friendship with my foundling dog. The funny thing is, I may have saved her from a dangerous highway. But she really rescued me on the busy highway of life. OH Jim Dodson is O.Henry’s editor and The Mull our magazine’s mascot.
July 2014
O.Henry 59