So Sweet…
David Kowalski was sixty-four and only one year before his upcoming retirement from the Greensboro Waterworks when he suffered a massive heart attack and dropped dead during dinner. He was just stuffing his face with a large chunk of bloody steak when he pitched forward violently with the fork in his mouth. The fork had penetrated his cheek on impact, and in fact, caused the rather stupid investigating detective to suspect foul play. As if David’s sweet old wife had stabbed her husband in the face with a dinner fork?
There was no foul play, other than many years of digesting the foul, cholesterol-laden food, the little woman, Mary was her name, had been feeding him. She never touched steaks or chops, as she could not stand the idea of eating the flesh from species as close to her as cows and darling sheep. Mary had a little lamb…
The sudden death of her husband devastated the poor woman, who, now that her two sons were living overseas, stayed behind on her own in the big house. Her son Jon, who had stayed with her for a month after the funeral bought her a lovely German Shepherd puppy before he returned to his family in Spain. A highly pedigreed pup whose registered ancestry went further back than most people’s.
Adorable and a little menacing perhaps?
He proved to be an adorable, rather rambunctious little dog. A perfect companion for Mary who took him for long daily hikes into the surrounding wild countryside. She named him Oscar, after her father who had bred the same breed of dogs for the German Wehrmacht before and during the war.
Oscar was a good dog and became close to Mary, who spoiled him rotten. Despite that, he never developed any bad habits. The dog had breeding and seemed to know his place around people. When Mary had visitors, Oscar would stay in the background, never beg for food scraps, or bother the visitors in any other way. He did have a somewhat alarming tick though, something that came up as he was getting older. He would not allow visitors to come near his food bowl. If they did they would receive a warning in the form of a truly menacing deep-throated growl, enough to scare the crap out of all comers. You don’t want an 85-pound German Shepherd tackling you. Fortunately, he never did. Mary thought that behavior rather cute, and interpreted the growling as a form of protectiveness.
With her the dog was as sweet as can be expected of that breed of animal, sleeping on her dead husband’s side of the bed, and always obeying her instructions faithfully. Oscar was eleven years old when he developed painful arthritis in his hips. Mary took Oscar to the vet, who had to sedate him before Oscar allowed him to complete the examination. The Vet prescribed some pain pills and suggested Mary slip them into his food. That should not have been a problem, except that Oscar did not like the taste of the pills and some days succeeded in leaving them behind in the bowl. He may have thought, “Dze old bitch is trying to poison me, perhaps?”
On one such a day, Mary wanted to take Oscar for a little walk, but the dog was in pain and had no intention of getting up from his comfy daybed near the furnace. When Mary nudged him lightly with her foot he growled at her for the first time in his life.
Oil on canvas by David de Coninck 17th Centuary
Not being used to that sort of treatment from her best friend, Oscar, she bent down and tried to grab his collar to get Oscar to comply. The dog then bit her hand viciously, practically tearing one of poor Mary’s fingers right off. Now in a rage and tasting her sweet blood, he jumped up and after ravaging her face, went for her throat. Her last thought was, “Why Oscar, why?
The simple answer to that is of course, “Vhy not?”
The moral of the story? Like old people, old dogs may get cantankerous…
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