A JACKET FULL of PUPPIES … 1973
In 1973 my family and I were living in a small town in upstate New York. We didn’t entertain like we had while living in the city but on this particular night we were having a sit-down dinner for 12 couples.
It was a snowy November evening and all of our guests had arrived, but where was my husband? He and our oldest son had gone out hunting early in the day. Now it was well past dark and still no sign of them.
I was starting to get panicky but then I heard a car door slam and knew they were home. We all went to greet them and watched as they carefully lifted Dick’s hunting jacket out of the back of the Blazer. It seemed to be heavy and it took the two of them to carry it inside.
That was when we heard the tiny yapping sounds and we realized that his jacket was full of newborn pups. There must have been 7 or 8 of them and Dick explained what has transpired.
He had noticed a pregnant dog about 4 weeks earlier and every time he went into the woods he would call to her and they became friends. About 2 weeks before our party Dick noticed that the mother would not come to his call and he assumed that she must be having, or already had, her puppies.
So it was a shock when Dick and Mark stumbled onto the body of the mother. She had most likely been killed by a ruthless hunter who saw movement in the brush and assumed that it was a deer. They were devastated and then their next thought was, “where are the pups?” They finally located them scrunched into a hollow log covered with snow and they extricated them one by one and bundled them in Dick’s jacket.
You can imagine the rest of the story. We took turns sitting on the kitchen floor, fancy dress clothes and all, cuddling the pups and feeding warm milk to them. So it became a “sit-down” dinner party after all.
And, to top it off, one of the guests was a journalist. He wrote an article that tugged at the heart strings of many readers and all of our little “orphan pups" were adopted into good homes.
11 Comments:
What a wonderful story!!! Too bad you don't have photos to show - or maybe you do?
No, Judy, I wish I did have some pictures of that night. We were all dressed to the nines and sitting on the kitchen floor !! That picture is of my son Mark and a bunch of puppy shorthaired pointers that we had later.
OH I LOVE THIS STORY!!!
That is such a heartwarming story Ginnie. Blessings to anyone who saves or helps animals. I feel so sorry for the poor mother dog that died. But at least her babies lived.
It is a charming and heartwarming story. You husband and son were lucky to find the pups.
When I hear of hunter accidently shooting and killing something they thought was a deer, I am reminded of the woman killed in Maine. She was in her back yard and put up her hands with white mitts on and a hunter shot her thinking she was a white-tailed deer. She was the mother of twins.
Given the hunting culture of Maine, she was blamed even though it was against the law to shoot close to homes. In the end, her husband felt he could no longer live there and he took their twin
daughters (I believe) and moved away.
A very heart-warming story. I liked BS and the tomatoes as well, although it sounds like a band when I write it that way. :)
Sweet story Ginnie, whatever did you do with all of those puppies?
Love Di
I love this story. I hope you and your family got to keep at least one of the puppies.
Absolutely gorgeous story..and it made me smile :)
Ginnie--I can honestly say I don't know anyone who has had a more adventuresome varied life than you.
Gather up your blogs and publish that book!
KG Mom: Thanks for your support about writing a book based on my blog entries. I've thought so much about that and even started to put them together as a bunch of Vignettes...but I have no idea how to go about it. But thanks for the nice encouragement.
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