TAFFY

"TAFFY"

He was just a dog but oh, was he ever special to the little blond haired girl who worshipped him. She had been told to wait until she was old enough to help take good care of an animal before having one. When she was just six years old and had started school, she came in one afternoon from the school bus to find a new, soft light-brown puppy in a basket in the kitchen.

She named her dog, Taffy. He went everywhere she went, except to Church and school. When her family moved farther out into the country, Taffy and she became inseparable and when she got a black kitten, Midnight, the three of them were like triplets.

The seasons passed quickly and turned into years; Taffy and Midnight now slept together in a huge old chair down in their basement but more often than not, she sneaked them both into her canopy bed. Suddenly, the little first grader was 9 years old in 1974 and had to choose which pet to take with her when she and her Mum moved back closer to town, after her parents divorced . It was decided that Taffy would remain in the country to live with the neighbors next door who wanted him. Midnight would fare better in an apartment than he would.

When they returned to visit Taffy, about four months after moving away, he greeted them before their 1969 Ford Falcon had even come to a complete stop. Kisses were generously planted on the little girl and her mother. The neighbor told of how Taffy still thought he lived in the same house and after supper, would go "home" to sleep outside the closed basement window.

It was harder to say goodbye this time; it was obvious that he was well fed and cared for but that he missed his old home. Still, the child and her mother both thought that he would eventually adapt to his new owners and be safer in the countryside than in the busy city.
The call came about 4 months later; Taffy had been shot! He had ran into the woods to chase something; someone had shot him and he crawled "home", bleeding all the way, to the closed and locked basement window where he died alone. He was already buried when they received the news.

Words cannot explain the guilt, remorse and raw pain that the little girl and her parents, endured. Whenever any of them saw a light brown dog with big brown eyes and a wagging tail, they remembered "Taffy".

He was just a dog……..but oh, was he ever special to Lisa and her Mum and Dad.