The story of Sam will be told in segments. He was a mixed breed dog but predominately St. Bernard. We brought home at age two years from the pound. He was the best dog we will probably ever have and we miss him always. He created so many memories and gave us so many laughs that he is well worth sharing with others and he fully deserves his own page here on this site. I wish he could have lived many, many years so all of our boys could have enjoyed knowing him. He is the kind of dog you never forget. We love all of our furbabies a great deal but Sammy was just one of a kind. |
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One of our cats is quite species confused due entirely to the fact that he is a reincarnated St. Bernard. He has the soul of a dog in the body of a cat. My husband and I are complete suckers when it comes to animals. While I normally tend to be quite a bit worse than he is in that department, there was one time in our marriage where reason appeared to have deserted him. Well, of course, there were MANY times where reason deserted him over the past two and a half decades but I will confine my anecdotes to pet stories for the time being. (yes, I will be getting comments on that one....) This particular time we had decided to add a puppy to our household. WHY we came to that particular decision I could not tell you. In retrospect, it seems like an irrational act done mainly because we COULD do it rather than we should for any reason. In any case, our local pound had put a notice in the paper that some puppies were available we thought sounded like a good mix. When we arrived there, though, we found the pen with these puppies surrounded. Apparently others agreed with us that these dogs would make good family pets. We began wandering around peering inside each cage. Some of the dogs would bound up to the door and watch us hopefully while others cowered in the back staring out fearfully. I found a sweet little fuzzy bundle and squatted down to play with the pup. Bill wandered off by himself in another direction. He returned some time later to tell me he had found the most wonderful dog. He was bubbling over with excitement as we hurried down the aisle to the cage at the far end of the building. I stopped dead in my tracks when he pointed out a humongous dog that sat panting and drooling by the door of the cage. It was clear that, for or some reason only God will ever know, these two had made a connection. Bill knew the way to get right to my soft spot. He told me the dog, at two years old, had had two previous owners with his only fault being that he was so huge and ate so much. Unfortunately, his time had run out at the pound and he was on death row. I admit it. I caved. However, a puppy we came for and a puppy I wanted so I negotiated. He got the big guy; I got the little one. Turns out the oversize dude was named Samson and, since the puppy was a girl, the only name she could have been given was, naturally, Delilah. (She never quite looked like a Delilah, though, so we shortened it to Dilly or, at times, DeeDee for Dilly Dog.) Anyway, we did all the paperwork for getting these two creatures and Bill hauled this moose out to our car and parked him in the back seat. (Dilly had to stay a day or so longer to make sure she didn't have kennel cough.) Then he suddenly remembered he forgot a question or some such and said he would be right back. He got out and I was left with this gigantic mutt hanging his head over the front seat panting and grinning at me. It was at that point I realized I knew nothing of his history and that he could conceivably reach over and take a chunk out of my face. “Ummmm nice doggy,” I murmured encouragingly in a shaky voice. Thankfully Bill was not gone real long and we brought Sam home. |
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Okay, so muttzilla implies a monster-like quality and Sam definitely did not have that but he was humungous. We never knew exactly what he weighed until we started buying dog food at a feed mill. They had a scale they used for weighing grain, etc. and Bill asked if he could put Sammy on it. He weighed in at an impressive 185 pounds! No wonder we were going through 100 pounds of dog food a month (we had other dogs, too, but he was by far the biggest one.) |
Yes, Sam aka the Cookie Monster, loved cookies. Not just any cookies, mind you, but HOMEMADE cookies. Back in the day, when I seemed to have more time and a LOT more energy, I used to bake up a storm for Christmas. Starting in October I would start baking a couple of kinds of cookies each week and freezing them. By the time Christmas came around I had a great selection and would make up plates full of assorted cookies for friends, neighbors, relatives, teachers and anyone else deemed worthy of my baking skills. Sam was in heaven on those baking days because, invariably, a few cookies fell to the floor, fell apart or were overbaked. He was more than happy to be the official vacuum cleaner and nary a crumb would remain. He did his job well. These were the days before they decided too many Oreos could kill you off so it wasn't that we didn't buy cookies at the the store. Actually there were far too many varieties that we enjoyed and furtively snuck into our cart under the fresh veggies so we looked like good parents. Somehow, though, Sam knew the difference. He would sniff them and he might even lower his standards enough to eat it but he let you know with a look that these were NOT homemade and therefore not good enough for him. Over time he came to know the sound of the cookie jar lid. We had a clear jar with a wooden lid and it made a distinctive sound. No matter how quietly we tried to open that jar he heard us, though. We made a game of trying to see if we could sneak a cookie without Sammie hearing but he always won that one! He would come bounding into the kitchen with his gigantic tongue out to one side and an expectant, eager look upon his face. He knew we were suckers. The funniest part of this, though, was HOW Sam would eat the cookie. Every other dog we have ever had has had the usual doggie manners of gulping whatever tidbit he or she was given. It is difficult to believe they can actually taste anything if it goes down that fast! But Sammie was different in that respect because he actually NIBBLED the cookies. I am not exaggerating when I say it would take him at least three bites to finish a regular sized homemade cookie. He would take it so daintily with just the edge of his mouth very carefully. Now dainty and St. Bernard are not normally seen in the same context so you really need to use your imagination here. He would then lay the cookie down at his feet normally taking a second to look up and show his appreciation to the giver. Then he would turn his attention to the cookie at his feet. Carefully picking it up once again he would take off a small chunk and then chew slowly with utter doggie ecstasy. Finishing that bite, he would take another and so on until it was all gone. He would look to make sure no more cookies were forthcoming and, if not, he would sigh with satisfaction and amble back to wherever he had been previously. I have had kids who have not been as appreciative as that dog was about my cookies! We had the cookie jar for a quite awhile after Sam was gone but it always bothered me. One day I had enough and put it away. Now our older son has it in his apartment and I am glad it is not gone from the family. But, somehow, it was just too hard to listen to the clatter of the lid and wait for the sound that will never come again of that big dog bounding into the kitchen looking for his cookie. I hope heaven has homemade cookies for all the good dogs who have gone there. |
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This is my all-time favorite Sam story. In fact, it may just be my all-time favorite story of any kind, next to when the cop rear-ended my car. It never fails to make me laugh just remembering whenever I tell someone about this particular incident. As I mentioned previously, we kept Sam in the garage while we worked with him making sure he knew how to behave in the house. We were in the process of remodeling the house and we didn’t want him getting into anything. As time passed his fondness for us grew and he would show it in an exuberant manner. If we said his name he would react by jumping up into the air in pure joy. Nothing like having a dog do that to make your heart warm up! At the time Bill worked 3rd shift and I worked 1st so I would be in bed when he came home. It was his normal routine to make an extended trip to the bathroom once he got home. Apparently he saved it all up from work for home. I am a light sleeper so I would hear him come home and couldn’t fall back asleep until he had come to bed. On this particular day Sam had apparently become bored and was doing some exploring. Our garage had a staircase to the attic that was finished over the garage for storage but just had insulation on the other side. Sam found out he could get up the stairs and was busy checking things out up there when Bill heard a strange noise just over his head. Trying to think what it could be he said out loud, “Sam?” OK, go back to where I said Sam leaped into the air in happiness when we called his name. Bill is on the throne, Sam is just overhead and Bill has called his name. Sam leaps. He didn’t quite fall ALL the way through – no, he actually landed with paws hanging over each side of a ceiling joist. The rest of the ceiling material and insulation filled the small bathroom floor. I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing this spectacle but Bill tells me Sam’s legs were going like gangbusters on either side of the joist trying to move from there. He was stuck, however, and Bill leaped up to run to rescue his pet. I may have failed to mention this house was older which was why we were remodeling. It had been neglected and things had a tendency to fall apart. Therefore, when Bill jumped up off the toilet and then fell against it tripping on all the ceiling material on the floor, it caused the toilet to fall over. So now we have: the ceiling falling in pieces down all over the bathroom, the toilet laying on its side making a mess of the ceiling materials and the dog still hanging over the ceiling joist. I am not really sure how I knew what was going on in there but I heard the noise, heard Bill call Sam, heard the ceiling crash (and the curses streaming from Bill’s mouth) and just put 2 and 2 together. I helped in the only way I could: I pulled the covers over my head and laughed my ass off. Eventually, Bill got the poor dog down, the toilet set back up and the mess on the floor cleaned up. He didn’t get to bed very early that day! One good thing came from this and that is that we were not really sure what room to work on next. Sam solved that problem for us. We learned to never call Sam’s name if we thought he might be somewhere ABOVE us, and we were very grateful for the ceiling joist being in that particular place. But just think what a good story it would have been for the paramedics to pass around if Sam had landed on Bill and injured him. |
