A Fall, and a Puppy in Jeopardy, Show How We Save One Another

Last Thursday afternoon, in the quiet neighborhood in an area of Salem, MA, where my husband has a little place in which we hang out when we spend time with my wonderful stepson, I foolishly decided to go for a run with our puppy.

Loki is ten months old, and he is a ‘Shi-Poo’ — a Shitzu Poodle mix, an adorable combination; though the name of the breed, clearly coined so as to avoid making nine-year-old boys giggle, is as silly and pretentious as ‘NoHo’ or ‘DUMBO.’

Loki is very different from the much-mourned Mushroom. Where the late Mushroom was, certainly in his elder years, a judgmental, eccentric Oscar Wilde character, Loki is all a young Jimmy Stewart; wide-eyed innocence, good intentions, purity of heart.

Brian keeps up a narration of the excited, tolerant inner monologue of Loki, just as he did with an equally funny, finicky and censorious inner monologue for Mushroom. Where Mushroom would gaze at us with relentless hostility until we broke down psychologically and yielded any delicious human food in our possession, Loki’s voice is something like: ‘I see you guys are having steak tips! I’m having puppy chow! But that’s cool! I love you!!’

Loki has long hind legs like a rabbit, or a hound dog, and he runs like a rabbit — with total joy in motion. I began to run with him – as who could fail to want to share in that delight? And I made the mistake of using a long extensible leash, as he loved to cavort about with all that length. Had I done more research, I would have known that that was a recipe for an accident.

I was racing with him a few blocks from Brian’s little flat, on the uneven sidewalks of the little town. The next moment, I realized that I was on my back on the icy sidewalk, in an agony unlike anything I had ever experienced in my life, and probably screaming.

Worse still, I could see that Loki was about 100 feet further away from me on the sidewalk, with the leash, fallen out of my hapless grasp, trailing near him. He was looking back at me in confused concern.

But I was unable to get up, and I realized with horror that I could not move my left arm or hand at all. Loki could easily wander away and be lost, or get hit by a car.

I started shouting, ‘Help me! Please help me!’ I put all of my conscious will into those screams, and I prayed someone would respond before I passed out, or before I went into shock, which would mean that my puppy would be in terrible danger.

Amazingly, I soon felt someone kneel by me. A woman had come out of her nearby home, having heard my screams. She was seeking to calm me, even as someone else called 911.

‘Please get my puppy,’ I begged. Miraculously, another woman appeared, from another house — I believe from across the street. I heard two voices then gently luring Loki back toward where I lay, and then my heart was in my throat until one woman was able to seize his leash handle securely.

‘Please tell my husband what happened,’ I managed to say between groans, and I gave that woman our address. Her wife also, I believe, called 911 on my behalf.

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