Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Friendship (04/04/05)
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TITLE: Man's best friend | Previous Challenge Entry
By Henry Swart
04/09/05 -
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Zacchaeus came into my life when he was just a puppy. For some reason – the usual sense of goodwill towards the underdog, maybe – I chose to adopt a puppy from the Animal Welfare instead of buying one from the local pet shop. I felt genuine compassion for those strays and castaways – being an orphan myself. Each dog performed its best trick to try and impress me, as though they were saying, ‘Choose me! Choose me!’ It broke my heart, really, it did.
As I passed another cage, the puppies rushed forward, barking and jumping up against the gate, but one puppy remained in the corner. It’s strange how the only puppy that wasn’t trying to attract my attention was most successful at capturing it. When Zacchaeus – I decided on that name because he was small and watched from a distance – saw that I was staring at him, he ventured closer. Seating himself about a meter behind the wall of barking puppies, he stared up at me with those big brown eyes. To this day I’m not sure whether I chose him or he chose me.
On the way back to the farm Zacchaeus sat on the passenger seat of my four by four and watched me. He was an ugly little mutt, with long, spiky hair and a short curly tail. I reached over and scratched him behind his ear. His response was adorable: He turned his head slightly, closed his one eye, and started scratching involuntarily with his back paw. We liked each other from the beginning.
And so Zacchaeus and I did the things masters and dogs do the world over: I scratched his ear and he scratched the air; he made a puddle in the kitchen and I spanked him with a loud role of newspaper; I threw a stick and he fetched it; he ran next to me when I went for my morning jog.
We also did some things that few, if any, other masters and dogs do. One of our unique little games was called ‘sponge.’ When we were walking along the river – or anywhere close to water, for that matter – I would say, ‘Sponge,’ and Zacchaeus would run to the water, dive in, and run back for a belly-scratch.
One afternoon something very unfortunate happened. I was driving the tractor back from a remote part of the farm and Zacchaeus was seated next to me. It was a scorcher of a day and I’d been out all day ploughing a field. I was tired. Maybe it was the blazing sun, maybe it was just fatigue, I don’t know, but I must have blacked out. All I remember is waking up as I hit the ground and then feeling those heavy back wheels go over me. The pain was excruciating – I could hear the bones in my legs being crushed.
For a moment everything intensified – the taste of dry dust in my mouth, the rumble of the tractor engine, and, of course, the pain in my broken body – then everything became hazy as I lost consciousness.
I awoke, sort of, with Zacchaeus licking my face. It was dark and for a moment I didn’t know where I was, then the pain reminded me. The sticky feeling on my legs told me I had lost much blood and the dryness in my mouth told me I was severely dehydrated. I almost panicked.
‘Sponge,’ I whispered. At first I though Zacchaeus hadn’t heard me, then he scampered off into the dark. He returned a few minutes later and I sucked the precious river water from his wet fur. We repeated the process as often as I needed water. I don’t know how long I lay there before they found me, only that I would not have made it without Zacchaeus. He stayed with me all that time, and I think that if I had died, he would have died with me rather than leave my side.
They say that a dog is man’s best friend, and Zacchaeus certainly is mine. I don’t think I’ve been as good a friend to him as he’s been to me, but I’ve learned much from him – I’ve learned that friendship is all about love, loyalty, and staying at a fallen friend’s side, no matter what.
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