Heather peered over at her grandmother. Although she had been caring for her father, she, too, was in poor health and couldn’t possibly take care of such an energetic puppy.
“Can we try for a week?” asked Heather.
Her mother nodded in agreement and opened the carrier to allow Zak out to explore his new home.
Suddenly having to adjust to having Zak at home was not easy. He was teething, and, like many teething puppies, he liked to chase legs and feet as they walked past. At bedtime, Zak would not settle on the floor and would whine and cry out in the darkness.
Toward the end of their weeklong trial of having Zak at home, Heather was just about to drift off to sleep in her bed. Suddenly Zak’s needle-sharp puppy teeth nipped up at her toes, piercing her sock and nicking her skin.
“Owch, Zak! No!” cried Heather in a mixture of anger and pain, and she scrambled quickly up the bunkbed ladder into Thomas’s bed.
Being a heavy sleeper, Thomas did not stir, but Heather couldn’t get comfortable. It was far too hot to be sharing a bed, and she didn’t want to climb back down to her bed and risk another bite to her feet.
Over an hour passed, and Heather was growing increasingly warm and uncomfortable. She peered over the side of the top bunk. Her bedroom door was cracked ever so slightly open, the light from the hallway gently illuminating a patch of carpet on the floor and the small brown lump that was Zak. Heather’s mind wandered back to her grandmother’s house and how her father always enjoyed telling everyone how Zak loved to cuddle up at night. How was it possible to cuddle something so annoying and with such sharp teeth? Did her father really bond with Zak that much?
Carefully, so as not to wake Thomas or Zak, Heather pulled herself over the side of the top bunk and slowly placed her foot on the wooden ladder. Zak immediately lifted his head and watched silently, his head tilting from side to side as Heather slowly descended and, without touching floor, climbed back into her bed.
Scarcely a moment had passed before she felt the telltale signs of Zak trying to climb up on her bed once more. She curled her toes, anticipating the sharp pain of Zak’s needle-sharp teeth once more.
The mattress dipped slightly as the puppy used all of his upper body strength to heave himself up onto the bed. Heather held her breath as she watched him disappear under the duvet where her feet would normally be and silently began to panic as Zak began to belly crawl under the covers, up over her knees, past her hips and up toward her chest. A moment later, the duvet rose up by her neck and fell backward to reveal Zak’s huge, smiling face. His smooth, round liquorice nose was touching her own. Each time she breathed in, she inhaled his light, comforting scent. A scent which she had often faintly smelled on her father. Without warning, Heather felt her eyes begin to prickle. She had tried so hard to be strong for her family, but lying in the darkness with her father’s familiar scent floating around her, she finally dropped her guard and allowed herself to cry. Like a warm summer rain, the tears began to fall, leaving salty, wet trails on her cheeks. With each tear, stifled sob, and grit of her teeth, Zak gently licked her cheeks and ear, laying his body on her chest, his warm weight comforting her. His eyes were gentle and full of understanding, almost as if to say, “I miss him too.”
***
The distant rumble of snowploughs startled Heather. Scattered in the distance, the headlights of cars reflected off of the snow, casting eerie shadows over the hills. Had she fallen back asleep? She glanced outside. It had stopped snowing.
Heather had was still absentmindedly holding her mug of chai tea in her hand, though now it was lukewarm, and its sweet aroma had dissipated.
Nestled against her thigh, Zak stared up at her lovingly with his dark, cacao bean eyes. He licked his lips contentedly as she gently kneaded and massaged his greying scruff.
Less than twenty minutes later, Heather, now bundled in copious amounts of warm layers, complete with snow boots, a thick scarf, and earmuffs, was blasting the heat in her car as high as it would go. The snow melted off her ice scraper and was creating a sludgy puddle of water on the floor in front of the passenger’s seat.
Heather’s phone chimed once and a message from one of her colleagues lit up its screen: “Hi H.! Someone just dumped a box of Staffie puppies outside the shelter. Could really use some reinforcements. Drive safe, the roads are mad!”
Heather secured her phone back into its dashboard cradle and looked out at Zak. His robust body was protected from the cold by a Christmas-themed dog sweater she had dressed him in. He was panting hard from having galloped at full speed through the driveway snow, his hot breath turning the air around him into mist.
“Are you coming, then?” she called as she opened her car door.
In one bound, Zak enthusiastically leapt into the car and onto the passenger-side seat where he immediately settled himself into a ball shape. With his red and green sweater, he almost resembled a Christmas pudding. She smiled at his willingness to follow her wherever she went, and she wondered if he was aware that the dog rescue she now managed was the same place they had first met all those years ago.
As she carefully steered her way through the snowy landscape, she thought of her family and how they had built snowmen together, her father lifting her up onto his shoulders so that she could place the carrot on the snowman’s face.
She would always miss and yearn for her father, but, in many ways, she felt that he was never truly gone, having left behind a most precious Staffordshire Bull Terrier to love and protect her. Zak had walked faithfully by her side as she grew out of her overalls and into makeup. He watched proudly from the sidelines as she tore open the envelope containing her exam results and both she and her mother jumped and cried out with joy. And when the hard day finally came for Heather to leave the safety of her family’s nest and grow in her own space, Zak was sitting by her side as the real estate agent handed her the keys to her home.
Zak was the most wonderful and comforting gift her father could ever have left for her, and she would be forever grateful to him for the love and lessons he taught her in their short time together. Above all, she loved him for having the wisdom to leave her with the greatest gift of all, unconditional love.
Dog Facts
•Staffordshire Bull Terriers are known for being a robust, versatile, and generally healthy dog breed, but the breed can be prone to hip dysplasia. On average, Staffordshire Bull Terriers can be expected to live between twelve and fourteen years.
•In 2019, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier was listed as Britain’s most popular dog breed.
•A Border Collie named Chaser has learned over a thousand words and has the ability to pair colours with familiar objects and toys to make accurate selections when asked to fetch.
•There are over 340 dog breeds, but only around 190 are recognised by the American Kennel Club.
•Dogs used to be bred for function, such as herding or guarding. Victorian aristocrats made dog shows and selective breeding fashionable, giving rise to dogs being bred for aesthetic. The Victorians are the reason we enjoy so many different breeds of dog today.
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