Dog Story

I have told the story of how I gave my dog Slick to a caring family that apparently loved him more than me. Slick and his adopted family still live nearby. On a walk through the neighborhood a few days ago, they stopped by for a visit.

Slick, a beautiful black Gordon setter, will be thirteen in March. His black hair has turned gray and he walks now instead of runs. When he was my dog, he never stopped running. I was at work when Slick and his adopted parents dropped by, but their visit jogged a memory in my rapidly decaying mind.

I have a tiny little oil and gas company and operate a few shallow gas wells in Noble County, Oklahoma. One summer, many years ago, I took Slick and Lucky with me to check out the wells. Both dogs loved riding in my 1992 Acura Vigor. It was hot, the temperature over 100 degrees when we reached the first well. It was then I made a mistake that I will never again repeat.

I got out of the car to check the gas meter, leaving the car running and the key in the ignition. Slick immediately jumped up to see where I was going and depressed the door lock. When I returned from the meter, I found myself locked out of the car, the two dogs, and their tails wagging, unable to open door.

I quickly learned that it is almost impossible to break out a window of tempered glass. Frustrated, I searched the ditches for a clothes hanger (yeah, sure!) to open the door. Twenty minutes later, a very nice young man drove up in a truck. Amazingly, he had a clothes hanger and we soon managed to open the car. I waved in appreciation as he drove away down the road. I wasn’t even upset when Slick and Lucky bailed out of the car and took off running.

Happy to be back in the air-conditioned Vigor, I simply followed the galloping dogs down the unpaved, section-line road. They ran for almost two miles before I finally corralled them at an abandoned oil lease. Slick and Lucky were pooped but happy when they finally jumped back into the Acura.

Lucky passed away this month after a long and wonderful life. Slick is old, but he has also had a wonderful life. He doesn’t run thirteen miles a day anymore, but then who among us still does?

Gondwana