Read Online Dog Lived (and So Will I) by Teresa J. Rhyne - Free Book Online

living room, his back to us, facing into the dining room.
    “What is it, buddy?”
    He leaned his head to the left, then stepped left and growled again.
    “What do you see?” I stood, but I could see nothing in the dining room.
    Seamus stepped to his right. Then backed up. His growl got louder.
    “Maybe there’s a mouse in there,” Chris said.
    “Ewwww! Can you go look?”
    Chris stood, and Seamus howled. But when Chris walked into the dining room, Seamus quieted.
    “I don’t see anything.” He turned back to face Seamus and bent down to pet him. Seamus stepped out of his reach and looked around Chris, back into the dining room.
    AAAAAARRROOOOOOOOO!
    “Well, something’s there.” I walked over to Seamus and knelt down beside him, trying to match my gaze to his.
    And then I saw what Seamus saw. As Seamus moved slowly to the left, back a step and to the right, then forward again, his neck extended and eyes wide, I began to laugh.
    “He sees his reflection in the mirror.”
    “You’re kidding me?” Chris laughed too. He joined me on the floor behind Seamus, a vantage point that made it clear that Seamus was staring into the mirrored wall in the dining room.
    “Who’s that handsome stranger, Seamus?” Chris said. “Who is that?”
    Seamus barked at his image. And we howled in laughter.
    “He has a problem with handsome strangers,” I said.
    Seamus spent the next half hour working up his courage to approach the handsome stranger. When he finally did, putting his nose right up to the mirror, he must have decided the lack of smell emanating from the handsome stranger indicated he meant no harm. He walked away. And he never again approached or barked at the mirror.
    • • •
    In early November, Seamus’s groomer Nancy pulled up in her customized motor home for his regular appointment. Though he didn’t care much for being lifted off his feet, Seamus loved Nancy and the attention that came with a bath—as long as his face didn’t get wet and the blow drying was minimal. I handed his leash to Nancy and returned to the house.
    A half hour later Nancy was at the front gate with Seamus.
    “I wanted to show you something,” she said.
    I opened the courtyard gate. Seamus bounded in, smelling fresh and looking jaunty with an orange bow imprinted with horns of plenty attached to his collar. Nancy bent down and turned Seamus around so his rear end was facing me.
    “Can you see that bump on the right side of his anus?”
    Not somewhere I usually look, but I looked. I could see a bump about the size of a mosquito bite. “Yes, I think. It looks like an insect bite?”
    “Yes, it does. But it was there the last time I groomed him and it hasn’t gone away.”
    Ah. “And it’s been ten weeks. So it’s not a bite?”
    “No. It’s something else.” She let go of Seamus and unhooked his leash. Seamus ran howling back toward the house, scooted through the doggie door, and disappeared.
    “Like what?”
    “I don’t know if it’s anything. But unusual bumps on a dog should be checked out just like with people,” Nancy said. She stood up and put the forty dollars I’d handed her into her pocket. “I’d get it checked.”
    I took Seamus for an exam the next day.
    • • •
    Dr. Davis picked Seamus up and steadied him on the metal exam table. Seamus turned his head to me with those big, caramel beagle eyes. Really? You’re going to let him poke me there? He moved his hind end away from the doctor. I moved him back into position. He sat. I prodded him to stand up again. He turned and looked, wide-eyed, at me again. Seriously?
    “It’s probably nothing,” Dr. Davis said. “I know you’re worried, with all you’ve been through with dogs lately, but I really don’t think this is anything. I’ll remove it and have it biopsied to be safe.”
    “Biopsy? You think it’s cancer?” For some reason, the word biopsy said “cancer” to me. Were biopsies done to look for any other disease?
    “No. Hold on. I