1985

Bullet

When Julie and Anne moved in with me they had a small black dog named Bullet.  Bullet was a cute, playful mix of cocker spaniel and mutt, a bit hyperactive and was always running around which is how he got his name Bullet.  Strangely enough Bullet looked exactly like our dog Happy when I was a boy which [link] making me wonder if pets get reincarnated.  Bullet was great fun to play with, he would chase and fetch with a ball, loved to play tug war with his toys and would follow Julie, Anne or I around the house and yard.  Bullet loved to go outside and catch lizards and frogs of which are plentiful in Florida. One day Bullet came running into to the house and he had white foam all around his mouth, I yell out to Anne, “Keep away from him, he’s gone rabid.”  Anne was almost in tears before I laughed and told her he didn’t have rabies but had just chewed on the wrong kind of frog. 

Our parakeet

Then there was the incident with the parakeet.  At the time we also had a blue parakeet named Pete which we would leave his cage door open so he could get out and fly around the house and then return to his cage to eat and at night.  Bullet always intently watched Pete and sometimes would run around as Pete flew above him, but Pete always flew well away from Bullet.  The summer of ’85 Julie and I decided to take a vacation and go visit our friends Alan and Susan who now lived in Boston.  The last time we saw Alan and Susan was when we met them at a Bahama island when they were living on Alan’s sailboat.  They had planned to spend a year sailing around the Caribbean but after six months the adventure of it wore off and they ended up in Boston where Alan was originally from.   While we were in Boston, Julie’s sister Louise stayed at our house to keep care of Pete and Bullet when one day Pete flew to close to Bullet who jumped up and caught Pete. Louise immediately started chasing Bullet around the house with Pete in his mouth and when she finally caught Bullet, Pete was gone. Louise was of course greatly upset, she scolded Bullet, and buried poor Pete out in the backyard but she didn’t want to tell us.  When Julie called her to check on how she was doing she said everything was fine, she just couldn't tell Julie about Pete.  So the next day she went to the pet store and bought another parakeet, thinking all parakeets pretty much look the same and we would never know the difference.  When we got back home Bullet was so happy to see us that he ran about us so much we had a hard time getting the luggage into the house so we didn’t pay much attention to Pete.  The next day we saw Pete and much to our surprise, he had turned green. Louise then told us the whole story that when she got to the pet store, she forgot that Pete was blue.

Bullet loved to run outside, as soon as we opened the door he would shoot out and run around in the yard.  He loved it so much it was sometimes hard to get him back inside and we would have to chase him down to catch him. Of course he thought it as great fun but it would often delay us leaving the house as we always put him in the house when we were not there.  One day Julie, Anne and I got into my Chevy van to go somewhere, I pull out of the driveway, and started driving down the street. We hadn’t gone a hundred feet when I look in the rear view mirror and see Bullet chasing after us so I slow down to stop when Bullet catches up and runs under the van.  We all felt a bump. I quickly stopped and we all jumped out of the van and look back and see Bullet lying there in the street.  We rush over to him and he had the greatest look of fear in his eyes.  When he saw us he lifted his head a few inches and then he collapsed back.  I lift his head and he was limp, his eyes glazed over, he had died.  I pet him for another minute which seemed like a half hour to be sure he had passed and then I say, “He’s dead.”  Anne cries out, “No he’s not, his eyes are open.”  And with my hand I close his eyes, and say, “I’m sorry Anne, but he’s gone.”  We all sat there in the middle of the road for a while then I scoop him up into my arms and carry him back to the house.  Anne asked what I was going to do and I tell her we will have to bury him but she wasn’t ready yet, she wanted more time to be sure he was really dead.  Sometime later, an hour, maybe two, I check on Anne and she just simply says, “He’s dead.”  I say yes, and ask if she wants to help bury him and she agrees so I pick Bullet up and head out the door to the back yard grabbing a shovel on the way and dug a shallow grave.  We wrapped Bullet in an old towel and laid him in grave and I shoveled the dirt over him with that first shovel full being the hardest.  With the grave refilled I put a couple of bricks over it and wrote on one, “Bullet”.  Anne picked a single flower and stuck in the fresh earth of his grave.  With tears in my eyes I simply said, “You were a good dog Bullet, we will miss you.”, and I turned to walked back to the house leaving Anne who kneeled there in the grass by his grave for a bit longer.  

The house seemed empty for a while with Bullet gone, we all missed his antics and running around. 

Tute