Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9
URBANNA — As a writer, I enjoy turning painful events into comedy. I especially like to spoof myself. Humor is a great resource for dealing with life’s many challenges.
Comedy can often show its perky head in a small town. Perhaps this is because such a place offers all the usual stock characters that can create a funny situation. Life can present itself almost as a circus, especially if an “issue” causes the town’s people to get emotionally involved and “take sides.”
Take the tragic tale of the two wild dogs of Urbanna. The story began many decades ago when I was the owner of two golden retrievers. While on vacation one year in Florida, I went online one day to read the Sentinel for local news, a wonderful service our local newspaper offers its readers.
I was shocked to read the news. The headline on the front page read … “BUXTON DOGS RUN WILD IN URBANNA.” I nearly fainted from shock. Such a headline was bound to stir up the town.
But how could my beloved golden retrievers, mother and son, “Lady” and “Lord” be running wild in Urbanna? There must have been a mistake! I called the teenager who was caring for the dogs while we were away.
Oops! He had failed to latch the gate properly one day and the dogs (gods spelled backwards) had done what any normal dogs would do … gleefully taken off down Kent Street, ears blowing flat backwards in their ecstasy, headed for a big time on the town.
I could imagine them even from far away Florida. “Lady” in the lead (she was no lady!) and “Lord” following in hot pursuit, enjoying every second of their unexpected freedom they had been given by the good fortune of a misplaced latch.
Trouble struck. The dogs ran into a cat on the prowl and there was the usual dog-cat chase. Both the cat and Lord went to the vet. We paid the vet bills, all survived and the situation thankfully turned out OK.
Still, the news was out and complaint was made. The Buxton dogs were now thought to be “ferocious” by the powers in charge of such matters.
Shame settled on the Buxton household like a black cloud for the great sin of owning dogs that would chase a cat. My precious babies were now labeled “vicious beasts.”
Negative publicity can be fatal and the dogs’ once sterling reputations were ruined. And that wasn’t the end of it. Soon an order came forth from the powers in charge that the dogs must be “yellow collared,” which was a ritual reserved for vicious dogs so that the public could be alerted if they ever saw the dogs loose again and run for safety.
I was aghast at the idea. What? What? Putting yellow collars on golden retrievers for chasing a cat? Would we also arrest a cat for killing a bird? Have we gone stock mad in the commonwealth?
The dog-cat altercation was hotly discussed in the usual small town, lunch counter, coffee klatch circuits. The town split support between the dogs and the cat that directly correlated to which pet the town’s people preferred. (The dogs won.)
But wherever I went out, I was now accosted with questions about my “savage” dogs. Thoughts of Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel, “The Scarlet Letter,” came over me and I remembered how she had suffered over being forced to wear the “Scarlett A” sewn onto her dress. Could I sit by and let our dogs be punished so unfairly?
Fortunately, I knew a good lawyer who loved dogs and I persuaded him to act in the name of not just golden retrievers, but all dogs everywhere … we would take a stand to save Man’s Best Friend in Middlesex County!
The order to yellow collar the dogs was appealed. Soon there was a knock on the door and when the dogs and I answered I found the sheriff’s office delivering a warrant to appear in court.
The dogs had gone belly up at his feet awaiting the usual tickles on their tum tums. The sheriff looked surprised. “Are these the ferocious dogs?” he asked.
I sighed the usual sigh of all dog owners when their babies get into trouble. “They sure don’t look savage to me,” he added. I rolled my eyes.
The day came when the vicious dog case was to be heard in court. We lined up two character witnesses that would attest to the sweet disposition of the dogs — my heroes forever. They were dear neighbor, Jim Ray, and good friend, Dr. Brockett Muir, both whom knew the dogs well and could attest to their gentle character.
The following is all hearsay because the great defender of man’s best friend was in bed weeping oceans of tears for, truth be known, she loved those two golden retrievers just like her own children and she could not bear to see them “yellow collared.”
The dogs did not have to appear in person so they spent the day caring for their poor mistress who sniffed tearfully into her handkerchief. Besides, the dogs knew they had an excellent lawyer to defend them. A reporter from the Sentinel was also in court waiting to write up the story of the fate of the wild dogs of Urbanna. When asked why he was there he was known to have answered, “The Buxton wild dog story is big!”
Yet, the powers that were, the lawyer representing the dogs, the county attorney representing the cat, the cat witnesses, reporter and dog witnesses had to wait all day because there were so many human assault and robbery cases that had to be decided first.
Finally, the dog case was called. The judge was a substitute for that day and he listened carefully to all the witnesses. Finally, he summed up his thoughts with one simple statement. “Dogs chase cats.” He refused to yellow collar the dogs, but placed them on probation for six months.
The joyous news spread rapidly throughout the town of Urbanna and Middlesex! The Goldens were saved! And they were as good as gold during their probation and ended their lives in blissful peace and freedom from yellow collars in their loving home on Kent Street.
The judge was heard to have said as he banged his gavel that ended the session that he wanted to hear no more dog and cat cases as he had more than enough serious human cases to hear.
The distraught mistress survived the trauma and lived to tell her tragic tale. Her story might be titled one of Shakespeare’s titles to his plays — like “All’s well that ends well” or “Much Ado about Nothing.”
(To be continued.)
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