I was about twelve years old when Blue adopted me. He just showed up at my door one day and that was it. He was a pure-bred American Pointer. He was about a year old and had perfect pointer form. He had obviously been trained harshly because he was very cowed. After several months of love and re-assurance he emerged from his shell.
Then one day I heard the screech of tires in the street in front of our house. Blue had been run over by a car. There was a tire print going directly across his abdomen. I picked him up and put him in the bed I had made for him. He was in shock and coughing blood. I didn't think he would make it. I nursed him and after three days Blue got up and walked. You could still see the tire mark across his back and his tail was a little crooked, but he survived.
A year later, Blue started coughing. He had distemper. Again I nursed him. Distemper is almost always fatal in dogs. He became so weak and emaciated that he could barely stand to drink. It was breaking my heart to watch it. I just knew he was a goner. Then after a couple of weeks he began to eat again and stopped coughing. Blue was a survivor.
Within a few weeks he was back to his robust, frisky self. He had regained his rock hard muscles and his friendly disposition. For the next several years, Blue and I were inseparable. Wherever I was, Blue was there or just outside. He was fiercely loyal. Woe be unto anyone who threatened me physically. He escorted me to school and accompanied me on my various paper routes in the dark of the night. If I spent the night at a friend's house, he would be there waiting for me in the morning.
About the time I entered high school, we moved to a new house. The lot was over an acre and had many mesquite trees. On these trees there were tree lizards. They were large and horny, about six inches long. Blue was a pointer. It was in his genes to point. I would see him stand for hours on perfect point, staring into the eyes of his reptilian prey. He was a bird dog, but in West Texas there are no pheasants, so in a pinch a lizard will do.
I think I was a sophomore in high school. Blue disappeared one day as suddenly and unexpectedly as he had appeared on my doorstep years before. I looked in all the usual places. Days went by. He was a handsome animal. I assumed that he was kidnapped, lured into the car of a sharp-eyed dog breeder who recognized a stud when he saw one. I couldn't imagine Blue just wandering off or getting lost. He had learned his lesson about cars and unless he had perished defending a group of school children from a rattlesnake I couldn't contemplate the method of his demise. I still don't know what happened to him.
But I have always had to tell myself this: Blue would never have abandoned me voluntarily. Or would he? I don't know if loyalty is cultivated or if it is as instinctive as going on point if you are a bird dog, Was Blue loyal because he was grateful for me feeding and nursing him through his hard times or was it just in his genes like pointing at lizards?
Maybe he just sensed that it was time to move on, find another little boy to take care of. I had just gotten my driver's license after all.
