Now this happened one summer when I was in middle school-the summer 4th grade ended.
We had a German Shepard named Lady. Lady was a beautiful dog. She had a litter of puppies that summer and we did not even realize she was pregnant. When she came home carrying a puppy in her mouth we set her up in the garage with a blanket and food and water. She retrieved about 6 little puppies from the woods behind our house. The puppies were very cute. Lady was very protective.
About 3 days after they were born we noticed one of the puppies was dead. Lady had been laying on the puppy with full body weight. We thought it was an accident or it had just died of natural causes. We buried it in the back yard. The next day 3 more were dead. My mother thought that Lady was smothering the puppies. I had never heard of that before but she said that some animals control their populations by smothering the babies or eating them. I was mortified! Lady was left with 2 puppies. We decided to separate her and the puppies for a while. We called the vet hoping to save the other two. We were able to keep them separate except to nurse and we supervised the nursing. This worked for about 2 weeks. We thought things were okay with Lady so we let her and the puppies stay together for about a week.
We went out to go grocery shopping one day and when we came back the other two puppies were dead. She killed them all. My brother and I were very sad. She must have sat on them and smothered them as well. My father removed those puppies. This was most likely during the month of June. It has been so long ago that I do nor remember the exact month.
Jump ahead to maybe September or October. One day on a Saturday after being out with my mother and brother shopping at the mall we came home to a horrible smell. So horrible it cannot be described. It permeated the entire house and we did not know what it was or where it was coming from. We opened all the windows and doors and began to look for what ever it was. We looked under beds, in the bathrooms, in the garage, in closets. We looked for about 40 minutes before finding it. It smelled like rotting meat with some sort of chemical mixed with it.
The last place we looked was the kitchen. We had all cleaned the kitchen that morning and it was spotless so there was no way it could be coming from there. But it was.
We looked underneath the kitchen sink and got a horrible surprise. My father, still in science experiment mode from the summer, had taken matters into his own hands. He had placed three of the puppies in three large pickle jars and placed them under the sink. He filled the jars with rubbing alcohol in order to preserve them. Well, I guess rubbing alcohol is not the same as formaldehyde. Who knew?
Those puppies had begun to swell in those pickle jars filled with rubbing alcohol and the pressure became too great. The puppies exploded and then the jars did. We had exploded puppies and puppy juice and alcohol covering the bottom of the shelf under the sink and running out onto the kitchen floor. I got just a glimpse of the exploded mess before my mother screamed for me to get out the room and take my brother with me. I never got the full effect. I guess I should be happy. My mother was ranting and raving about biohazards in her kitchen! We did not clean it up. Instead she said that we had to leave the house and she would have my father clean that mess up when he got home. We went back to the mall and waited.
Once the time arrived for him to arrive home, my mother called and told him he had to clean up that mess before we came home. My mother and brother and I ate dinner out at the S&S Cafeteria. (That company has long gone out of business) We went home and all the windows were open-doors too-with fans going to air the place out. It took about two weeks for the smell to subside and a full month to go away altogether.
My mother asked my father what was he thinking. He said he was trying to preserve the puppies for my brother and I to take in for a science show and tell for a school project. It was to be a surprise.
It was a surprise, all right!
Jump way ahead to 2004, fall. dirty Fila was staying at my parents for the day on a saturday and I picked her up. She was just bursting with joy! Bursting! My father had killed a small snake in the back yard and had put it in some rubbing alcohol in a small mayo jar. He had told dirty Fila she could take it home to keep in her room. There dirty Fila was with her dead snake in a jar and all excited! I looked at my mother and gave her the evil eye! She told me not to look at her... she had nothing to do with that snake in alcohol! It was my father. I began to ask her if she remebered.....and she finished my sentence...the puppies! Who could ever forget that?
I told dirty Fila to leave the snake in my parents garage until she was ready to take it to school. My mom agreed. I could just see her now dropping it in the car or in the house and it breaking and ruining the carpet. I just looked at my father and told him I did not want any science projects gone wrong at my house. He just laughed!
What I do is kick them in the pants with a diamond buckled shoe!
~~Aileen Mehle~~
