A Dog's Life

We have a dog named Bumbles.  Sometimes we call him Bumble D., or Bum-bum. (a 3-year old girl used to asked me not to call him Bum-bum, she'd hang her pretty blonde head and say, "He's not a bum.")  We didn't go get him... he found us.
In Jan. or Feb. of 2008, we started seeing this dingy, big white dog when we would go for our walks (1.25 mi., each way, deeper and deeper into MONKY middle of nowhere Kentucky).  He would watch us from a distance.  This dog was tall (taller than Rebel!) and extremely thin.  I was afraid he was old and diseased and had wandered off into the woods in search of a place to die.  I didn't want him anywhere near Rebel and Lucy.
Two land owners sold tracts of timber in the area where this dog appeared, so when it was weather fitting, the timber crews were there, working.  The men would leave scraps from their lunches for the dog.  The dog gradually gained courage worked his way closer to us each day when we walked.  He finally came close enough for me to see his eyes.  Oh, my heart!  He was just a puppy...........a baby who had been abandoned.  He was terrified, so I didn't try to catch him.  I talked to the land owners and the timber crews -- no one knew from where he came.
When the timber crews left, the dog gradually made his way out of the woods towards our house.  He had to pass 3 other houses --- at the first house, the people fired shotguns into the air to scare him away.  One morning in late May, when my husband was leaving to run some errands, he saw the dog sitting at the end of our long driveway.  My husband had a pack of snack crackers in the truck, so he opened them and tossed them to the dog and left.  The dog ate the crackers and waited.  It took all day, but the dog made his way to our house and finally let my husband touch him.
The dog was absolutely covered in ticks, mites, and fleas, so when I came in from work, we gave him a bath.  He didn't have the energy or strength to resist --- he was nothing, I mean nothing, but skin, fur, and bones.  I could feel every joint, every crevice, in his skeleton.  After the bath, we let him rest in the sun for a while.  Then we tried to give him dog food.  He wouldn't touch it -- he was too terrified to eat it -- we could see the fear in his eyes.  My husband tried to feed him out of his hands, but the dog wouldn't take the food.  I tried to feed him from my hands, and he ate.  For two days, he would eat only from my hand.  When he started eating from a bowl, I watched him.  I was afraid he would gorge himself, but he never did.
We made calls, but no one ever claimed him.  After two weeks, I bought him a collar.  After we put the collar on him, my husband asked me, "What was the name of that snow monster?"  I looked at him like he was crazy and he said, "You know, the one in the Christmas cartoon." He was talking about my favorite cartoon: Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer , with the Island of Misfit Toys, Yukon Cornelius, and Bumbles, you know, "Bumbles bounce!" Go figure, my husband, retired army, Jump Master, Light Weapons Specialist...........I never would have dreamed he'd think to name a huge, majestic animal after a character in a Christmas cartoon.  
After we gave him a name and a collar, we took him to the vet.  Our vet said that he was about 9 months old, 10 at most, and he is a full-blooded Great Pyrenees.
I'm sure that he had been beaten by his previous owner.  The first time I came out of the house with my bbq tools, he ran.....the first time I came out of the house with a drop cord, he ran............. the first 100 times he saw a fly swatter, he ran.
He got used to me in the kitchen soon enough, though.  The first time I let him in the house, I was about ready to put supper on the table.  I got my pot holders and took the chicken and rice out of the oven and put it on the table.  As soon as I set the dish down ................ WHOMPH!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Two huge white paws (each, 4 inches across) landed on the table, one on either side of the dish.  I caught his huge head in both my hands when his mouth was just an inch or two from the piping hot food!  That's the only episode like that that we've had. He's never tried to get anything else on the table, although he's able to see EVERYTHING on the table.  He'll give me the eye if I have hot, buttered bread and I'm not sharing with him, though.  And when that big box in the kitchen gets hot, (the oven) he waits around ----- something good's comin' outta there sooner or later!  His first summer with us, he learned about air-conditioning.  When he hears me turn the air on, he comes to the door.
It took him a year to gain the strength just to trot.  For the first few months, when we'd walk, we'd have to stop and wait for him.  He couldn't keep up.  The first time we walked into the area where he was abandoned, he left us on the trail went back to the house.  He never learned how to play until this past year, that's because now we have 2 young dogs, Lizzie and Amos, who are teaching him.
He's never killed another animal.  The first time I gave him raw deer meat, he spat it out.  We have coyotes, bobcats, rattlesnakes, copperheads, cottonmouths, foxes, ................. I don't know how he survived in the woods for as long as he did.  He's getting up in years for a GP.  He has a little arthritis, now, but he is one happy hound.  He's big, even for a GP.  When he walks across the cow pasture, my mom thinks he's a calf.  I wonder how big he would have grown if he'd been cared for properly.  I wonder, too, if he remembers being hungry.  I doubt it.  I think he just revels in the life he has and savors the moment.  Maybe that's a lesson for me.