Puddles: A Philadelphia memoir (c. 1950)

Until I was three, we lived with my father's parents at Tenth and Bainbridge. My grandfather had been a doctor in South Philadelphia for more than three decades. Patients paid him in cash or backyard produce or homemade wine. He was also, I learned much later, a drinker and a philanderer, abusive to his wife and children and dogs. But I was his first grandchild, and enjoyed favored-nation status.

Zayde always had dogs, usually chows or huskies or a mix, and usually mean. (My father spoke with rare respect and awe of Ming, a black chow from before my time, who, if his basic disposition was any indication, had been named not for the dynasty but for the villain in Flash Gordon.) I grew up among such beasts.

My favorite childhood picture shows me in a box, peering over the edge, surrounded by several drooling pups. I was completely at ease with dogs. I petted every one I met on the street or in Rittenhouse Square. And I loved stories about dogs. Dogs who rescued owners from fires and floods. Who fought off wolves and cougars and bears. Who, stolen or lost or cruelly sold, found their way across vast wildernesses to their rightful homes.

An unexpected present

After my sister was born, we moved to West Philadelphia, into a row house on 46th Street, off Pine. When my Uncle Manny came home from World War II, he lived with us. So, for a while, did my Aunt Esther and Uncle Bernie and their baby daughter Elizabeth.

One day my grandfather arrived unexpectedly and announced that he had a present for me in his overcoat pocket. I pulled out a squirming, yipping ball of fur, a mix of chow and husky. Uncle Bernie, reacting to one of the puppy's primary proclivities, named it Puddles.

Puddles grew into a handsome dog. He had a barrel chest, a thick reddish brown coat with a white ruff, and white paws. Puddles was intelligent, loyal, trustworthy, reverent, clean (within limits), obedient (ditto), and, I am sure, had we only been able to recognize it, as witty as Oscar Wilde. I certainly found Puddles a more valuable addition to the household than my sister or cousin.

Puddles vanishes

Then my grandfather dropped in to borrow him. (This wasn't discussed with me at the time, but Puddles had reached breeding age.) Zayde put Puddles in his car and off they drove. But when my grandfather opened the door on Tenth Street, Puddles— recalling who knows what trauma of his youth, or what confidences his mother may have shared with him— bolted.

There were no tracers-of-lost-dogs then. No one festooned fences with flyers or mobilized phone banks of inquiry. My parents, exercising the proper standard of care, alerted the pound. My grandfather was remorseful, and I was bereft.

"He has tags," my parents gamely reminded me. "Someone may call." But when the phone rang, it was only Mrs. Kliger or Mrs. Hirsch to discuss their next ORT fund-raiser.

A scratching at the door

Then, several days later, when the sun hadn't yet risen, Uncle Bernie, preparing for work, heard a scratching at the door. A somewhat thinner, somewhat bloodied Puddles, relying on some blend of instinct and intuition and the knowledge acquired in his only journey to our house as a six-week old and his subsequent sole journey from our house on the occasion of his (to his mind) abduction, had found a street that crossed the Schuylkill and made it the four miles back from South Philly. He hadn't crossed the Great Plains or the Arctic tundra, but in our lives he loomed heroic.

Puddles lived with us for another two or three years. That was a time without leash laws, and urban dogs roamed free to ravage garbage cans, risk crossing Walnut Street, rendezvous with one another, and encounter mankind's varying dispositions. And one day an older, redheaded boy, whose name I don't recall, claimed Puddles had bitten him.

Uncle Bernie, Puddles's greatest champion, could hardly bring himself to think what the boy must have done to provoke such an attack. (For decades, when revisiting the story, Uncle Bernie would link it with his walking into the living room and seeing Elizabeth gripping Puddles's tongue in both hands, seeing how far she could stretch it, and Puddles stoically communicating his wish that this experiment be concluded.) But a biting dog could be gassed upon an unverified accusation and a magistrate's order.

Greener pastures in Overbrook Park

Somehow, my father brokered a deal. It may have involved payment to the bitten boy's parents. It may have involved the political capital he had accrued as a Democratic Party loyalist.

By then Uncle Bernie's family had moved to the greener pastures of Overbrook Park, which was sufficiently far away that Puddles wouldn't endanger the redheaded boy or anyone else within the magistrate's jurisdiction. It was agreed that if Puddles were banished, he charges against him would dissolve.

I was sorry to see Puddles go, but I recognized the greater good. His new home abutted Cobbs Creek Golf Course, which provided 18 holes to explore, a rivulet in which to splash, an actual patch of woods with rabbits to chase and skunks that would salute him. (Hell, at seven or eight, I could have enjoyed such a life myself.)

Undone by love

For a time, we visited Puddles at Uncle Bernie's nearly every weekend, and I believed myself remembered and welcomed. I had other dogs, though none attained the stature of Puddles. (The most notable was a fox terrier-like mutt who once demonstrated her regard for me by delivering three puppies on my bed without disturbing my sleep.)

Puddles subsequently lived a full and happy life. In the end, as with Rocky Raccoon, Jay Gatsby and Stanford White, it was love that did him in. Puddles and a neighboring boxer regularly fought for the affections of a local chippy. On the last occasion, the boxer nearly chewed off one of Puddles's ears. After its repair, Puddles developed a brain infection. He was old then, and, following the vet's recommendation, Uncle Bernie and Aunt Esther had him put to sleep.

Later they wished they hadn't, but I'm certain that Puddles would have told them it was fine. After all, they had made things fine for him for a long time.