The Size of the Heart

A few days ago, I received an interesting email about a study in animal behavior. An African Leopard was fed a morsel of meat which landed on the floor of the cage. Immediately, a tiny, furry, gray mouse appeared and began to munch on the meat. The leopard observed this, and other than giving the mouse a couple of gentle nudges, allowed the tiny fellow to finish his meal. I do so wish there had been a follow up story. Did they become friends? Did the mouse come back for each feeding? Did the leopard finally eat the mouse after he was fattened up? The relationship between the animals was fascinating to me – such a big cat and a tiny mouse.

I am wondering if my angel dad was lurking, with his size 13-D shoe on the tail of that leopard. [Angels do wear shoes, don’t they? Somehow I can’t see Dad flying around in the clouds with bare feet.] Over the years, growing up and beyond, my dad often said that it was important for big folks to take care of little folks.  He was the prime example of that rule. He did lots for my mother that she could have done for herself and did do when he was not around. However, it would probably have taken her longer or been much more difficult for her. Dad was an exceedingly strong, athletic six foot four inch man while Mother was just under five feet tall. She was a good tennis player when she was young but we never thought of her as being athletic. She was strong mentally, had great faith, but that didn’t mean she could lift the heavy, baked turkey from the low oven, or even hang heavy, wet sheets on the clothesline. [They finally had to get all the linens done at the laundry. When I was young, the laundry man came to the door and picked up the dirty laundry. Then he returned it all clean and ironed, a few days later.]

Now in the case of animals, I don’t believe that rule applies. I read somewhere that dogs have no sense of relative size. So the old saying that it’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters … but the size of the fight in the dog .. may well be true.

One year, when we lived out on Melton Hill Lake, between Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Knoxville, I awoke to a dark, snowy, cold day. Tony was away on a business trip, Dee was not yet home from UGA for Christmas Holidays, and most depressing of all, Bruce was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas and would not get home for the holidays.  Recently, our old Basset Hound had died. We were down to two dogs, a big, German Shephard mix and a Doberman mix. Though both were exceptionally gentle with the family, they could be fierce. I am not a person who mopes so I started checking the Classifieds in the newspaper for pets for sale. Dee came home that afternoon and the next morning, I woke her with the news that we were driving to Gatlinburg that day. We needed an early start for the one hour plus trip because the weather was supposed to turn even worse. When we got there, we had a short, lovely lunch among all the holiday decorations, surrounded by the beautifully Smoky Mountains. I do love that area.

After lunch, we finally found a house up the low side of the mountain. A man was there whom I had spoken to earlier that morning. He showed us to a heated garage room and there we met an absolutely, adorable litter of Basset hound pups. I asked if there was a runt and there was, a tiny female. The man was so surprised when I said that’s the one we want. Her brothers were a darling, rowdy crew, very young but so cute.

After all her papers were collected and money paid, we started home with our new baby. When we got to Knoxville, I drove straight to our vets office, owned by twin brother vets,  - fine doctors as well as friends. They were closing when we arrived, but opened back up for us. I did not want to introduce any ailments, worms etc. to my big dogs at home. By the time they checked her over, ran the tests etc, it was black dark and snowing hard. As we were leaving, the guys said, ”Uh, Elva, you do understand that this two pound bundle will be running your household very shortly, especially the big dogs.”  She was our third lady Basset so I did know, actually.

Molly did not just “run” just the big dogs, she ran all of us for the next 14 years. We always chose a female runt because they are smaller as adults and ………. It is just easier to rub the tummy of a female?!! My point is that Smoky Mountain Lady Molly McMillan, though the smallest member of our household, pretty much had her rules and we obeyed. She was the boss, even at 6-8 weeks old and the big dogs obeyed. The few times I had to leave her at the vets’ office, she was never put into a cage. She needed to be free to supervise the troops.

Miss Coco is the current reigning Queen in our household, and we all adore her. She is a fierce guard dog, and an amusing and amiable companion.

Whether you’re a big person or a small one, it doesn’t matter. It’s the size of your heart that counts.

[below, my parents and my children]