The other day I came across a blogpost that was dedicated to heroic dogs (to read some of the stories, click here and here). I read some of the stories and felt a sense of pride rise within me. There are so many amazing animals out there, and I was the proud owner of one of them.
Sure, Bubbles never rescued anyone from a frozen river, never sniffed out bombs in Afghanistan and never bit off someone’s infected toe (yes, this was a real story). But she was heroic in her own way, nonetheless.
Bubbles was our first family pet, and we absolutely adored her. She was also the smarter of our two dogs, and I would like to illustrate this point with one or two stories.
My grandparents lived in a flat in Sea Point. This is where we went for Friday night dinners every single Friday night. The trip was a half hour one, and each Friday Bubbles would wait expectantly by the car. After coming to the same flat for years, Bubbles knew her way around pretty darn well. There was no need to put her on a leash, as she followed us without one. She would run into the elevator ahead of us, and I am pretty sure that if she could press the button for the right floor, she would. One day, she got lost in the commotion of people in the elevator and didn’t make it out on time. As we watched the elevator go up to further floors, our concern grew. What if she ran out and got thoroughly lost. When the elevator returned to our floor without Bubbles in tow, we grew increasingly concerned. That was until we found her a couple of floors up, sitting on the welcome mat of what would have been my grandparent’s flat, but a number of floors below.
It also happened on one occasion that everyone piled into the car and we left my grandparents flat in a rush, not bothering to check whether Bubbles was in the car. We were practically home when we realised that she was missing. We turned back immediately and, half an hour later, found her sitting on the curb exactly where our car had been, waiting for us.
While Bubbles was certainly smart, she was also a little annoying. She had a tendency to bark that drove us around the twist. However, this annoying trait is also what made her our hero in the end. It occurred a long, long time ago – 15 years ago to be precise. I was at school, so I cannot give a first-hand account of the event. All I have is what was witnessed by our char at the time, Margaret. Margaret had worked for us for 8 years at this time, coming in daily to clean and look after me in the afternoons while my parents were at work. She had become a part of the family. We also had two dogs – Bubbles, our little Maltese poodle, and Rocky, our boxer.
Now, if you were considering breaking into a house, which dog would you be more concerned about? A little fluffy Maltese poodle whose sole purpose is to look cute, or a giant boxer who was as big as I was at 8 years old? Well, clearly the guy who broke into our house was concerned about Rocky – he took every measure to avoid the dog who was sleeping in his basket on our patio. He made his way inside the house, into the kitchen where he grabbed a knife from the cupboard and through to the lounge where Margaret was busy cleaning. Margaret didn’t hear a thing, had no idea that someone else was in the house until our little Bubbles started barking and she turned around to see what was happening. As she turned, she saw the man standing on the steps with a knife, ready to attack, and managed to fend him off.
Margaret did not come out of the assault without injury – she was stabbed in the arm – but the wound was superficial. Imagine if Bubbles had not started barking. I am sure that Margaret would have walked away with more than a superficial stab wound if she had walked away at all.
From that day on, Bubbles became our little hero, and though we glared at her whenever she started barking (something that she did at every given opportunity), we also took notice and started looking around to make sure that there wasn’t something that we had missed.
Bubbles went on to live a long and happy life, dying from lung cancer at the age of 12 (human years). While we have had dogs since, none of them have taken Bubble’s place in my heart.
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