Zoe
Joy and Zoe
It was a bitterly cold Chirstmas Eve. My husband John and my dad were delivering food to family on the edge of Appalachia in southwestern Pennsylvania. At the edge of their property, chained to an old trailer, was a fur-covered skeleton frozen to the ground. John got out of the truck to take a look. "It's still alive," he called to my dad. They delivered their gifts and left, but John couldn't get that bundle of bones out of his mind. That night he,my brother, and brother-in-law drove back to see if the dog was still alive. She was, barely. They gathered her up,slipping the chain from her scrawny neck and brought her back to the farm. We housed her in a warm outbuilding, fed her, and two days later took her home to Harrisburg with us. After some vet treatment for parasitic worms, plenty of food and love our Zoe (meaning life) turned into a beautiful double for a timber wolf! We loved her for the next eleven years. She was our companion, protector, and personal clown. When she had been with us for eleven years, John, her beloved master, died of a sudden aneurysm. She stopped eating and developed breathing problems. The vet said it was pneumonia, but I know that our girl died of a broken heart.