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Tales of the Last Post — Part II
By Jeanne Toomey, Falls Village
 | | Jeanne Toomey holds one of the residents of the Last Post. Photo/Robin Gourd |
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This is the second in a series of three sets of short stories about the Last Post Animal Sanctuary in Falls Village and animals that have been helped. The public is invited to visit the Last Post between the hours of 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.; the phone number is 860-824-0831. Donations to support the Last Post may be made to the Vivisection Investigation League, PO Box 259, Falls Village, CT 06031.
Sheepy Become Murdoch
After the driver of a fire truck accidentally ran over and killed a woman, he went berserk, broke the windows in his home and fled the area, leaving behind the family cat and another animal. Sympathetic animal activist Carolyn Steel of Harwinton brought the cat to the Last Post and then casually observed, "There's another animal left homeless there, but no one has been able to get her. I think it's a female. I heard that a local vet had tried, but no luck! No one can get near this creature, it seems."
Fighting words! "What kind of an animal?" I asked.
"A sheep."
Next day the wind struck at me with savage force as I went out to the old Caravan used for transporting animals to the Last Post. The Litchfield Hills are the foothills of the Berkshires. As I opened the door on the passenger side, a blast made the trees bend before it. March is a rough month in the northwest corner of Connecticut.
Carolyn had given Jim Gray directions. We headed south past R.W. Commerford and Sons’ exotic animal farm in Goshen, and further on into Litchfield, the home of the great preacher, Henry Ward Beecher, and of his even more famous sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. I thought of my one and only year at Fordham Law School and the most dog-eared law book in the library. It was the detail of a lawsuit brought by the husband of a choir singer—accusing the renowned minister of seducing his wife.
I could see a silent house with broken windows as we rolled into the small farm where the sheep was said to be. There were a few stalls opposite. As I stepped out of the Caravan, the wind struck me again. I looked around and then spotted a shaggy-looking animal, our quest, watching from a nearby hilltop.
It took several trips before Jim was able to decoy the grubby-looking beast into a stall. He put a halter on her and led her to the Caravan. She sat erect in the back seat on her woolly haunches, like a human, looking out the window, as Jim drove us back to the Post.
"The neighbors call her 'Sheepie'," Carolyn had remarked.
"No animal at Last Post will be called 'Sheepie'," I said with determination. "I shall call her 'Murdoch'!"
Murdoch became a favorite with visitors and staff. She also acquired a good friend and companion in Cappy, a goat, and the two spent happy hours together until the pigs came. For some reason known only to the sheep mind, pigs were objectionable to Murdoch, and she began chasing us all. When a visitor with a handsome farm in Bantam asked to adopt Murdoch and Cappy, we agreed. With no pigs there, Murdoch became again the friendly and good-natured sheep we had rescued on the bare windswept hills of Harwinton.
Daisy and Her Family
The Canaan Bank is a center of gossip. In Falls Village and Canaan there is little or no other hard news. We live in an oasis of peace in the northwest corner of Connecticut, near the Massachusetts border. So, it was no surprise to learn about Daisy and her pups from a bank officer.
"The dogs are near Route 44 in Sharon," explained the comely brunette. The dogs were not abused, but neglected, according to my informant. With my ally and friend, Animal Control Officer Richard Gregan, I visited the day care center where Daisy and her family of six lived. They were near a busy road, running in and out, in imminent danger of being squashed by a truck.
They had no shots, and the mother dog needed to be spayed. With Richard Gregan's help I managed to get all the puppies off to the vet and subsequently adopted. However, the nursery school owner—who was lovable, but vague about canine maternity possibilities—seemed reluctant to let Gregan and me take Daisy in for shots and spaying.
Inspiration came to me at 3 a.m. one sultry summer night. Later, after breakfast, I phoned Mae, the distracted owner and manager of the busy day care operation. "I noticed that many of the kids are barefoot," I told her.
"So what?"
"The pups were full of worms! Have you ever heard of pellagra?"
"No."
"The kids could get it and you'd be in deep trouble."
"How?"
Trying to remember some ancient biology lesson gleaned when I was student at Long Beach High School, I helpfully put together bare feet, worms, and presto, pellagra—though I mulled over my facts. Was heredity actually a major factor?
Anyway, it worked. A car did not hit Daisy. The kids did not get pellagra and we had the friendly terrier type given all shots, spayed and adopted by a family with a 35-acre spread in Lakeville.
The Rabbi and the Rabbit
The phone rang early one morning. The caller was Mrs. Anna Schauer of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. As a former Brooklyn Daily Eagle reporter, I know Sheepshead Bay well. A family friend, Ferd Phillips, once operated a charter boat out of a long pier along the waterfront, between Floyd Bennett Field, Manhattan Beach and Coney Island, bordering Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic.
"My rabbi found a rabbit," she started off. "A big white rabbit. Could you take it?"
"We'll send Peter Rabbit," I assured the elder animal lover, a regular contributor. "Peter Rabbit" was an old nickname of my late son, Peter Terranova.
Peter was amused to find the friendly, outsized bunny on a leash in the rabbi's garage. Rabbit food and water were plentiful and "Rinman," as we named the long-eared one, after the rabbi, was in good condition. Though he had no idea where to keep him, the good man of God had provided the essentials.
Brought back to the Last Post by Peter, Rinman soon became a favorite with staff and visitors. He loved other rabbits, as well as people. We hated to think some cold-blooded owner had left him to starve on a crowded Brooklyn street.
To be continued …
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