A Dog Named Leaf: The Hero From Heaven Who Saved My Life Read online

  A DOG NAMED LEAF

  ALSO BY ALLEN AND LINDA ANDERSON

  Angel Dogs: Divine Messengers of Love

  Dogs and the Women Who Love Them: Extraordinary True Stories of Loyalty, Healing & Inspiration

  Rescued: Saving Animals from Disaster

  Angel Dogs with a Mission: Divine Messengers in Service to All Life

  Saying Goodbye to Your Angel Animals: Finding Comfort After Losing Your Pet

  Animals and the Kids Who Love Them: Extraordinary True Stories of Hope, Healing, and Compassion

  Angel Horses: Divine Messengers of Hope

  Angel Cats: Divine Messengers of Comfort

  Horses with a Mission: Extraordinary True Stories of Equine Service

  Angel Animals: Divine Messengers of Miracles

  Angel Animals Book of Inspiration: Divine Messengers of Wisdom and Compassion

  Rainbows & Bridges: An Animal Companion Memorial Kit

  A DOG NAMED LEAF

  The Hero from Heaven Who Saved My Life

  ALLEN ANDERSON WITH

  LINDA ANDERSON

  Some names and details concerning private individuals and the chronology of certain events have been changed. A Dog Named Leaf: The Hero from Heaven Who Saved My Life is based on the authors’ memories and interpretations of events.

  Copyright © 2012 Allen Anderson and Linda Anderson

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions Department, PO Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.

  Angel Animals™ is a trademark of Allen and Linda Anderson. Lyons Press is an imprint of Globe Pequot Press.

  Interior photos by Allen Anderson except pages 48 and 180, Patrycia Miller, owner of Pampered Pooch Playground and Bubbly Paws, www.pamperedpoochplayground.com; front cover and page 201, Peter Crouser, www.petercrouser.com; and page 213 Kristy Walker, www.kristywalker.com

  Design: Sheryl P. Kober

  Project editor: Julie Marsh

  Layout: Sue Murray

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  ISBN 978-0-7627-8977-1

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Preface

  PART ONE: The Journey of Two Souls Begins

  CHAPTER ONE: Life as I Knew It

  CHAPTER TWO: Meeting Harley

  CHAPTER THREE: Going Home

  CHAPTER FOUR: Leaf’s Secrets

  CHAPTER FIVE: Never Give Your Wife a Memo

  CHAPTER SIX: Memory Lane

  PART TWO: Nightmares, Battles, and Surrender

  CHAPTER SEVEN: Doctor Doogie Howser

  CHAPTER EIGHT: Leaf at Home

  CHAPTER NINE: Leaf in the World

  CHAPTER TEN: The Building of Life

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: Leaf’s Strategies

  CHAPTER TWELVE: Just When You Think It Can’t Get Any Worse

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Facing Fears

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Manual

  PART THREE: Uncertain Outcomes

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Rallying Allies

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: “Be Nice, Leaf … ”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Ticket

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The Surgical Procedure

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: Using My Ticket

  CHAPTER TWENTY: Leaf the Healer

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Alpha Leaf

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Name Game

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Retreat

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Meltdown

  PART FOUR: Transformation and Healing

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Leaf’s Personality Revealed

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: Graduations

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: My Body Remembers

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: Leaf Speaks; Others Hear

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: Leaf’s Life Is Threatened

  CHAPTER THIRTY: Knocked Down but Not Out

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: My Mission, Should I Choose to Accept It

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: How Far Have You Come?

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors and Angel Animals Network

  PREFACE

  “Nothing is as important as going home at the end of your watch. Nothing.”

  MY MENTOR, BRUCE MATHIS, AN EXPERIENCED POLICE OFFICER, ONCE SAID these wise words to me, a rookie cop, during one of our patrols together.

  Unlike some veterans I’d spent time with, Bruce had not grown cynical and jaded after seeing firsthand the worst in human nature. Instead, he was respectful and gracious with everyone. He often flashed a crooked grin that revealed his quirky sense of humor and defused tension in stressful situations. I was nervous about doing a good job, but being around Bruce put me at ease.

  One afternoon while Bruce and I patrolled his regular beat, a middle-class residential area, the horn of our police car started beeping on its own. A middle-aged couple looked up from weeding flowers in their front yard. They must have thought we honked the police car horn at them, so they waved at us. Bruce and I smiled and waved back. Two blocks down the road, our horn beeped again. Several people standing at a bus stop looked at us. One gave a hesitant wave.

  As the horn continued its beeping, we passed seniors taking leisurely walks. They waved and smiled at us. We waved and smiled back at them. “It’s an electrical short,” Bruce said, laughing. “Looks like we’re Officer Friendly today.” For the remaining hour of our shift, Bruce’s horn beeped every five to ten minutes. We continued to patrol the neighborhood like homecoming queens waving from a parade float.

  During my week riding in his patrol car, I came to think of Bruce as a friend. He seemed to have taken a liking to me too. Before I took my first solo assignment in a busy, more crime-filled zone than his, Bruce said, “I live for my wife and child. They are everything to me.” He added, “Nothing is as important as going home at the end of your watch. Nothing.”

  Although my sparse bachelor’s apartment wasn’t much to go home to, I thought I understood what he meant.

  Three years later, while moonlighting as a security guard at Lenox Square, a mega-mall in Atlanta, a burglar shot Bruce. He’d surprised the thief in a large, isolated storage room. From what I heard later, by the time someone found him, it was too late. Bruce was only in his midthirties. Grief-stricken and enraged after the news about his death circulated through the police station, I sat in my patrol car and asked, “Why?”

  During the funeral I glanced over at Bruce’s wife, a young woman in her twenties. She looked broken. Her eyes were reddened by the flow of tears. Her child, now fatherless, stood motionless. Bruce had provided the content of her life. Now she looked as empty as a book with blank pages.

  By the time of Bruce’s death, I had recently married my amazing, talented, and beautiful wife Linda. I had adopted Susan and Mun, the two children she had adopted from Korea. I loved my new family with all my heart. Would they one day stand like Bruce’s wife and young child, facing life without me? Then I remembered Bruce’s rule. I would do everything in my power to stay safe.

  Soon after Bruce died I answered a routine call for suspicious drug activity by several young males. I pulled up in my patrol car without my sirens blaring or blue lights flashing. It was dusk, and shafts of sunlight filtered through the clouds. When I exited the car, three young men immediately scattered in different directi
ons.

  I don’t know what compelled me, but I took off on foot after one of them. Normally I would have gotten more information from the person who had called the police. The men probably lived in this housing project, and someone would know them. Instead, I gave chase like a dog running after a thrown tennis ball. I even thought, This is not who I am. Be careful. Still, I ran faster.

  The man I was chasing suddenly flashed around the corner of the apartment building, and I lost sight of him. It was getting darker. It occurred to me that I might slam into a wire clothesline or trip over scattered debris. I even heard what sounded like Bruce’s voice shouting “Stop!” But that didn’t stop me. I had to catch this guy.

  Around the corner, about twenty-five feet away, the man crouched behind the apartment building. He pointed his gun directly at my head. I was out in the open. No cover. I clumsily grabbed my gun out of my holster, raised my firearm, and aimed at him. And waited. The young man slowly lowered the weapon to his side. But he kept it firmly locked in his hand.

  A second police unit pulled into the housing project right then, and Officer Jackson, a husky man in his late twenties, jumped out of the car. He had a reputation for overreacting and occasionally using excessive force at any hint of resistance, so I was worried about what he might do. Jackson ran toward me, and we both aimed our guns at the young man. I yelled, “Drop it!”

  In the longest two seconds of my life, I waited. At last, the man placed his gun down on the dry, hard dirt. Jackson and I cuffed him. While we walked him to the police unit, I read the man his rights. Jackson shoved the subject into the back of the patrol car. He looked at me and said, “This could have been a good shooting.” He was talking about shooting an armed man who had refused to drop his weapon. If our lives had been in jeopardy at any time during the incident, use of deadly force would have been justified.

  “You take it,” I told Jackson, giving credit for the arrest to him. I felt embarrassed. How stupid of me to chase the guy. I walked to my car, shaking my head. “Why didn’t he shoot?”

  Some would say I was lucky. Some would say I was protected. Others might say I was just a stupid young cop. I think it might be a combination of all three. I felt gratitude for the God-given protection that made it possible for me to go home one more night to my wife and children.

  Over my eight years as a police officer, I was spared many times from being injured or killed. Linda began calling me “Miracle Man.” I silently repeated Bruce’s rule at the beginning of each shift. In my mind’s eye I saw his big easy smile, as he reminded me to never forget it.

  Years later there would be another kind of weapon aimed at my head with its trigger cocked. My new situation would be as life threatening as any I’d faced while doing police work. I would be in a different city, with my children grown. My wife and I would have embarked on a new path of writing, not mystery novels but animal books. Into that mix there would come a dog who was like none I’d ever known. This book tells the extraordinary true story of that rescued dog who stood between the threat of death and me—and how we made a pact to help each other survive.

  PART ONE

  The Journey of Two Souls Begins

  On the path that leads to Nowhere

  I have sometimes found my soul.

  —CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON,

  “THE PATH THAT LEADS TO NOWHERE”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Life as I Knew It

  THE DAY STARTED LIKE ANY OTHER DAY. I SAT AT MY DESK AND GAZED at a cloudless, azure sky from my fourth-floor office window. A couple dozen seabirds swooped in unison over the flat plain of the Minnesota landscape dotted with tall city buildings and oak trees. I started to prepare for a client conference call scheduled for later that morning. I moved a small, framed photo of our dog Leaf’s face to the right corner of my desk to make room for my notes. The image of the jet-black cocker spaniel Linda and I had adopted from an animal shelter seven months prior brought a smile to my face.

  The day before, Leaf and I had visited the dog park near our home. I loved seeing the joy shine in his eager eyes and his legs tremble with excitement each time I held his favorite ball in the air. When I threw it the heavens opened up for him. Over and over, he ran after the ball, and his long, floppy ears flapped in the wind. It delighted me when he rushed back to where I waited for him. He’d drop the ball at my feet, then, with his pink tongue hanging comically out of his mouth, he’d wait for the next round of play.

  I had grown to appreciate every inch of Leaf’s jellyroll body. The eight-inch legs that sunk into snowdrifts. The paw he’d raise to pat my knee whenever he wanted attention. The curve of his snout, which tipped upward. The wide, black, moist, and ever-sniffing nose that gave his profile a regal bearing. The pungent odor of his perspiration. The stubby tail that whipped in circles when he greeted my return home. The penetrating coal eyes that sparkled with personality when he’d peek at me out of the corners of his eyes or intensely examine my face for clues to my mood. All these aspects of my complex dog were becoming more welcome with each passing day.

  His trust in me was not complete, though. Far from it. Even this morning he still hadn’t wanted a hug or even a pat before I left for work. The cautious and guarded way that he demanded affection only on his terms made Leaf more catlike than usual for a dog. His body stiffened if I patted his head. He flinched when I tried to approach him directly or unexpectedly.

  Despite his initial distrust and fear, Leaf was taking baby steps into becoming a more reliable and fun canine companion. At times he’d plop down at my feet and take in the scenery at outdoor cafes. While driving in the car at night, sometimes I would call out, “Rabbit.” Then I’d point out the white-tailed bunnies I saw while Leaf’s legs quivered against my shoulder.

  I had left him relaxing on the couch that morning, carefully licking his furry right front paw. After the right was completely licked, he started working on the left one. I looked at him and said, “I’ll be back.” Whether he actually understood or not, he listened intently to my promise. I sensed that to a rescued dog, the intent behind my words meant a lot.

  That morning, though, I wasn’t just thinking about Leaf and how he was adjusting to life with us. I was also thinking about the puzzling bouts of dizziness I’d been having for the past few weeks. A couple of times the spells were so severe that I’d had to hold onto the wall as my body involuntarily slid down to the floor. Sensations of vertigo, claustrophobia, and spinning were happening more and more frequently. I tried to brush them off as symptoms of an inner ear infection that would heal in time. But combined with a series of disturbing dreams I’d had lately about catastrophe striking, all of this made me apprehensive about my health.

  When I told Linda about my concerns, she fixed on me with her blue eyes. In an unwavering voice, she insisted that I see our family doctor right away. I thought she might be overreacting, but I’ve learned during the course of our marriage that if Linda is determined that something will happen, it will happen. I knew Linda would keep asking about my dizziness until I could say, “The doctor says it’s nothing.” And so I made an appointment to see Dr. Scott.

  An older, no-nonsense fellow nearing retirement, Dr. Scott listened to my symptoms and did a thorough medical checkup. He made no comment and did not flash one of his rare smiles. “I want you to see a specialist to eliminate other reasons for your symptoms,” he said. Without further explanation, he referred me to a neurologist.

  The next week I went to see the neurologist, Dr. Lucas, a man in his midfifties, who sported a bushy black-and-gray mustache. He ordered an MRI-CAT scan.

  That medical test was an experience I do not want to repeat—ever. My head and much of my body entered a metal tube with no more than inches of space around me. Strapped in and sweating, I felt claustrophobic. The only thing that eased my nerves was to visualize walking along an oceanfront beach with Leaf. While the loud MRI throbbed, I imagined him running in the surf, chasing birds, with no intention of catching the
m, and always looking back over his shoulder to make sure he didn’t stray too far from me.

  As I left the hospital, I told myself that the test had only been necessary to eliminate possibilities. I was probably just having too much stress at work. The strange symptoms were a fluke. Before the MRI-CAT scan results were in, my dizziness ended as mysteriously as it had begun.

  Still watching the swirl of birds in the sky and preparing for my conference call, I heard the receptionist’s phone buzz outside my door. She sent the call straight through to me, and I picked up.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name. Who is this?” I asked. I assumed it was one of my clients.

  “Dr. Lucas,” the voice on the phone answered. “I’m calling about your test results.”

  Ah, it’s the neurologist making a courtesy call, I thought.

  “Allen, we found something on your CAT scan.”

  I quickly reached over from my desk chair to close the door. I grabbed the nearest pen, which happened to have red ink, and printed the name “Dr. Lucas” across my yellow notepad.

  Dr. Lucas remained silent for a moment, letting his words sink in. “It appears from the CAT scan that you have an unruptured brain aneurysm.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “In your brain,” he said, emphasizing the last word.

  If it hadn’t been such a serious subject, I might have laughed.

  Dr. Lucas continued somberly, “The aneurysm is located on the interior carotid artery. If you place your finger between your eyes, at the base of your forehead, it’s about one inch deep.”

  I held the phone receiver with one hand and touched my forehead with the forefinger of my other hand. I quickly moved my finger away, as if I’d placed it on some odd spot where it didn’t belong.