Ferdinand Finds a Home
by Dave Barth, December 1982
This story was written in for my sister, Naoma. In 1982 Avon sold a cute stuffed puppy that wore a hooded jacket. Carol and I purchased it to give to Naoma
for Christmas. I included this story with the puppy to explain how this little guy came to be and how he came to be hers.
Ferdie was born on Christmas Eve, 1981, under a Christmas tree in a house in New Jersey. It was a chilly night, and Ferdie snuggled up to his mother to keep
warm. At least they were out of the wind.
His mother had squeezed through a door that had been left cracked open when the people who lived in the house had carried groceries inside. Ferdie's
mother had not been seen sneaking into the house, and, once inside, she had frantically searched for a place to hide.
She knew that she was about to have a pup, and she didn't want to go into labor outside in the cold on that December night. She had quietly sneaked
around the house, looking for a good place to have her pup. She kept her bulging body close to the baseboards. Her fat belly dragged on the wooden floor.
Finally, she spotted a good place. It was a large tree with packages around its base.
That night Ferdie was born among the packages. Early the next morning, before sunup, his mother moved, disturbing his warm cuddle. She got up and
headed for the door. She walked quietly, trying to keep her nails from clicking on the floor so she wouldn't awaken the people, and went outside.
Ferdie was scared to be alone under the tree. He thought he was being abandoned, so he struggled to his shaky legs, and walking unsteadily toward
the open door, following his mother's scent. At the door, he hesitated in the cold air and then hopped out onto the porch. He looked out into the yard, but he
couldn't see his mother. He knew he was too young to be an orphan. He wanted to be with his mother. Below him were five steps to the yard. It looked so
far down to Ferdie, but he had to follow his mother. So he shut his big brown eyes tightly and rolled off the edge of the steps. Poor Ferdie bounced down
the steps and rolled into the grass.
The little pup lay there for a moment, panting, trying to catch his breath, feeling the hurt of his first bruises. It was cold and dark. His coat had dried, but
it was still sparse of fur.
He remembered he was searching for his mother and struggled to his feet. He tracked her scent across the lawn to the street. He looked across the street and
saw his mother on the other side, sniffing a bush at the edge of the sidewalk. She had not seen him yet, and as he started to muster his first feeble yelp to call
to her, a car turned a corner nearby, and its lights blinded him. He instinctively fell flat on his stomach, trying to hide in the grass.
The car stopped in the street between Ferdie and his mother. He heard the car door open and close, then the car drove away. He looked up and saw that his
mother was gone. Ferdie couldn't believe it. She had just been across the road, and now she was gone, nowhere to be seen. The people in the car must have
grabbed his mother.
Ferdie tumbled off the curb and struggled to the spot where he had last seen his mother. He began circling, sniffing for her scent. His ever widening circles got
him thoroughly lost by daybreak.
Ferdie spent the next eleven months an orphan, wandering the streets, eating mostly out of garbage cans, occasionally getting a good meal from kind people
who saw him wandering. His deficient diet at this early age stunted his growth. He would always look like a little pup, even when he was grown up.
When he was nearly one year old, in December 1982, Ferdie sensed he needed a warm coat like other dogs had, but his hadn't fully developed, and it never would
because his first year had been so difficult. He shivered at night and slept fitfully.
One day, while going through some garbage, Ferdie found a discarded doll. Perhaps she had been thrown out by some little girl expecting a new doll to be brought
by Santa. He noticed that the doll wore a little hooded jacket. Ferdie had seen dogs whose owners put sweaters on them in cold weather. He thought that maybe
he could wear this little doll coat to keep warm during the cold December nights.
Ferdie gently pulled the little jacket off the doll and worked his way into it. Because he was so small, the coat fit perfectly. A little swatch of red material he found
worked as a muffler. Now Ferdie was warm. He was ready for winter.
But Ferdie was still troubled. He envied the dogs who had homes. He wanted a home for himself, and he decided he would find a home. Ferdie knew approximately
where he had last seen his mother, almost a year ago. So he searched that part of town, looking for something familiar. The two things that Ferdie clearly
remembered were the bush where he had last seen his mother and the steps he had tumbled down.
Finally, he found the bush. He looked across the street and, sure enough, there were the steps leading up to a porch. Ferdie decided he wanted to go back into
the house where he was born nearly a year ago. He didn't know why, exactly, but he did.
So, Ferdie, the poor little stunted pup, ambled across the street, over the lawn, and climbed up the porch steps. He scratched on the door with a front paw, the
same way he did when he was hungry, begging for a handout. No one was home. It was the middle of the day. So Ferdie curled up on the porch and napped.
Suddenly, Ferdie was awakened by the sound of a car. He scrambled down the steps and hid in a bush. He wondered if the car brought the owners of the house.
Ferdie was excited. Maybe they would become his new family. His heart beat fast. A man dressed in blue got out of the car, carrying a package. He left it on the
porch, beside the front door, and left. Ferdie had seen men like that before. They went up to houses and left things. Some dogs chased and bit these men in blue.
But Ferdie never did that. He had a gentle nature.
Ferdie hobbled back up the steps and walked over to the package to inspect it. He knew that things left by the men in blue were always taken inside the house
by the people. He wanted to go inside, too, but people always shoved him away with their foot. They didn't want a stunted little stray like him. Oh, sure, some
kind people threw him food, but they never invited him in. He had to think of a way to get into this house.
As he inspected the package, he had an idea. Ferdie began tearing at the package with his teeth. Finally, he had a corner of the contents of the package in his
teeth. He pulled it out of the package and dragged it around to the trash can in the back of the house. It looked like a very nice dress, but Ferdie knew he had to
get into the house by using the package.
He worked his little body into the hole he had torn in the package. It was tight inside the box, but he got as comfortable as possible and went to sleep.
Suddenly, Ferdie was awakened by foot steps on the porch. Who could it be? The owners of the house? Vandals to carry him off? The man in blue to carry him
to a different house? He held his breath. He could hear two people walking on the porch.
Ferdie felt the package he was inside being picked up. He could hear the people talking, "Look at what the post office did to this package!"
"Well, what can we expect on Christmas eve?"
Ferdie felt a jolt and guessed he had been put on the floor inside the house. He could smell cat smell. He remembered cat smell the night he was born, but he
had not seen any cats. He peeked out of the hole in the package to look at them. The yellow cat cautiously approached the package and sniffed Ferdie's nose.
The other cat was more shy, but she, too, befriended Ferdie within a few hours.
That evening, the two people sat near Ferdie's box. He guessed he was among other boxes at the foot of a Christmas tree just about the same place where he had
been born a year ago. He could hear the people shake, squeeze, poke, and rattle other packages. They talked and laughed as they opened one package after
another. When the people discussed which package to open next, Ferdie hoped they would choose his. The waiting was difficult, but he kept quiet inside the
box.
Then, suddenly, his package was abruptly plucked from the floor and shaken. Ferdie was violently thrown from side to side. Finally, the tumult ceased, and Ferdie
breathed a sigh of relief.
Loud ripping noises followed, and Ferdie was pulled from the box, squniting in the bright light of the room. He found himself in the lady's arms. She said, "Isn't
he cute?"
The man said, "Yes, and we can keep him in the guest room." Ferdie smiled. This was how it should be. Now he was part of a family.