If she ever became pregnant I was unaware of it. I know she wasn’t particular with whom she slept. She floated from bedroom to bedroom. Mostly she would be in the guys rooms but she wasn’t a stranger to a girls bedroom. I had her in my bed one memorable night. She wasn’t considered beautiful. Her nose was large, her eyes were glazed and rheumy and her hair was a nondescript color. There are none like her around this campus any more. At least I haven’t seen her type since I’ve been back. Her name, at least the one that we tagged her with was “Taffy Dog.” She was a real bitch [you have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to say that]. I don’t know where she came from or why she decided to adopt Le Moyne. I do know that she is a fond memory of mine.
Taffy dog wasn’t anyone’s possession. She was the campus dog. She was a friendly mongrel mutt. She thoroughly enjoyed having her ears rubbed and tummy scratched. She particularly liked having her ass petted [as do most of us]. Taffy would pretty much roam around the campus as if she owned it. During the mild weather she would forage for any carrion she could find. The reservoir was her favorite source of road kill. I never saw or heard of her hunting down any live game, but occasionally you could see her walking around blissfully chewing on a piece of not so recently dead squirrel. It is my considered opinion that she truly relished the flavor of any dead severely squished creature she could find. I say that she never hunted because she had no need to. She had free access to the campus dining hall. She found plenty of calories on the floor. Taffy never worried about a little dirt on her food.
We never figured out how she got in the dorms. In cold weather she would find a room with an open door and let herself in. She would almost always find a warm welcome unless she accidently intruded on guy and girl engrossed in the study of various reproductive methodologies. A shoe thrown in her direction was enough to send her on her way. She rarely slept on the floor. She preferred the warmth of a human bed with blankets and pillow. The human was optional. This was no treat for the human. Taffy’s personal hygiene wasn’t the best.
One night I was her reluctant host. She was wet. She had a cloud of wet dog smell following her. Her breath was an all time high on the “stink-o-meter.” Some idiot had fed her kielbasa with sauerkraut and baked beans. She was flatulent in the extreme. Any gastric gas that she emitted would have been outlawed by the Geneva Convention. I had to resort to desperate measures to get her out of my room. I turned an old piece of rope into a leash, attached her and walked down the hall to an R.A.’s room. I knocked on the door and made myself scarce. I don’t know where Taffy did end up spending the night. I do know that I heard the sound of a thrown shoe. I think that she resented my eviction of her. For the rest of my time on campus she never again walked into my room. Of course it may have been because I installed a triple set of deadbolt locks on the door.
Ultimately and to the surprise of most of my professors, I graduated. I left Le Moyne, Taffy stayed. I sometimes thought about her and what happened to her. I found out last week. I was at a birthday party for a fellow class of ‘71 alumnus. We have a common friend who we met about ten years after graduation. His name is Duncan. We were sitting at a table consuming a series of various adult beverages. I mentioned that I was working on a story about Taffy and was stuck on the ending. Duncan said that he could help me with my problem. About a year after I left Le Moyne he was on campus as a S.U. grad student doing research for his M.A. Unkown to me and to my surprise it turned out that Taffy pretty much adopted him. Duncan completed his post grad work, got a job in Rochester and took Taffy with him. She was well cared for right up to the time she left this world. I like to think of her happily getting handouts and tummy rubs from the saints in heaven. After all, heaven is where all dogs go.
