Jolene writes with great heart and passion about a dog breed disenfranchised not because of what they are, but because of what we imagine them to be. I love stories that support the underdog, and Jolene's tale of her beloved pit bull terrier is exactly that. It is also a delight to read, and a worthy story to ponder. And you will fall in love with Rumer, I'll promise you that. -Susan Knilans McElroy, author of Animals As Teachers and Healers and Animals as Guides for the Soul "Jolene has truly captured the ways animals enrich and bless our lives in profound ways. Not only is Angel On My Shoulder a story of an exceptional, loving pit bull named Rumer, it is on a larger scale the defense of a gentle, loyal breed that has been much maligned and misunderstood. May it help everyone understand both the true nature of the American Pit Bull as well as the true nature of love". -Katrina Kittle, author of The Kindness of strangers and The Blessings of the Animals "Far more than any other breed, the American pit bull represents different things to different people. Badly managed dogs grab headlines because their behavior is atypical; Jolene's experience represents the far less shocking though no less fascinating reality of life with a peaceful, loving, comedic pit bull as 'best friend'. If you enjoy tales of true love, you will value this story". -Diane Jessup, author of The Working Pit Bull and The Dog Who Spoke With Gods On a bitterly cold February day in 1992, a woman named Jolene found herself with a choice to make: the brindle puppy in a kindly stranger's left palm-or the red puppy in his right? For Jolene Mercadante, a librarian and lifelong animal advocate, this was the first tentative step on a journey that would impact the way she lived the rest of her life. She had no way of knowing how Rumer, a single little soul the size of a sausage, was about to change her life. Through all of life's great adventures-the perf

The Angel on My Shoulder

My Life with an American Pit Bull TerrierBy Jolene Mercadante

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Jolene Mercadante
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-2761-3

Chapter One

The ad in the Boston Globe was simple: "Pit Bull puppies for sale. Parents on premises." After calling the number and getting directions, we were off on a 2 ½ hour ride from Southampton to Amesbury. As we walked quickly to the car, I glanced up in excitement at the icy blue February sky. Wispy clouds like feathers adorned the Easter-egg blue with their brilliant white. The bitter cold air was shut out of the car with an emphatic slam as Cheryl and I jumped in to begin our drive. We couldn't wait to see the puppies and chattered the whole way, wondering what the dogs would look like, about the puppy we would choose, so excited to pick our new baby out of the 2 ½ week-old litter.

When we reached the farm and pulled into the driveway, we were greeted by fifteen adult pit bulls chained to doghouses in the yard, out of reach of each other by just a few feet. They eagerly began inquisitive barking, some of them leaping straight up in the air excitedly against their collars as we rolled to a stop in front of the house. With little knowledge about pit bulls going in, I curiously studied them, amazed at their variety of colors and looks. Cheryl was afraid of dogs and wouldn't leave the car, so I opened the driver's side door and stepped out alone. Even with the din of barking, no one came out to greet us. I approached the side door of the quaint house, sneakers crunching in the snow, zipping my coat and hunching my shoulders to the cold.

As I knocked, I couldn't help but look in the window of the door. To my surprise, I met the eyes of the most beautiful dog I had ever seen. He was standing in the kitchen, watching me with keen intelligence. There was no barking, just a steady stare from curious brown eyes. His body was a deep auburn and his face had the chiseled beauty of a classic pit bull, almost human in its shape, his ears cropped. He stood as still and soundless as air. His gaze stayed on me as a man approached the doorway.

"Hello, there," came a friendly Yankee accent from a big, burly, surprisingly young farmer. As he introduced himself as Wade, I couldn't help but comment on the beauty of the dog inside.

"This is Teddy Bear," Wade said as I stepped into the house. "He isn't one that I've bred, but one I've taken in." He explained that he was also the dog officer in town.

Teddy Bear was not only beautiful, but was extremely friendly, wiggling and rubbing against me as I scratched his back. His tail was docked, which Wade told me was highly unusual and only done because the person who had owned him kept him inside and didn't want him knocking things over. "Normally though," he said, "pit bulls are admired for long, beautiful tails, the longer and more sloping the better."

After our greetings and some small talk, Wade asked me to follow him to the far side of the yard where all the puppy kennels were located. I waved for Cheryl to follow and she finally mustered up enough courage to come. As we meandered through the sea of chained adults, we were sniffed and licked vigorously by any tongue that could reach us. Cheryl and I felt nothing but good intentions from the dogs, and, faced with such a joyful welcome, Cheryl realized that she wasn't even afraid anymore.

I found that I just had to stop and pet these sweet dogs who vied so ardently for our attention. Not one was aggressive in any way and I commented on this fact to Wade. Having not had much experience with the breed other than the horror stories I had read, I had not known what to expect. Wade agreed and told us that, because of their nature and how friendly they were, his dogs had been stolen numerous times. That's why they were chained with thick locks on their collars. The chains were as thick as my forearms and their dragging had removed all of the grass from around each of the 15 doghouses. The dirt left behind was strewn with cow bones as big and as long as my thighs.

Wade stopped at one dog and told us that this was the father of the babies we would be choosing from. His name was Steamer, and he was just as beautiful as Teddy Bear but in different ways. He was a very light vanilla color, with black-rimmed eyes like milk chocolate and the shape of almonds, and a black nose. He was shorter and stockier where Teddy Bear was taller and leaner. His muzzle was shorter and more full with the tip of his nose lifting just a bit. I kneeled in front of him and placed my hand on his massive head to pet him. He couldn't stop licking me as I stroked him. "He's beautiful!" I exclaimed, as his tongue stretched out desperately to reach my face, eyes crossed to meet mine. It made me laugh, such a display of complete love for a total stranger. His head was shaped like that of an elephant, with a deep ridge running down the center surrounded by jaws of pure muscle.

We left Steamer and continued toward the doghouses in the back amidst the pines. As we walked along the path that cut through the snow, Wade began to tell us a little history of the breed and named a few famous pit bulls like the dog in the "Little Rascals" television show and Helen Keller's companion and helper. We approached the kennels of the mother dogs and Wade continued, "As a breeder, I appreciate people like you so much who are interested in my dogs, good family people with whom these dogs deserve to live. It's so hard for me when people of questionable motives come to pick out my dogs. I try to do what I can to discourage them, but ..." He shook his shoulders and put out his hands, palms up, in a sad gesture.

We finally made it, the journey toward our choice nearing its end as we reached the doghouses of the mother pit bulls. We noticed that each mother had her own fenced kennel area, half cement and half dirt. The areas were very neat, clean, and well-kept. Wade stopped at the first house and lifted one side of the top. Inside was a mother dog with many puppies about six weeks old. "These are all taken," Wade said, "but I just wanted to show you."

Inside the house it was roomy and warm, a heating pad covering the floor. Wade said, "I put heating pads in all of the whelping houses during the cold winter months. It just makes me feel better to know the little ones are warm." The mother dog watched carefully as we pet the wriggling mass below us.

A biting wind picked up as Wade took the top off the next house. A mother pit bull came jumping out, laughing the way only a pit bull can. She was a beautiful dark brindle, her shiny black coat lined like a zebra with orange and brown stripes, her feet a dainty white. She was much more feminine and had a very sweet face. Five little lumps were on the heating pad on the floor of the house. "This is Leigha," Wade said, "the mama."

I pet Leigha's head excitedly while leaning over as far as I could, trying to get my first look at those little babies as Wade reached down into the house. Out came his hands, a puppy in each palm. "These are the only two available. I'm keeping the rest from this litter."

We looked in his hands. In his left was a little brindle female, so much like her mother, and in his right was a little light red female with a full black muzzle. Cheryl and I looked them both over very carefully. They were so cute! In all of our planning, we had been drawn to the brindle dogs and had talked over picking out a brindle puppy, but the red one was so beautiful. She had a full black face and black-rimmed eyes just like her father. As we were going back and forth, Wade was telling us how it was much more difficult to place brindle pit bulls. He said they look scarier to people. We didn't think that little brindle the size of a sausage in Wade's palm could ever look scary!

It was so hard to choose and there were so many times since then that we wished we had taken both puppies. But, we immediately fell in love with the perfect little red sausage with the full black muzzle in Wade's right hand. After talking it over, we chose her and not Brenda, the brindle. "Okay," Wade said as he laughed happily with Cheryl and me, "I'll call you when she's ready to go. Her name is Chilli Pepper." Or, as he pronounced it, Chilli "Peppah".

Little did I realize how much that small, seemingly insignificant moment in time would change so many people and affect so many lives. Little did I know that I was beginning the journey of a lifetime, a journey that would teach me the greatest and most important things in life. This journey would change me spiritually and would change the very way I lived the rest of my life in thought, relationships, and love. It was a journey that was set in motion by this single little soul the size of a sausage.

After our choice, it was so hard to leave her. But, we pulled out of Wade's driveway and turned toward home, excitedly talking about this new little life and all she already meant. After a while, we fell silent, quietly lost in our own thoughts. As I drove, I thought about what brought me to this point and what my life with animals had taught me about love. I didn't yet realize that everything I thought I knew about love would be nothing compared to what I was about to learn.

Chapter Two

From my very first memorable thoughts, I have loved animals with a passion that can only be attributed to the innate. I loved animals so much that I wanted to be one. I crawled around our house as a child, pretending to be a dog, and barked at the sink for water. One of my sisters asked me, "Would you like a drink, Fifi?" Panting, I shook my head up and down, and barked again. One of them then retrieved my glass and tipped it just so for me to drink.

My childhood home was any child's dream. It had a beautiful yard complete with a pond and a brook that passed through, both of which hosted numerous fish, frogs, and creatures of the mud that kept me occupied all day long, happy as a pig and just as muddy. Playing one summer afternoon amongst all these wonderful creatures, I heard my mother call me in to take my daily nap. Without arguing, I dutifully trudged in and upstairs to my room, clutching my bright yellow plastic purse. With such obedience highly unusual, my mother followed quietly behind me. Peeking in the crack of the bedroom door, she smiled and held back a laugh as she watched me speak into my purse, turn it upside down, gently pat it, and unceremoniously drop my smuggled frog onto the bed. The worst punishment my parents inflicted upon me was imprisonment in the house. I couldn't bear not being out in nature with my animals.

As part of a school project in the fifth grade, my sister Diane was required to write her autobiography. What part did her siblings play in her life, how have they affected her, what do they aspire to be? She diligently recorded our answers in her paper after interviewing each of us in turn. When she asked me, age 4, what I wanted to be when I grew up, I confidently exclaimed: "Lassie!"

Our family was blessed to live in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts, a very small farming town at the time. We lived across the street from Rising's Field, a picturesque hayfield that contained acres and acres of gorgeous, tall grass that kept all of the neighborhood kids occupied for hours. Hiding in the middle of the field and flattening the grass to make "rooms," we surrounded large, dried, blackened mushrooms, our natural smoke bombs, and stomped them to create faux bonfires. The smell of the sweet grass being cut and turned for hay, the beauty and peace of meadow sounds, the exciting feel of cool dusk coming after a lazy, hot summer's day ... how lucky we were to grow up in this beautiful area.

Beyond Rising's Field was a vegetable farm, beyond that another hay field and woods, and beyond that the historic Bowles Airport, all filled with miles of trails that equaled hours of happiness for neighborhood kids. Bowles Airport, opened in 1931, was adjacent to a horseracing track that hosted the likes of Seabiscuit. At the time I grew up, it was an airport for small private planes and a favorite riding spot for kids with horses and motorcycles. A nice cut-out in the fence provided a convenient secret opening.

A well-worn dirt path led one through the two fields, the vegetable farm, woods, and through this fence into hours of bliss. There was nothing better than watching the planes all afternoon as they took off and landed, the droning sound so reminiscent of lazy, blue-skies-scattered-with-fluffy-white-clouds spring and summer days. I remember when the airport caught fire one evening when I was in my early teens, the windborne ashes lazily reaching our house and fluttering silently around us as we stood in the gathering dusk, facing the airport in shocked silence and able to see the glowing pulse of flames. It was never rebuilt, but remained abandoned until an industrial park took its place.

I sometimes drive by these places and so fondly remember the good times we kids used to have. We were gone all day, parents never worrying at that time as long as we were home before dark, such a different age. We were free to be kids, roving the neighborhood, little gangs out for clean fun. It was in this setting that I was lucky enough to have grown. It was in this setting that animals became a part of my life and a part of everything I did and was.

Chapter Three

When I was four, abiding by my orders, my whole family packed into our nine-seater Buick station wagon and went to pick out a collie puppy. We were excited to get our own "Lassie." We took home a beautiful tri-color male, Laddie, who was so gentle and good to us. I don't remember very much about Laddie because I was so young and he lived such a short life with us, but I do remember how sweet he was and how much he loved us. He played on our backyard pond while we skated on its frozen surface, kindly lending support when we clung to his back, precarious on our skates.

Laddie died at age two after being hit by a car. After three days, my sister Diane finally found him by following paw and blood tracks in the snow. He was in the next-door neighbor's shed, so close and hearing us calling, but too hurt to come. A blood clot took his life that night at the vet clinic. When we were told he died, I was heartbroken.

That spring, my mother received a call from a distant neighbor saying that her German Shepherd female had two puppies. She told us that our Laddie had been the father and she asked us to take one. After the devastation of losing Laddie, I was ecstatic to go pick out another baby. I arrived at the house and skipped with excitement into the kitchen, ponytails swinging in rhythmic happiness, where mother and babies were in a towel-swathed corner. One puppy was the color of spun gold while the other was as black as coal. Both looked like a typical Labrador Retriever. While it was doubtful these puppies were the result of a collie father, my mother said we could pick one out. My older sister Lee and I decided on the coal black puppy and named her Pepper. There was no better dog in the world for a child.

I often snuck out of our house at 5:00 am, mindful of my ever-vigilant mother, avoiding every squeak and creak as I made my way down two sets of stairs to the garage. Quietly lifting the garage door up a foot, I rolled under it in order to make a clean break to the outdoors. This is where my animals were. Even then, I was compelled by a need beyond my control to be in their company.

After rounding up Pepper and my all-black cat Kitty, who held a special love reserved only for me, the three of us headed out to the farm across the street. We climbed an old dirt mound and sat to watch the sunrise. I can still smell the fresh, damp earth, the growing vegetables, see the beautiful sight of the farm sprinklers first going off, water shooting through the air like precious jewels reflecting the vibrant colors of the rising sun's glowing rays. One of my arms hugged Pepper next to me while the other cradled Kitty in my lap. How lucky I am for such exquisite memories. Did I realize this then?

By age 6, after shameless begging, I finally had a real horse. Sugar was an awesome black and white pinto, an ex-barrel racer, with spirit and sass befitting my own. Leading Sugar into the fields and airport across the street, I grabbed a handful of mane and vaulted on her back like a Native American. I can still feel the bounce of her stride and her warmth as I sat upon her, smell the earthy sweetness of her coat, see the beautiful curve of her neck, the black and white mane under my hands that flounced in rhythm with her proud walk.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Angel on My Shoulderby Jolene Mercadante Copyright © 2011 by Jolene Mercadante. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.