Phantom Felines And Other Ghostly Animals - Gerina Dunwich 2006

Nickalos
Hounds and Hauntings

by Jakette Foskey

When I first met my husband, Mark, he had a dog that was named Nickalos. He was a mixed breed, mostly rottie. Nick (as we called him) lived at my husband’s mother’s house when we first got married and was loved by the whole family. He was a great dog. He loved children and would keep a watchful eye on the kids to keep them safe from a nearby lake where we live in Florida.

My husband and I got a home and were able to move Nick in with us. That was a happy time. We loved him, and with my husband working nights, he made me feel safe. But Nick was more afraid of thunderstorms than I was, and it was not unusual to wake up in the middle of the night during a storm and hear him come through the cat door—all ninety pounds of him!

He also greeted visitors that way. He stayed on the back porch or in the garage most of the time, and when he heard someone come in, he would run to the side door from the garage and stick his big head through it as if to say, “Hey, what did you get me? Hurry, I want to come in and see! And oh, by the way, here’s a kiss, too, while you’re trying to open the door.”

The years went by too fast and by the time Nick was fifteen, his hips gave out on him. It was on the same day that Mark’s mother had a heart attack. (We did not want to tell her that Nick was down and not able to get up.) We took him to the vet and he had said to take the dog home and see if we could coax him up.

For three days we did everything we could. I stayed with him all three days with his head in my lap, telling him how much we loved him. On the third day of his suffering we took him to the vet again and he told us all we could do was put him to sleep. As you can imagine, it had been a hard couple of days with Mark’s mother in the hospital, and now this. It was one of the hardest things to do. We both stayed with Nick until he was gone, his head still on my lap. (Oh, I miss that dog. But all good things must come to an end.)

When we left the vet, I felt as though Nick had loaded up in the car with us. But then I thought, I’ve really lost it.

When we got home, we were both upset and just sat around that night. Mark and I were in the kitchen and heard the sound of a dog’s toenails coming around the porch into the garage. We both turned around to see if Nick’s big head would come through the cat door; it didn’t and we both began to cry. About a day and a half later, we came home from the hospital and went to the kitchen for a sandwich. Both of us heard Nick’s dog tags jingle, even though they were on his collar and it was still out in Mark’s truck. We looked at each other and asked, “Did you hear that?”

From then on things started to happen. I’d be in bed and hear the cat door slap even though the cat was on my bed at the time. We heard Nick’s dog tags daily. One night we were sitting at the kitchen table having iced tea when we heard Nick whine. Both of us said, “Oh, he wants a cookies.” My husband said, “Hold on, Nick, I’m coming.” He went to the door to see him, but he wasn’t there. We both said to each other, “I know you heard that!”

Not long after that, my husband saw a neighbor whose dog had puppies and we got the runt of the litter. His name is Captain. After he came home with us, we didn’t hear too much more from Nick.

Captain now wears Nick’s collar and he is just like Nick. It is amazing. He acts like him and even looks like him, so I think Nick is still around and helped us raise the puppy.