All for a dog who in life was never petted, never touched.

Yet one who touched many with her death.

The chow-German shepherd mix lived alone in Swope Park, lurking in the shadows, a glint of red fur in the brush.

Twice a day, even in the coldest times of winter and the worst heat of summer, one woman walked the park with her three old German shepherds, looking for this dog. Bringing a coffee can full of food, trying to prove to the dog that a human could be trusted.

Always hoping that the dog would someday be hers. That she’d get to love the dog the way she loved her other dogs. Pat her head, scratch behind one of her ears, teach her to sit and stay and play with a ball.

Show her a home, a place where they could live together.

For nearly four years the woman fed the dog and waited.

On Christmas Eve, children who live near the park found the dog’s body. Frozen stiff. One entry wound behind her ear, perhaps from a bullet or a tranquilizer dart. No one knows for sure.

But everyone who had seen the woman and her love for this stray knew when they heard of the dog’s death how deep her pain would be.

•••

Anne Mackey’s blond curls still tease in a bob. She won’t reveal her age, but she will talk of living through World War II.

She speaks quietly, with a German accent, and when she talks of the dog, her crystal-blue eyes fill with compassion.

“I named her Reba, after the singer,” she says. “I first met her when I saw a pair of ears sticking out above the grass.”

Mackey has taught dog obedience classes for decades and has won dozens of trophies with her own dogs. Dogs have been in her world all her life.

After the war, her family lost everything. They became refugees, foraging for food and shelter. She survived by working for the U.S. Army, hired because of a dog.

It was a German shepherd named Fritz who threatened to bite everyone except its owner, an American colonel — until it met Anne. The colonel, struck by his dog’s strange friendliness toward her, immediately offered her a job as a translator.

Two years later she fell in love with a soldier from Missouri, Arthur G. Mackey, and came to the United States. He died in 1981.

She worked for years with the city’s parks department, teaching infant swimming, arts and crafts, and more.

But her real love has always been rescuing German shepherds. She often pays for the shots and spaying or neutering. She is genuinely thrilled when she can match a dog with a good owner and home.

She will have a German shepherd as a pet, she says, “until I die.” Reba would have been her next dog.

Mackey thinks someone hoping to capture Reba shot her with a tranquilizer dart. Or maybe someone just wanted to kill her.

Doesn’t matter. Knowing exactly what happened wouldn’t help her brokenness.

She berates herself for being too patient, too willing to wait for the animal to choose her. All this sadness, she laments, for a dog she never petted.

Even now, she can’t stop looking for tall ears in the grass or a bushy tail held high.

•••

Park employee Bryan Cameron woke the morning of Christmas Eve knowing the day would be a trial. He was mourning the death of his son, killed in a wreck three months before. Christopher would have been 20 this day.

About noon, Cameron noticed the petite figure of Mackey in front of the park maintenance building where he works. For years he has seen her walking her dogs and looking after those that had no owners. Trying to place the ones she could catch. Trying always to catch that one dog.

Reba was so smart, so good at eluding pursuers that other employees thought of her as Tramp, from “Lady and the Tramp.” She had other nicknames: The Diva of Swope Park. The Queen. Park employees even made a little shelter for her.

Seeing Mackey’s face, he knew something was wrong.

They shot her, she told him. She’s dead. Reba is dead.

She opened her car’s trunk and there, on a piece of plastic, was the dog’s frozen body.

Cameron shook his head. Tomorrow’s Christmas, he thought. And his heart broke for Mackey, who could see the good in every animal, wild or not.

I’ll help you bury her, he told her.

Cameron watched her drive off. Later he told his wife and children what had happened. And for a few hours on Christmas Day, he worked at home, making a sturdy wooden cross.

•••

Mary Reed met Mackey years ago at a dog obedience class. Reed’s son was very young, and “he’s almost 50 now, so it’s been a while,” she says.

They’ve been best friends ever since. She was one of the first people Mackey called with the news about Reba.

“I cried almost as hard as she was,” Reed said. “Anne is very special. All Anne wanted was to adopt this dog as her own. She was so close to winning its trust. I knew she would have succeeded” with a little more time.

At least three of the dozen dogs that have been part of the Reed family were rescued first by Mackey. Mackey showed Mary’s husband, William Reed, how to train dogs so they wouldn’t chase their horses.

It was Mackey who clipped the hair of their last dog just before he was put down.

“And she cried just as hard with us when he was finally gone,” said Mary Reed, who has urns of pets’ ashes lined up on a mantel in their home.

She went with Mackey a few times to Swope Park. She’d heard so much about Reba, she wanted to see the dog herself.

She’d watch from the car as Mackey left food. Out of nowhere, it seemed, a beautiful dog with its tail held high walked forward, grabbing one bite and then another, before slipping back into the shadows.

“Reba survived a lot out there,” Reed said. “It was harsh. She never joined another dog pack. … She was a strong dog.”

•••

Gary Wesche shakes his head when asked about Reba, who often lounged in his front yard.

He and his family live in a big house on nine acres near Swope Park. It’s “a wonderful place to raise children,” Wesche said.

But living next to 1,800 acres of woodlands comes with some wildness, too, including roaming packs of dogs, sometimes as many as a dozen.

One, though, was always alone.

At first, having a stray dog near their home concerned them. But the dog never barked and was never aggressive. Always kept her distance.

One day Wesche saw an older woman place dog food by a tree, something he’d seen well-meaning strangers do many times before. He always asks them not to because it encourages the packs to come around.

He approached Mackey with his speech, but she stopped him midsentence, telling him how she was trying to make this dog her own.

That day, the Wesches learned the dog had a name. She wasn’t a stray anymore. She was a pet who just wasn’t owned yet by the nice lady, one son said.

In the evenings, the family would watch as Mackey set out food for Reba and then sat in the grass, her back turned, waiting for Reba to edge closer. But never trying to grab her.

“Her patience with the dog was amazing,” Wesche said.

During stifling heat waves, Mackey would freeze a bucket of water and lug it from her car to the shade of a tree, putting the ice in a water dish for Reba.

In the winter, the Wesche children watched for Reba. When the pond froze over, she would play. Rump up, front paws down. Flailing at a flock of sparrows. Too slow to catch any.

Remembering that still makes the children laugh.

In the last days of the year, when Mackey couldn’t find Reba, she asked the children to look for her as they played.

Just before Christmas, they saw drops of blood, following them to a snow-covered body.

The dog had escaped capture one last time but couldn’t escape the cold.

Without anyone around, Reba had died alone.

And the children listened as their father called the nice lady:

We found your dog.

To reach Lee Hill Kavanaugh, call 816-234-4420 or send e-mail lkavanaugh@kcstar.com.