Paws and Reflect

by Neil S. Plakcy

  Some owners take the contests very seriously. We judge the categories by applause. One year, we were doing a Halloween theme and had a great costume contest. Some people had their kids dressed up with their dogs.

  I adore watching the littlest of the kids. They are just gleeful, watching all these dogs play. We put nametags on so we can get to know each other. But we all know the dogs’ names better than the people’s names, so somebody started putting the dogs’ names on, like, “Randy, Darwin’s Dad.” The kids were writing, “Bobby, Bagel’s Brother.”

  We wanted to do something charitable with all these Beagle people. That’s in our blood. So we started accepting donations for California Beagle Rescue. PAWS sponsors a 5-K Walkathon, and I sent a mass e-mail out to all the Beagle people, saying, “Let’s form ‘Team Beagle, ’ and walk together.”We ended up raising $7, 000 for PAWS.

  It amazes me how people can have this connection with their dogs through their heart, and all this other stuff doesn’t matter. The same was true with the Beagle Moms, those women I met online when we first got Darwin. They were very sweet. They knew I was gay and had AIDS. A group of them had decided to meet in Las Vegas one year, and they invited us to come. They were a lot of fun. We all told stories about our dogs. The first night was cathartic because we were talking about our dogs who had died. Some were talking about Beagles that they rescued and the awful lives these dogs had had beforehand. I talked about how Darwin was such an important part of my life because of my being sick. These women and I connected, and they’re still very good friends of mine.

  The first year I was on the PAWS board, the Beagle Moms came out for Petchitecture, from all over the country. They are not used to hanging around with gay men. One is a born-again Christian from Texas. Another is a rock-ribbed Republican from Chicago. We talk politics occasionally. But you know, we agree to disagree. By and large, our connection is through dogs. I never thought that, being a liberal gay guy, I could have people as friends who I really disagree with politically. It taught me this lesson—that I can. Those things, while important to me, are not the essential part of me. I was very touched by that, in ways that I can’t quite explain.

  My health varies. I had a really bad downfall in December. My meds basically stopped working. I had been going around teaching about Medicare Part D and how that works for people with HIV. I wanted to get this information out because it was important. I was so impassioned and doing so much that I didn’t listen to my body and was getting sick again. My T cells, which should usually be around 500, went down to twenty-six. My viral load, which usually ranges between 1, 000 and 10, 000, moved to half a million. And I developed a case of pneumonia and was weak. I was scared. I didn’t know what was going on. My doctor said, “Don’t ever do that to me again. You scared the hell out of me.”

  Now I’m fine. Just ninety days ago, I thought I was going to die. But we changed my meds, and I stayed in bed.

  Another wonderful thing Darwin has brought me: My dad and I have a good relationship. But we’re WASP men. We don’t emote a lot. When I was home recuperating, I got a gift basket from my father. He had cherry-picked what was in it. And one of things was a box of Milkbones.

  I broke down and cried like a little kid because it showed me that my dad knew me. He understood what was important to me in a way that I had never quite known. That was a turning point in my relationship with my father.

  Darwin is in every part of my life. At the Beaglefest we had last October, my father was here for his seventieth birthday. If I had to sum up what Darwin has done in my life, he has allowed me to look beyond all the other things and to see that what really connects people is what is in their hearts. In a sense he’s been a conduit—he’s like my Buddha. He allows me a very direct connection to somebody’s heart. Despite all those things that differ in us, there is something that connects all of us, regardless of politics, sexual orientation or anything else, and he’s allowed me to find that. That’s an incredible gift.

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  David Mizejewski: THE DOGS IN MY OWN BACKYARD

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  David Mizejewski is a man on a mission. As manager of the National Wildlife Federation’s Backyard Wildlife Habitat program, he works to show people how their own outdoor area, whether it’s a yard or a balcony, can harmonize with birds, butterflies, and other wild creatures. David says, “Ecological issues tend to be overwhelming. There’s nothing one person can do about global warming. But one person can make a difference in their own home, by making it a better spot for wildlife.”

  The balance between animal and human life is also the theme of his personal life. He made what he calls a life-changing decision while still in college that he would share his time on earth with dogs. From the moment that Niko came into his life, decisions he made were no longer simply personal but oriented to the family of two that they had become. Eventually he came to believe in “pets in pairs”—that no matter how strong an interspecies bond can be, dogs need to be in the company of their own kind.

  He created a habitat, and a circle of friends, that nourish and support him, even while he flies from location to location, filming episodes of his Animal Planet television show. He spoke with me just before setting out to film the second season.

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  OVER THE COURSE of my life I’ve had about nine or ten dogs—my own dogs, family dogs, or dogs who have lived with me and my roommates. In addition, I was one of those kids who had a zoo in my bedroom and drove my parents crazy. I’ve been a major geek and animal lover ever since I popped out.

  Right now I have two dogs, and I believe that once you get a dog, your life changes. I don’t like people who make snap decisions about getting a dog, then one day decide they don’t need it anymore and that’s it, off goes the dog to the pound. If you’re going to take on an animal, it’s got to be for the life of that animal, and with a dog, it can be fifteen years or more.

  During my junior year at Emory, three roommates and I were living in a house in Atlanta with a big backyard. Caroline had a Chow mix named Buddha, and the other roommate and her boyfriend each had a puppy, Sadie, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, and Clyde, a Boxer. Of course, I wanted my own dog. I was thinking about joining the Peace Corps, but I also wanted a dog of my own. I couldn’t do both of those things. I couldn’t get a dog and then a couple months later go tromping off to a foreign country. If you want to get a dog, you have to make that level of commitment. Your life changes. It has an impact on what you can do and can’t do. If I had a dog, I wouldn’t be able to join the Peace Corps.

  I decided I should adopt, because it’s a good thing to do. There are a lot of unwanted pets out there. I started looking around at the shelters. I was over at a friend’s place, and his next-door neighbor had a dog that had puppies. These three adorable puppies were peering at me over the fence, and I thought, Oh my God, I’ve got to have one of them.

  The puppies’ father was a Husky, and the mom was a little black-and-tan mutt that weighed about forty pounds. One puppy, a boy, looked the most like the mother, kind of like a baby Rottweiler. The other two puppies, a boy and a girl, were black and white. The girl was almost all white, with the blue eyes of her Husky dad. I fell in love at first sight with the third puppy, though, that had big black patches on him, a black mask, and the same brilliant bright blue eyes as his father and sister. And he had his father’s curly Husky tail.

  I ended up talking to the owner of the mom. She had already promised a friend of hers the pick of the litter. I had to wait a few days till she came to make her choice, and I was worried the whole time: What if she picked the black-and-white boy? I was already bonded with him.

  Finally the day came and we went over, and the woman was there with her kids. She was totally into the black and white puppy. She said, “That’s the one I want.” My heart sank. But her kids said, “No, Mommy, we want this one!”The kids liked the brother, the black and tan one, w
ho was very rambunctious. The sister was a bit shy. The black and white boy was in the middle, a little laid-back, a little interested.

  That’s how I knew he was the one that I wanted. When you pick out a dog, you want the animal that isn’t too aggressively playful or super shy, either. The woman had first dibs. She was really pushing for the black-and-white boy, but her three kids wouldn’t go along with it. I was praying, “Please, let the kids win the argument!” and they did. She gave in to her kids. They took the black and tan, and I got the dog I wanted.

  I named him Niko, and he integrated with the other dogs at the house pretty well. The other puppies, the Ridgeback and the Boxer, were ten months old. Buddha, the Chow mix, was two.

  With my background in wildlife ecology, I’ve always been fascinated by animal behavior. I learned some interesting things from watching the four dogs in our house interact. It’s fascinating to see the dynamics among a pack of dogs and how similar domestic dogs are to wolves. I observed a lot of pack behavior, hierarchies, and the shifts in power with four dogs in the house. In that time period, Buddha, the Chow mix, was definitely the alpha dog. One of the ways that behavior manifested was in stealing toys. If one of the other dogs had something she wanted, she would take it and not let them have it back. She kept them disciplined and in line.

  Sadie, the Rhodesian Ridgeback, liked to knock Niko around and drag him around the backyard. Clyde, the Boxer, had not been neutered yet, and Niko was still too young for neutering. At around the time Niko was six months old, the two of them developed this male rivalry. It was interesting to watch—they really got into it a few times. We finally made Eric, my roommate’s boyfriend, get Clyde neutered. Then I got Niko neutered as soon as I could.

  Because we four humans were only roommates, there was a kind of separation among us. On certain levels, I think the dogs picked up on the internal roommate dynamic. It wasn’t that we were constantly fighting, but it’s just what happens if you live in a group house. There was a kind of competition. There were always issues of “My dog isn’t the dog that chewed up the sofa.” “My dog didn’t do this or that.” As a result, all the dogs in that house felt that they had to protect what was theirs.

  As a result, Niko became every food possessive. Not with people. I could stick my hand in his dish, and he wouldn’t do a thing. But if another dog tries to eat his food, he gets very surly. It’s the same thing with toys.

  We all lived another year together before we graduated. Then I moved to Washington, D. C. , because I knew I wanted to work in the environmental field. I landed my dream job at the National Wildlife Foundation. I couldn’t be more happy. NWF has had this national backyard habitat program since before I was born.

  My roommate Caroline moved to D. C. at the same time, and we decided to take a place together. Our choice of where to live is another marker of the way dogs change your life and guide your decisions. We decided not to move into D. C. because we couldn’t have room for the dogs. Instead we chose Arlington, an inner suburb with a lot of dog parks. It’s a very dog-friendly bastion of liberalness in conservative Virginia. People are really into their dogs. It’s one of the things I love about living here.

  Around that time Niko was getting older, and feeling mature. He didn’t want to be pushed around by Buddha any more. They got into a big fight, and he basically knocked her down from her pedestal. He wanted to let her know it was not an alpha -subordinate relationship any more. It was more a peer relationship.

  Around that same time, Niko started another fascinating behavior, which I first noticed at the dog parks. He became very particular about dogs that he likes and doesn’t like. And I think this is clearly a result of being beat up on by Clyde the Boxer as a puppy.

  Basically, he has this crazy aggression toward Boxers. We went through a phase where he would just attack them on sight. I had to talk him down when we even saw a Boxer in the next block. People don’t believe me until they see it. They ask how he can know what kind of dog it is. But he knows. His hackles go up. It even spread out to encompass all dogs with pushed-in faces that look even a little bit like a Boxer: Bulldogs, Rottweilers, pit bulls—Niko goes after them.

  He’ll be ten next month, and his aggression has calmed down in the last few years. I know him well enough to control him so that he doesn’t get into a fight. Niko is very jealously protective of me. He doesn’t like it when other dogs come up to me. He’s usually fine, but if it’s a dog who’s on his list, definitely not. He’ll warn them off. Then he hovers around me to make sure no other dog can get close to me. It’s endearing in a way. While it’s a pain in the butt, it’s also a sign of how strong the bond is between us.

  A few years ago Caroline and I ended up falling out. It was sad because we had lived together seven years, and we would joke and say, “One more year, and we’ve got a common-law marriage!”

  I looked into buying a place, and I saw that the real-estate prices in D. C. are insane. I ended up lucking out because my parents owned an investment place in New Jersey, where I’m from, that they were selling. They needed to find a new place to buy so they wouldn’t get hit with capital-gains tax. I convinced my parents to buy down here, and eventually I found a great house with lots of room for dogs.

  Niko never had lived without another dog around. He got a little bit of anxiety and began acting out. He started getting into the trash, which he had never done before. He got through the fence, went roaming the neighborhood, and got picked up by the county animal control. I had to get him out of jail a couple times.

  That’s when I thought, I think I need to get another dog. It’s another thing I believe in: “pets in pairs.”There’s a social dynamic that happens when you are with your own species. Dogs, like wolves, are social animals. No matter how strong the bond is that you have with your dog, there are ways of communicating and experiencing the world inside the species that can never be replicated with a human. I think having a friend adds a lot of quality to your dog’s life. It gives your dog the opportunity to have social interactions with another dog. That was the problem Niko was having.

  One day a coworker sent out an e-mail saying that her sister had a dog that she was trying to find a new home for. When I heard it was a black Lab, I thought, This is perfect. Niko loves Labs. He loves to wrestle with them, especially chocolate or black ones. If he sees a Lab, his tail wags, he immediately goes up to it, does his play-bow and invites it to wrestle, where they both stand on their hind legs and push each other around.

  This Lab’s name was Remington. He was about to turn seven. Niko and I drove out to the Shenandoah Valley, about an hour outside of D. C. , and we met Remy. He’s your typical Lab—full of energy, adorable, but not too bright. He just Labs around. They seemed to get along well, so I asked, “Can I take Remington out and see how they do?”

  Niko is a great trail dog. He can be off leash. He keeps his pace so he’s just so far ahead. Then he waits for you to catch up. He doesn’t take off and run away. We took Remy out for a hike, and we ended up adopting him.

  Remy has a typical Lab tail, which can dent your shin. He uses it like a weapon. I can’t have tchotchkes around the house or put a glass of wine on a coffee table. When Remington comes through, everything goes flying at the end of that tail.

  Shortly after I got him home, I realized that Remy is completely obsessed with playing fetch. I got tennis balls and threw them for him constantly. I ended up getting tennis elbow, repetitive motion pain. It was awful. But I didn’t want to stop throwing the ball for Remy because he loved fetching so much.

  Then one of my friends bought me a Chuckit!, this plastic gizmo that you use to pick up and throw a tennis ball. It’s the best invention in the world. Number one, you don’t get the repetitive motion pain; number two, you can throw the ball twice as far and exhaust the dog. A dog like Remington will sprint and play fetch until he collapses. And the best part about it is you never have to touch the slimy, dirty tennis ball.

  Unfortunately, Remy’s ob
session with fetching means that he wants nothing to do with other dogs: They can’t throw balls. So my plan to get a playmate for Niko kind of backfired. But it ended up solving my problem because they had their doggy communication and interaction. Niko stopped getting in the trash and running away. Even though they don’t play with each other, they’re buddies. They’ve lived together about four and half years now.

  It’s interesting to see how the relationship between Niko and Remington has developed. Remington is full of bluster. He’s got one of those really deep barks. His initial reaction to Niko for the first couple weeks was to bark in his face. Niko said, “Uh-uh. I’m alpha.”

  They had a couple of spats, but you have to let them work things out on their own dog level. If you don’t, you’re going against nature. They have to establish the hierarchies. Eventually they established that Niko was alpha. And after that everything was fine.

  Remington knows not to go near Niko when he’s eating. If I’m giving out rawhides, Remington knows that Niko has to have his first. If we do that, they’re fine.