Will's Red Coat

by Tom Ryan

  Most of Will’s past was a mystery, but whenever Marijane and I discussed his challenges after that, we’d remind each other that he’d been run over by a Mack truck full of crazy. My job was to let him know that it would never hurt him again.

  “You have it right,” Marijane wrote to me. “Dogs and coyotes and owls and bears and people are all the same inside. We have the same emotions. We fear and love and get angry and are happy. We all have compassion and empathy. People like to say that dogs live in the moment. I think some do—like some people do—but look at Will, he’s not living in the moment. He’s tormented by his past. I admire that you treat Atticus like you do. It’s worked. I have to believe it will eventually work with Will, too. Just remember that you can only do your best.”

  Whenever Will attacked me in the coming months, I’d lead with my heart instead of my ego. I tried not to take it personally, but it was hard to take a Zen approach whenever he tried to bite me in the face. I decided it was best not to expect anything; instead I concentrated on giving, and nothing else.

  Will’s appetite grew, which thrilled me because as May ended and the first week of June bloomed, he still shivered as he stood outside each morning. If by chance he lasted throughout the summer, Will was going to need some natural insulation.

  To help him put on weight, I added oil to his meals, gave him vitamins and supplements for his hips, and put his food and water in elevated bowls, which put less stress on his neck and legs and made swallowing easier. I gave Will three meals a day, which wasn’t lost on Atticus, who ate two, and when I started to see Will’s belly start to plump, I took it as a victory.

  Is it strange to say I enjoyed watching him eat? He would look at me as I put the food down and then tuck in, as if it was all that mattered to him. Perhaps he was learning to live in the moment after all. When he’d finish eating, he’d take endless draughts of water. It would go on and on . . . and on. It was almost comical how much he drank. But Will always seemed sort of dried out to me, and I wanted him to hydrate.

  Under his white hair, his skin was dry, and as often as he drank, he reminded me of someone who had been stuck in the desert without any water. He was a sponge, and I refilled the bowl three times as often as I used to when it was just Atticus and me.

  Of course, the more water he drank, the more he urinated, and no matter how often I got him outside, there would rarely be a day when he didn’t go in the house. But he needed water, and water he got.

  A few friends suggested diapers for dogs, but his skin was sensitive and prone to breaking down. I noticed how during that first summer his skin started to flake and then scabbed and became crusty. So I started him on medicated shampoo. I worried that diapers would cause more skin problems. Another friend suggested the same puppy pads I’d put down for Atticus ten years earlier, but it’s not as if Will gave much thought to where he’d piss. He’d go as if he suddenly remembered, “Oh yeah, I have to go. This seems like a fine spot.”

  There were many snacks, but these sometimes highlighted what a strange past Will had before his life in Jackson. When I gave Atticus an eight-inch-long chew stick, he leaped up onto his side of the couch, grabbed it between his front paws, and began to gnaw on it methodically. Will didn’t have a clue what to do with his. I reached out and he took it in his mouth, but then he proceeded to walk around the living room with it clenched between his teeth, jutting out of the side of his mouth as if he were W. C. Fields chewing on a cigar.

  I sat on the floor, he walked up to me, I mussed his hair, and I said, “Here, Will, let me help you with that.”

  When I reached out to hold it on one end so he could chew the other, he struck with those quick teeth and bit the back of my hand. Once again, he drew blood.

  He may not have known what to do with that chew stick, and he’d never learn no matter how many times I offered him one, but he always seemed to know exactly what to do with my hand.

  While Will was struggling to find his new place in life, it was frustrating for Atticus and painful and exhausting for me. But I started to laugh about such things. Even when he bit me that day I caught myself saying, “You son of a . . . !” and then a great boom of laughter rose from my belly. Will led me to learn that the basest swears can be charming when accompanied by loud laughter.

  I was beginning to understand that Will was just being Will. Isn’t that what I wanted for him?

  He was learning about a new life in a new home, and I was learning patience and compassion just when they were most difficult to grasp. With Will in mind, I taped my favorite Thomas Merton quote on the refrigerator: “The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.”

  I’d pause to read it whenever I opened the refrigerator door. It became scripture for me, and an affirmation to allow Will to be Will, no matter what form that took.

  While negotiating the challenges of a life with Will, and nursing him through the days when I feared losing him, I had to admit I was already falling in love with the old fellow, even if he could be a son of a bitch at times.

  I bought three cheap area rugs and placed one on the wood floor in the living room. The others I put away for when the first one needed to go to the dump. I would much rather have gone without the rug, because wood was easier to clean, but Will needed the traction to help him stand.

  I also purchased an electric steam mop for the wooden floors and the linoleum in the bathroom. For the area rug and the bedroom rug I bought a Bissell SpotBot. I placed it over wherever he urinated or defecated on the carpet, turned it on, and left it there. The machine rinsed the carpet, sprayed it with shampoo, scrubbed with a circular brush, rinsed it again, and then suctioned it all up. I’d leave it alone and come back ten minutes later when it had run through the cycle and shut off.

  In an attempt to give Will his own space, I bought him a larger crate than the one I had for him when he first arrived. I packed it with soft bedding. But he so hated it that he screeched whenever I tried to put him in it. Even though I didn’t shut the door, he’d start to shake and cry out. So both the small crate and the large one were sent off to the Conway Area Humane Society thrift store.

  No matter what I did, there were many missing pieces to the puzzle of Will. Yet he improved here and there, and these little triumphs gave me glimpses of hope.

  The harness I put on him during his first days allowed me to move him more easily and pick him up more safely; if I held him by the harness, he couldn’t reach me with his teeth. And as time went on, Will wanted to be close to me when we were out in public. At the vet’s, in a store, at the post office, Will seemed to look to me for comfort and protection. In a strange environment, I was part of his pack.

  Whenever anyone has asked me what Atticus thought about when he sat high atop a mountain and gazed out at the horizon, as still as stone apart from his head and eyes, I’d say, “You’ll have to ask him.”

  I never knew what he was thinking up there. Frankly, it’s none of my business. I knew that I was always soaking in the majesty of the views, and maybe he was as well. But I’d always made it a point not to put words in his mouth or thoughts into his head. To pretend I knew them at such times would be a disservice to my friend. Allowing him the power of his choices didn’t cost me anything.

  I could tell you when he was hungry or thirsty or wanted me to lie down with him, or go outside, or go for a walk. He let me know when he didn’t want to hike, because of weather or something else I couldn’t figure out, and I’d always listened to him when this happened, and we turned back.

  Early one summer day I drove to one of our favorite places to walk in the woods, under Whitehorse Ledge in North Conway. Rather than heading up the trail as usual, Atticus hopped out of the car and sat down. He was letting me know he wasn’t budging. I opened the car door and he jumped right back inside. I drove around the corner to Echo Lake. He did the same thing. I took us across town to Pudding Pond. He didn’t eve
n bother getting out of the car. Finally, when we arrived at Thorne Pond ten miles away, he was happy to walk.

  His ability to say no has always pleased me, especially when we hiked together in the winter. I often heard from critics who were against him being on the mountains from December through March. They’d say something like “Dogs don’t know any better. He just wants to make you happy, so he’ll go wherever you lead him, even if it is dangerous.”

  “You don’t know Atticus,” I was always happy to say.

  And lest anyone think I’m making him out to be some perfect higher being, I’m well aware of Atti’s shortcomings. Toss him a treat and it would hit him in the forehead. Toss him a ball and he would duck. He’d plow through a foot of snow, but ask him to cross freshly mowed summer grass that’s coated with morning dew and he would act as if he were walking through shards of glass. And while he climbed more mountains than most could ever imagine, and did it with such ease you’d think he was part mountain goat, he would become paralyzed when asked to walk up a set of stairs with open spaces between each step.

  Atticus wasn’t perfect, but like all of us, he was perfect at being himself.

  As much as I knew about him, I couldn’t tell you what he was thinking most of the time. Ask me how he felt, though, and I had a better chance of figuring that out. I knew when he was happy or not, or frightened or nervous or frustrated. But the same is true for people, isn’t it? I usually can’t tell you what my friends are thinking, but I can tell you how they’re feeling. We wear our emotions, while our thoughts are our own.

  Will was even more of a challenge than Atticus in this way, because we were just getting to know each other and I wouldn’t dare try to guess his thoughts the majority of the time. Yet I could definitely tell you when he was angry. Happiness was trickier, though. Maybe it was the pain or the lack of trust or maybe he was depressed, but very seldom did I look at him and think about how content he was.

  I’d regularly think of Paige Foster and how she’d say about Atti and me, “Y’all will work it out.” I wondered if it would ever ring true for Will and me. Would he and I ever work it out?

  There was much I didn’t know and moments when I’d get so frustrated that I’d step outside just to breathe. Calming down, I always reverted to the simple question I asked when I was raising Atticus: If I was in his place, what would I want? This simple question left me open to whatever possibilities Will wanted to show me.

  I appreciated Will’s need for lengthy naps because it gave Atticus and me a chance to sneak out together, for a walk or a short hike or a drive to the store. I didn’t want to sacrifice what Atticus and I had built because Will required so much of my attention. His naps gave us just enough freedom. We were no longer taking long hikes, because Will couldn’t be left alone that long, but I was fine with that. I believe Atticus was too, since his body wasn’t as nimble as it once was, and it took him longer to recover from a tough trek. Oftentimes I’d witness him with the slightest limp the day after hikes, and I noticed how he slept more deeply and later into the morning than in years past.

  Whenever we left Will at home, I’d leave music playing. On a Saturday morning that first summer, a portable speaker sat on top of the coffee table. Will was sleeping on the area rug.

  When Atticus and I returned an hour later, the soundtrack to the movie August Rush was playing, and Will wasn’t where I’d left him. He was curled in a tiny ball and his left ear was pressed flat against the leg of the coffee table.

  I had a thought. I reached over and turned off the music.

  Will pulled his ear away from the leg of the table.

  I turned it back on. He shifted his head and pressed it back against the leg. I turned it off, turned it on, again and again. Each time I turned it on Will pressed his ear to the table leg.

  On February 1, 1924, the New York Symphony Orchestra played Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (including, of course, the “Ode to Joy”) at Carnegie Hall. It was a live broadcast. In her home that night, Helen Keller was mesmerized by the sensations she discovered by putting her hands on the speaker of the radio; she could “feel, not only the vibrations, but also the impassioned rhythm, the throb and the urge of the music! The intertwined and intermingling vibrations enchanted me.”

  She added, “I also sensed, or thought I did, the tender sounds of nature that sing into my hand—swaying reeds and winds and the murmur of streams.”

  Helen Keller had a wondrous and courageous spirit, and I am awestruck at times in considering how she lived her life. Who was I to think Will would feel anything different or be anything less? So I moved forward with Will and my music experiments in the hope that he too would find “the tender sounds of nature” that would sing into his hand . . . along with the “swaying reeds and winds and the murmur of streams.” I know he felt nature when we were in the backyard; I’d seen him give his undivided attention to a breeze or the warm sun on his back. I even noted that the bright yellow umbrella tops of dandelions caught the attention of his weak eyes.

  Considering his physical condition, I would not be able to get Will to the top of a mountain. Yet I yearned to find ways to allow him to experience the full impact of nature. If the vibrations of music could help him feel the natural world, I would take it.

  I decided to be more selective about what I left playing for Will when Atticus and I went out in the future. In the past I’d let my computer shuffle the songs in my collection, but classical music made sense to me for Will, with its flow and inspiration, and so did instrumental movie soundtracks. I would soon be enlisting Danny Elfman, John Williams, James Newton Howard, and Randy Newman to look after Will when we left him behind. I hoped their music to reach where I hadn’t been able to. He might not have been able to hear it, but he could feel it. That’s what I wanted for Will. I wanted him to feel life again.

  Whenever I’d put him in his bed and cover him up, I’d have speakers nearby on the floor and choose melodies for him to drift off to, songs with words that lifted the soul. Lullabies, if you will. But I called them Willabies. There were love songs, by performers like James Taylor, Sarah Brightman, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, and Barbra Streisand. I started to record videos of Will “listening” to music and shared them on our Facebook page. The videos showed an old, unwanted soul, draped with warm towels or blankets and with a pillow tucked gently under his head, settling down to sleep to the vibrations of music. Nearly every video would end the same way, with Will snoring peacefully. Who would have thought so many people would be moved to tears by a sleeping dog they would never meet?

  What some folks might have found to be the inanest three minutes of boredom on the Internet turned out to be soothing to thousands of our fans, who took the simplest joy in watching the once unwanted and very broken Will give up his anger and surrender to a nurturing moment. The hundreds of comments left often spoke of how people longed for simple times and pleasures, when climbing into bed and pulling up the covers was the most wholesome thing in the world. They talked of being children again, of having bedtime stories read to them, of having someone look after them in the same manner. The most common refrain was “I pray that when I’m old like Will is, someone will do that for me.” Watching Will slide away into a carefree dreamworld was sweet therapy for those with busy lives.

  Music added to Will’s life. It smoothed out some of his anger and let him feel loved. Like Helen Keller before him, he had a new way to receive the gifts of the world. And I’d received my first breakthrough as I learned a way to bring Will contentment.

  As charming as people found the Willabies, and as happy as I was to have this new way to help Will experience life, no part of the process was simple. Because Will often shivered in bed as he slept, I’d started to cover him up, but he would startle and raise his hackles. I found that the trick was to first gently stroke my hand across his back, as softly as a feather. He’d open his eyes but would know what was coming. The next step was to take a heated towel or a small blanket or one of m
y fleece shirts and lay it over him, moving from his shoulders down to his hips. I learned that he’d jerk away if I started with his hips. Through trial and error I learned to do it in a manner that left him comfortably under his covers for hours.

  I can’t tell you what he was thinking, but ask me how he felt and I could give you many answers.

  Anthropomorphism—the attribution of human motivations to animals—has a bad rap these days, and if it’s taken too far I reject it as well. But it’s an important step in our empathy with other species. Imagining what another being is going through helps us bridge a gap. And it was never too much of a reach to consider how I’d feel if I were shivering like Will.

  For his daytime naps, I placed a dog biscuit on top of his blankets, not too far away from his nose. I wanted to believe that no matter what Will experienced in his past, there would now be a little magic waiting for him when he awakened.

  3

  The Bear Who Followed Us Home

  In a utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected.

  —CHARLES DICKENS

  A bear followed us home one day. I could say it was an ordinary day, like any other, but I would be lying, and that was even before the bear came along.

  If you lived here, you’d know what I am talking about. It was one of those fleeting White Mountain days found in mid to late spring where you could sit for twelve hours in nature and count a thousand shades of green, only to realize you’d missed at least a thousand more.

  The early sunlight slanted through the forests and across the mountaintops to electrify all those shades of green. None of it registers in your eyes because it is impossible to grasp. It seems made up, illogical, and incomprehensible. No, it is far better to leave it up to the heart to fathom these dazzling displays of hope and growth when the brown and gray of winter are finally and completely overtaken by spring, before summer comes along and the mountains turn a consensus green.