My gagging excited Edward; he jumped and huffed, staring at me devotedly. He seemed to think that either I wanted to play or that I was about to extract a bounty from my gullet for his morning repast. That thought made me gag a third time.
“George?” June said and sat up, her hand on my arm. “Are you ill?”
I shook my head, willing my stomach to cease its roiling. Before I could warn her off, June leaned across to plant a small kiss on my lips. She sat back abruptly, her hand covering her mouth. She tried to smile.
“Darling…your breath is…my goodness!” She attempted to laugh it off, but it was a strained affair. She reached for her dressing gown and slid out of the bed. “Your breath is as bad as Edward’s!”
She hurried from the room, nearly skipping in her desire to get away from me.
I looked down at Edward.
He was still panting, grinning up at me.
Then he winked…I’d swear to it.
After the dream, I knew what I had to do. I had to make Edward my good dog, too. But it was going to take a lot of work. He was good-natured but overbearing, sloppy, slobbery, and disruptive. How could I hope to tame the savage in him? Why…by appealing to his better nature, of course.
If he had one.
* * *
June looked at me as though I’d lost my mind, but next to her, Carol’s eyes glowed with dubious hope, like a child promised candy by one that is prone to tease. June lowered her fork to her plate and looked around the restaurant as if she’d find an answer to my odd behavior among the other patrons, or, perhaps, a camera–a candid one.
Bob said, “You’re going to kill him. Aren’t you?” His tone didn’t exactly imply opposition to the idea.
“Not at all, Bob,” I said and placed my napkin on my empty plate.
“George,” June said. “Do you really want to have Edward in your apartment?” She cocked her head as though even her own words were ridiculously foreign. “In your apartment?”
“Yes. As I said, as long as your mom and dad don’t mind, I’d like to take him on. June, look at it this way, he’s going to have to live with us after the wedding, anyway…why not get a jump on it?”
And so, it was arranged.
* * *
It took a lot of hard work; I won’t kid you on that front. Edward was prone to chewing pillows, furniture legs, door mouldings, windowsills, shoes (a natural favorite), cabinet door edges, and any can or bottle that he could filch from the kitchen trash.
He also ate trash.
My apartment took on a soft, used look with no straight lines to be found anywhere. I have to admit that that first month filled me with despair. There was absolutely no forward progress. Bob’s words at dinner that night I’d asked to take on Edward kept coming back to me with the ring of a good idea discarded too soon.
These are a handful of the things I had come home to in those first four weeks:
Edward asleep amongst the fluffy remains of two couch cushions.
Edward throwing up a pair of underwear.
Edward wearing the kitchen trash can cover like a Victorian collar.
Edward licking with futile determination at the honey that matted the fur of his chest (the honey bottle was buried halfway down in a floor plant that June had given me, the displaced dirt scattered in wide throws across my living room rug).
Edward pooping in the hallway outside my one, small bathroom.
But through all the correcting, yelling, coaxing, rewards, punishments, and despair, he kept his one redeeming character trait: he remained good-natured.
So I kept at him, and finally, in the middle of the fifth week, I came home to…nothing. Nothing chewed, thrown up, eaten, mauled, missing, or otherwise tampered with. Edward sat with a docile smile in the middle of the living room as I let myself into the apartment. His tail swished left to right and back again. He raised his paw as though waving.
My gratitude was so great that I dropped to my knees in front of that mismatched bulk of dog and threw my arms around him in our first (mutual and non-damaging) hug. He ran his tongue out and panted, his head thrown slightly back to accommodate me. I have to tell you, I was very close to tears that day.
With that small amount of progress under my belt, I decided on a rather ambitious plan: I would train Edward to walk with a basket of flowers hanging from his mouth so that he could act as June’s flower girl at our wedding. Part of it was a gift to June, certainly–I knew by then just how much she loved Edward–but I think an even larger part was that I wanted to show everyone just how good a good dog could be.
He ate every basket.
He ate every flower.
He vomited all those baskets and flowers back up. I was pitched again into despair. I stood over Edward as he panted, smiling over the mangled mass of wicker that had been our latest attempt at flower girling.
I knelt and took his great head in both my hands. “Edward,” I said, “listen to me: you love June, I love June. Let’s work together and do this for her. Remember the dream, Edward?” (Of course, how could he? It had been my dream…but sometimes it seemed as though there were an awareness in his eyes, a kinship of feeling that led me to believe we’d actually managed to come to a détente in that dream.) “We can do this, boy. I know we can. You just have to try a little bit harder.”
Looking back, I now realize that every pep talk was a pep talk I was giving to myself. I needed to try a little bit harder; I needed to remember why I was attempting to do what I was attempting to do.
It was all for the love of June.
The day finally came, and I was more nervous than even the youngest, greenest groom could ever have been. Cold feet? I had cold everything! And I was feeling regretful about my Edward plan. We’d not exactly perfected it.
I stood at the altar, nearly vibrating with anxiety. I’d enlisted June’s cousin Agatha to assist me in the surprise. She was supposed to put the basket filled with rose petals in Edward’s mouth so that Edward could come down the aisle after June. It’s not the normal order of events, but I wanted June to see Edward; it was a gift to her, not the attendees. But would Agatha be able to get Edward to behave? Would she be able to get him to the end of the aisle so that Edward could see me and I could give him his cue? Would Edward even do it, or would he simply drop the basket and rush, pell-mell, into the crowd to start mauling the guests? What if my grand gesture ruined our wedding?
It was too late to back out now.
My best man, Fred, leaned close. “Buck up, old man,” he said and elbowed me. There was genuine concern in his eyes. “You look as though you’re close to running!”
A rustle of amusement went down the line of my groomsmen, but I barely noticed. The bridesmaids had begun their walk. The crowd murmured and cooed, and the girls formed a fragrant rustling line, each one beaming at me. Then their expressions faltered, became uncertain; I must have looked terrible! Sweat trickled into my eyes and rolled with itchy fingers down my back. I controlled my urge to fidget. I took large gulps of air.
Then the wedding march started up.
Wide, wooden doors at the back opened with stately slowness, revealing my bride holding delicately to the arm of her father. She was beautiful. Her smile was confident and steady, but an extra shine in her eyes revealed the level of her feelings. The crowd murmured again, but this time it was in tones of awe…June was just that beautiful. She and her father began to walk.
I kept my eyes on June but caught a glimpse of shadows struggling in the vestibule beyond the wide doors. People in the back rows turned to stare at the rustling and thumping coming from the dark back there.
My stomach and head burned.
Then June was at my side, her father settling himself next to her mother. June gazed at me with calm regard. The minister cleared his throat.
Now was the time.
I looked to the wide doors, my heart in my throat, expecting the worst.
Edward stood dead center, resplendent in his bow tie, head held
high, a wide, flat basket of pink, red, and white rose petals hanging from his great jaws.
The crowd followed my gaze, and a rustle of whispers and laughter sprang up like wind on a formerly still day. June grasped my arm in alarm, and I felt her eyes on me. I could feel her surprise and yes, even her apprehension. But Edward paid no attention to the guests; he didn’t even flinch. His eyes were on me as he waited.
I raised my hand and gave him the signal.
He began his walk, stately and slow paced, just as we’d rehearsed. At ten feet, I gave him another signal. He put the basket down…and nudged rose petals from it with his nose, throwing them in a small spray. The crowd gasped and laughed in delight. June’s hand on my arm tightened for one second and then loosened altogether as she put her hand to her chest and gave a small sigh of ‘oh’. I glanced at her then to see tears sparkling on her cheeks like natural diamonds.
I signaled Edward again, and he picked up the basket and resumed his walk. He ignored the hands reaching to pet him, the guffaws and cries of amusement each time he dropped the basket to throw rose petals; he even ignored the many cries of “Edward! Edward!” from the children who nearly danced in their excitement at seeing a dog at a wedding.
Edward walked to June and laid the basket at her feet. He sat and grinned at her proudly, his tongue lolling almost to the dapper bow tie nearly hidden by his ruff. He even smelled pretty good, doused as he was in my cologne.
June’s hand was across her mouth, and she stared at Edward with wide, wonder-filled eyes. “Oh, Edward,” she said and knelt to hug her beastly best friend. “You’re such a good dog.” Edward wagged his tail in seeming agreement, and the crowd awwwed in almost harmonic unison.
Then June rose and threw herself into my arms.
The rest of the ceremony went pretty well from there with Edward sitting docilely next to Agatha and me not forgetting my lines nor stumbling over my words. The ring was produced, and to a round of applause, June and I officially became one. Edward did bark, then, but it was in the spirit of the event, really.
Of course, it’s not a fairy-tale ending. Through the reception, Edward mauled a bridesmaid’s shoes, a centerpiece, one of the unruly children, and June’s father, Bob. I hadn’t thought about Edward being at the reception, so hadn’t made arrangements for him. But everyone took it in stride until Edward relieved himself on the dance floor.
That seemed to signal an end to the night.
And so, after the honeymoon, June and Edward and I began to cohabitate in a very amenable and comradely fashion. Edward still had his bouts of destructive rambunctiousness, and we had to pay off neighbors whose flowerbeds or garden statuary had taken his fancy. But all in all, he became a very mature, respected member of the household. And when our daughter Abigail was born two years later, he became her devoted slave. I’d watch Abby climb all over the patchy hulk that was now her dog and remember back to when I’d doubted that Edward could ever be trusted around children. Then our son Gabe was born when Abby was two, and Edward’s love expanded to include our little boy, too. The same held true when Theresa came along and then, after her, Thomas.
It seemed there was no end to the love in that big dog’s even bigger heart.
By then, Edward was eleven and threads of gray appeared like crinkled wire in his otherwise still-dark fur. I began to refer to him as ‘old man’ in a less trendy way, and I’d smile as June pointed out the dignified look it gave him, but secretly, I began to worry.
What would I do without my good dog?
* * *
Edward began to die on a winter day, while in the act of mauling the children’s freshly made snowman. He’d just pulled the scarf off their creation, causing its smiling head to fall off and land, upside down, in the snow next to its own round base. The children screamed with laughter at the sight.
But my eyes were on Edward. He’d dropped the scarf and lay down in the snow, panting heavily and, to my eyes, oddly. I called for June to come get the children, and I hefted Edward into my Ford and drove him straight away to the veterinarian at the edge of town.
They trundled my good dog into a back room and told me to wait and not to worry. I stared out the window at the snow-covered field and slight hill beyond it, holding Edward’s thin leash, and told myself he’d be fine. But he was sixteen years old. In fact, he’d already lived long past the expectations of a dog his size.
The vet finally came out and told me that Edward had passed, probably a heart attack. He said that Edward had lived a good, long life and hadn’t had any pain at the end. That we’d obviously taken very good care of him. Did I want to see him?
But I kept my eyes on the window, because I was already seeing him, you know. I watched as Edward romped through the snow of that field, digging his nose in and throwing snow around himself in a bright spray. I watched as he spotted something over the rise…maybe a worn shoe or maybe a basket of flowers…he turned then, and gazed at me, panting. I nodded for him to go on, go and find what was over the hill. He watched me for a minute more, his tail low but still wagging gently. Then he was gone.
Over time, we had other dogs, of course. Children need dogs; I know that, now. And I loved all those dogs, but Edward, my first dog, remained in my heart in the special placed he carved there with his good-natured and undauntable spirit.
I know that someday it will be my turn to climb that hill, and I know that on the other side, Edward will be waiting. He’ll either have my shoe or a basket of flowers; either way, he’ll have my heart.
And my gratitude for showing me just how good a good dog can be.
~•~
That was, as they say, a good one.
George’s story was funny to me when he first told it on my show, but it was also the kind of story that just got funnier the older I got.
The truth is, you will meet difficult animals in your life, especially if, like me, you are prone to owning too many pets.
Sometimes the difficulties are medical in nature, like the poor beagle we had found wandering by herself in the parking lot of the Publix grocery who kept flopping over, running like she was chasing rabbits in her sleep…problem was, she was never asleep when it happened. Turned out that pretty pup, who we named Sandy, had epilepsy. She was on pills and then, later, shots, for her whole life. But that wasn’t as time-consuming as Chester, one of our big toms. He had diabetes. Angie had to give that old boy a shot every morning and every night. But he rewarded her care and concern by flopping over her shoulder like a twenty-five-pound scarf and drooling down the back of her blouse.
Sometimes the problems are more mental in nature. One of my co-workers at the car dealership (that’s another story) found out that I got on well with animals and brought me his dying mother’s fifteen-year-old Chihuahua, Princess. The lady in question was in a comber at the time, and Reggie (my co-worker) couldn’t take care of the little thing–in fact, Princess was driving him crazy. He’d been set on taking her to the pound when I volunteered to take her on. I don’t know why I always did that when I heard of a pet in distress. Just couldn’t stomach the idea of a poor little mite wasting away at the shelter, I reckon.
Princess had, as my grandkids would say today…‘issues.’ And for such a small dog, she had them by the truckload. Here are the things Princess hated: birds, pillows, mirrors, water, any temperature below eighty, rain, too much sunlight, not enough sunlight, any temperature higher than ninety, me and Angie, and any animal bigger than herself (which was, essentially, all of them with the exception of our gerbil, Bailey).
But, here are the things Princess loved: Emily, Davey, Robbie, and Rachel. That little dog loved my children to distraction. When Princess showed up, Emily was twelve, Davey ten, Robbie nine, and Rachel four (Angie and I had never been on any sort of schedule, you know…we just let them babies come whenever they wanted to). There was nothing my children could do that Princess didn’t find fascinating. She would sit and watch Rachel color (perched in the basket on the table that Rac
hel had lifted her into), her big brown eyes staring with adoration at everything my little girl held up to show to her. For a while, everything she drew was a picture of Princess: Princess in gowns and Princess in overalls. Princess holding teacups, scepters, swords, toads, and umbrellas. Princess dancing, skating, tumbling, climbing trees…of course, Rachel had to more or less explain each tangled blob of color…she hadn’t inherited any of my drawing talent.
Princess sat and whined softly with Emily as my first little girl cried over some cruel prank her friends had pulled on her at school. Princess huddled so close that Emily’s tears darkened a patch of fur on Princess’ back. It was Angie pointed out to me that it was in the shape of a heart. That gave us both the chills!
Davey and Robbie took to using Princess as a monster in the many ‘destruction of the city’ scenarios they’d grown so fond of from the movies they’d sneak into the living room to watch, long after Angie and I had fallen asleep. Using bits of bacon begged from their ma, they would coax the little dog to leap and kick through the cardboard facades while they whisper-screamed and wailed ‘Noooooo! Not my baaaabeeeeee!’–it was downright disturbing, but those two fell all over each other laughing. It was those times I was visited by an old grief that my own little brother hadn’t lived past three. Could I tell my two boys how lucky they were? I coulda, I guess, but you don’t actually hear anything that sentimental when you’re that age, do you? I contented myself with the fact that I knew and that I appreciated it for them. It’s about plain old gratitude, sometimes, isn’t it?
But, anyway, back to the difficult Princess. She was an old lady when she came to our house, you know, and I knew in my heart that she wouldn’t be around for very long. Within two years, she developed a cancer that whittled her already tiny body right down to the bone, and we had to take her on that worst kind of vet trip–the appointments they schedule at night. Emily was fourteen by then, a tall and thoughtful girl, and she wanted to come with me on Princess’ last trip. Angie and I talked it over through one whole night, deciding and then undeciding, coming to a consensus, and then one of us would back away from the deal. In the end, I decided to speak to Emily directly…tell her what she’d see, let her decide if she thought she could handle it.
More Good Dogs: More Stories About Good Dogs and the People Who Love Them Page 11
