A Cup of Comfort for Dog Lovers

by Colleen Sell

  “I'm going to have to see this to believe it,” he sighed.

  “I am seriously worried about you,” my brother said the next day on the phone. “Doggie square dancing?”

  I again explained, as I had to my husband, how it was really obedience moves set to music, that we were a demonstration team, and that Duchess needed something to do until her back healed. He didn't seem convinced.

  Ten of us were on the team, but only eight would perform at the home show, so Duchess and I practiced every day to make sure we made the cut. We did, and for three days, she heeled, sat, stayed, and danced her way into the hearts of the audience. As we strolled through the home show on the last day, my husband insisted on holding her leash as people stopped to pet her and ask questions.

  That evening, as the three of us collapsed on the couch, the phone rang. “Would you like to meet for a drink?” some friends asked.

  “No thanks,” we told them. “We're dog-tired.”

  So much for the dreaded humdrums of an empty nest. Something told me we were going to be just fine — my husband, my dancing partner, and I.

  ˜Susan Luzader

  Dogs Who Do Things

  My father was a sportswriter. While his profession had many influences on our family, perhaps its biggest impact has been on the dozen or so dogs who have come and gone in my life. This is most evident in their names.

  My first dog was Saratoga Roach, a determined little beagle named for the summer racetrack in upstate New York. Later there was Cleveland, a hapless chocolate Lab named after the Browns. For years I have looked for a dog to name Pete, for Pistol Pete Maravich, the late basketball-scoring champ. My dog Pete would have to be medium-sized, with a shingle of hair that bounced over his eyes and the gift to leap, catch, and retrieve until the day he died.

  But being a dog in a sportswriter's family attracts more subtle influences than a name. Perhaps even more than the human progeny of the writer, our dogs were measured by the sports they chose not to play. Two of my father's friends were Nelson Bryant, the legendary field-and-stream reporter, and Red Smith, who wrote near poetry under a sports byline. Over the years, Mr. Bryant complained bitterly to both Mr. Smith and Mr. Roach about their dogs. While his dogs could hunt, ours, it seemed, didn't “do” anything.

  By Mr. Bryant's standards, I can say with great certainty that I have never lived with a dog who could do anything. That is not to say I've never known any dogs who could do things to fascinate, delight, or educate the people who live with them. Friends of mine in Cambridge had a dog who regularly rode the Boston MBTA alone with great élan. And I once knew a dog named Homely who retrieved quarters thrown over a barn and into the woods.

  Cleveland, my Labrador, could retrieve. While it's true that he never brought me a bird I wanted to eat, he did keep me flush with golf balls, stealing jaws-full off the back nine we lived on in New York's Adirondack Mountains. The minute a ball whomped against the house, he'd slam through the screen door with a gusto that would have made Pavlov proud. More than once I rescued him from a threatening nine iron waved above the head of a golfer. Clevie would romp like a demented caddie after a birdie, his great mouth stuffed with the balls off several greens. In his prime, he could hold four, though I don't pretend to think that's what's meant by the term “sporting breed.”

  In the period between Cleveland and my next canine, I met a man who had never lived with a dog. Neither had his father nor his father before him. So I married the man and set about to change all that.

  Softening his resolve began by auditioning names for the incipient dog. After a few weeks, the options narrowed to bird breeds, the logic being that for a honeymoon period, anyway, my new spouse deserved to believe that his dog might actually do something. Much as expectant parents mouth children's names, I would call them out to no one in particular. Then one summer afternoon I looked up from my gardening to see a filthy, yellow and white, plume-tailed, young dog trot into our yard. She was wearing a red ribbon around her neck.

  “Mallard!” I yelled, dropping my trowel.

  “Oh, no,” my husband replied into the topsoil.

  She loped right up to me and licked my face. Mallard was with us for two unsteady years, during which time she would occasionally walk out of the yard just as unabashedly as she had walked in, staying away for weeks. She always returned with a red ribbon tied neatly around her neck, and was never with us on holidays. So we figured we shared her with someone and were grateful for the time she chose to spend with us. After all, her affection for us was lavish. She sat primly in the canoe for paddles of any duration and never ran away from anywhere but home.

  One day she left and didn't return. We never knew why. But my husband has a penchant for telling anyone who will listen that if I hadn't renamed her for a migrating bird, she would not have taken to behaving like one. For a while, he would have also told you that the only thing dogs do is break your heart.

  We waited, dogless, for a year, before we got a call from a friend in Mexico whose aunt had just died, leaving behind her three-year-old Weimaraner.

  If the family paid the transit, our friend wanted to know, would we accept the dog into our home? Of course.

  Her name was Coqueta, Coca for short. European-bred, this dog was the biggest Weimaraner I had ever seen. She weighed in at eighty pounds and stood tall enough to fall asleep with her head on the dining room table. And, amazingly, she did things. Unfortunately, she understood commands only in Spanish. This proved humiliating during obedience school, when all around were mutts of eager discipline while we awaited the response of a fancy dog laid flat on the floor as we pleaded urgently for her to sit up.

  Coca had been raised in a walled garden, the precious companion of a well-to-do eccentric woman. Initially, that limited the things she wanted to do in any language. She'd sit near the fireplace, her paws crossed below her breast, and look at us in a purebred Katharine Hepburn demeanor, as if waiting for the conversation to become engaging enough for her to participate. My husband's theory was that no one had ever asked her to do anything. He may have been right, because during our nine years together, she did learn to run all day beside a cross-country skier, climb the high peaks of the Adirondacks, and selflessly listen to the world of problems that this woman regularly emptied into her vast heart.

  When we became parents, Coca, like many nannies before her, rose to the new occasion and ballooned to nearly 100 pounds, sitting pretty under the high chair's continuous stream of flotsam and jetsam. Outside, she guarded the playpen with her great head over demurely folded paws, snapping her jaws at flies that threatened to attack the sweet-smelling child napping in the shade.

  All too soon it seemed that everyone in our household was either male or young, except me and Coca. We started going for slower walks, bonded in a war against aging, or at least it seemed so to me. Then we went less frequently, and then I merely looked in on her when I went walking alone. Then I carried her outside — the dwindling seventy pounds of her sustaining dignity. Then, toward the end, I just let her be and cleaned up after her. Eventually, despite my best efforts, it was too much for her, so I took her to the vet, the last appointment of the day, and cradled her against my heart as she died.

  I loved that dog more than I love most of my friends, and I am not ashamed to say that I also found her more intelligent than some. It seems to me that while I rarely meet a dog I do not like, I frequently come across people I cannot bear.

  But I am an easy mark. The real test was my husband, whose loss I thought I'd have to look hard to see. Then I remembered that Coca did a little dance every night when he walked through the door, and that once or twice I had caught him doing it right along with her. He had bought her the orange T-shirt in hunting season, so no one would mistake her for a deer. And there is that snapshot of them napping together, her paw resting on his shoulder. I realized that what Coca did best was reach my husband in ways that Mallard never could, teaching him that dogs are good to the end and that, even
after death, they can remain steadfast parts of what we are proud to call home. Coca did what all dogs can do, if we don't mess with them too much: She converted him to a person who can love almost any dog.

  That is a good thing, since we now live with a dog with dark problems only love can reach.

  Our German shorthaired pointer came to us with his name, which is Chase. It's a fitting name, I guess, since it is in his nature is to do such things. But then nurture intervened. A rescue dog, Chase arrived at our house at a year-and-a-half, miserably thin, and recovering from a broken pelvis and a fractured leg come by unnaturally from the cruel hands of his former owners. How this dog could like anyone, I will never know. The first night he fell asleep bolt upright, with his head stuffed under the covers on my side of the bed. He would awaken as he fell over, only to right himself, shove his great nose back between the mattress and the sheets, and fall asleep again, breathing into the backs of my knees. It was weeks before I could coax him into his own bed.

  Chase spends virtually every moment next to me: on my feet when I type, between the legs of my chair when I eat, at the bus stop waiting for our daughter to come home from school so he can climb the ladder with us to her playhouse. It's really only tough in the shower. As soon as I go in and turn on the jet, the shower curtain will be tossed open by a long, brown nose. There will be Chase, all eighty-five muscled pounds of him, his head thrust full into the steam, his eyes squinting amid the spray and falling lather. When I take a bath, his massive neck and head hover over the tub as he vigilantly licks my knees clean of any offending bubbles.

  Somewhere in his great soul, I think, he's urgently trying to work off whatever vast unknown sin he might have committed that got him beaten so savagely and begging me to love him. But, of course, he doesn't have to do that: I was his the minute we met. After all, it's been a long time since I was the on this end of the mute adoration of a teenage boy. There is little in its slavish version of devotion that doesn't improve a woman.

  He does other things as well: He can whistle through his nose, catch flies while bouncing and pivoting on his hind legs, and dig trenches for my daffodil bulbs. And he listens keenly for the word “kennel” — or any word that sounds similar — which cues him to exit to that place where he feels most safe.

  But perhaps what Chase does best is share the burden he feels. At night, he goes up to the bedroom when I do, and as I read he sits nearby. Only when my husband finally comes up and is settled in bed will Chase amble down the stairs to his kennel — assured, it seems, that I am well protected and he can get some rest.

  Actually, I rarely call him Chase. Early on I gave him nicknames — from Honeyman to Chowder-head — that are not the sort of sports sobriquets that run in my family. This dog is just not the sporting type. All efforts to get him to work like his breed make him roll onto his back and beg off. What he does, though, is carry a penchant for love that not even a human being could beat out of him. And while sometimes I wonder if calling him Chase would get him to do more traditional things, I think he's doing enough.

  ˜Marion Roach

  Beauty in the Beast

  One of my grandmother's favorite expressions was “You can't judge a book by its cover.”I never fully understood its meaning until my husband and I started our search for a family dog.

  We had just purchased our first home, and for the first time we could have pets larger than a hamster. I was considering a cat, but my husband had grown up with dogs and wanted our children to experience the same joys of canine companionship that he had cherished during his childhood. But finding the right dog for our family ended up being anything but a joy. We spent countless hours looking at puppies and even brought a few home on a trial basis, but none of them seemed to be a good fit with our family. I gave up, declared our lifestyle unsuitable for a dog, and moved on.

  But my husband refused to abandon hope. He missed having a dog around and remained certain that our perfect dog was out there somewhere, just waiting for us. He called the Humane Society and left his name, asking them to call if they received any mature large dogs, especially German shepherds. His logic was that an older dog would have a well-established clear personality, and it would be easier to see whether the dog's personality fit with us. Two days later, the Humane Society called about someone who desperately needed to get rid of their shepherd.

  “Great,” I said. “When will they be bringing the dog to the shelter?”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “He's not going to drop the dog off here. You'll have to go to his house to see it.”

  I thought that was a little odd, but took down the man's number anyway and called him to set up a visit. The mystery was solved when we arrived at his house.

  When we pulled up his driveway, a red Sasquatch began throwing itself against the closed garage door. The dog was huge, at least ninety pounds, with long, bushy hair that stuck out in every direction. It was frothing at the mouth and barking loud enough to make my teeth hurt. The garage windows were smeared with angry foam.

  We stayed in the car while the garage door went up.

  “It's okay, she's on her leash,” her owner yelled. He waved for us to come into the garage as he called the dog back to his side. She came and obediently sat down beside him, watching us suspiciously as we got out of the car, dropping her ear-splitting barks to low huffs and growls.

  “This is Natasha,” the man said.

  “Hi, Natasha,” I said hesitantly.

  That set her off barking again, but she didn't move from the man's side.

  I took a good look at her: long gold and red fur, feathery plumes from the backs of her legs, sharp snout, golden eyes. The thick ruff of gold and red fur framing her face made her look lionesque. I decided she looked like a cross between a Kodiak bear and an African lion.

  While we talked to the man, the dog watched us suspiciously. I tried to approach her a few times, but each time she warned me back.

  Eventually the man said, “So what do you think?”

  “She's the most beautiful dog I've ever seen. But she seems pretty aggressive,” I said.

  He chuckled and stroked her head. “She's not really aggressive. She's just protective. Right now her job is to protect me, but if you take her home, her new job will be to protect you.”

  As if to prove it, Natasha let her tongue loll out of the side of her mouth and looked up at her owner adoringly.

  “I don't know how we'd even get her home,” I said. In truth, I was just making excuses; I had already given up on her. Obviously, she had aggression issues. The whole time we'd been there, neither my husband nor I had been able to get close to her. Her owner could give me reassurances until the cows came home, but it wouldn't change my mind. Maybe she was “just protective,” but what if she weren't? What if she was just plain old mean? Yet something in me wanted to bring her home. Maybe it was because I knew the owner's chances of finding a home for her were slim. Surely other people would have the same reaction I'd had. I was torn between wanting to save her from being put to sleep and wanting to save myself from the risk of a killer dog.

  The man patted her on the head. When he spoke, his voice was thick. “We love her to death, but we've got to move. We can't afford the house anymore, and our new apartment won't let us keep her.”

  He reached down and unclipped Natasha's leash. Then he hurried over to my van and threw open the door. “Time to go bye-bye, Natasha,” he said.

  She sprung up, trotted right past me — while I stood frozen, too frightened to even breathe — and hopped into our van. She went straight to the back and laid down across the back seat. I looked at my husband. His eyes were as wide as mine felt.

  I opened my mouth to protest, but before I could get a word out, the man slammed the van door shut and handed me a big bag of dog biscuits. “She loves these,” he said. Then he turned and walked back into his house, never once looking back.

  My husband and I stood in silent shock for a moment, and i
n his eyes I could see the same thing I was thinking: “What now?”

  I walked over to the van and peeked in. Natasha was lying across the back seat — the whole back seat — watching the garage for the man to reappear. My husband and I opened our doors slowly, ready to abandon the van if Natasha moved. She didn't. We cautiously slid in, leaving our legs still hanging out, ready to run. Natasha didn't make a sound. When my husband started the van, she sat up and looked out the window.

  “Do you think I should go get him and make him get his dog?” he asked me. I could see he was torn too.

  I looked back at Natasha, sitting across the back seat. “Well, let's drive around for a few minutes and see what she does. If she starts to freak out, we'll bring her back.”

  As we drove around town, Natasha just sat in the back peacefully, staring out the window, her tongue lolling.

  “Well,” my husband finally asked, on our fourth trip around the small town, “what do we do now?”

  “Let's go home, I guess.”

  Halfway through the hour-long drive home, Natasha poked her head between the two front seats. My husband and I both stiffened. She turned to look at him, turned the other way to look at me, sighed, and went back to lie down in the backseat.

  We arrived home late, well after our children's bedtime, which I was thankful for. I didn't want them anywhere near the wildcard dog until I figured out what her true nature was. I let her out of the van, and she padded past me, into the house (without so much as a bark or growl), and right into the living room … where my children were all asleep on the floor! I panicked. But Natasha went and stood over them and licked them all awake, her huge tail whisking up a hurricane. The kids immediately threw their arms around her neck and buried her in bear hugs. Natasha just sat and grinned. Those golden eyes that had been full of anger and suspicion earlier now sparkled with joy.