Let's adopt a rezdog!

Nellie

Skadi

A few years ago the Internet introduced my wife to the plight of the abandoned pets at Dead Dog Beach on the island of Puerto Rico. As her awareness and concern for mistreated and misbegotten mongrels grew, she and my daughter both became occasional volunteers at a local no-kill shelter.  It was a short distance between this formative experience, helping in the recovery, care, and re-homing of unwanted animals, and the adoption of our own first rescue-pet, an adorable-but-feral little black puppy. She had been found a few weeks prior by some travelers, wandering alone and mortally ailing on the roadside not far from the town of Kayenta, Arizona.  Her bowels distended and  infested with worms and infection, the travelers took her straight to an animal hospital here in Flagstaff where she received emergency surgery to repair her destroyed prolapsed rectum, and intravenous antibiotics for several days.  Her care was made possible by High Country Puppy Rescue, from whom we acquired her.  We call her Nellie.

Our younger dog and her sole surviving sibling were clever enough to be able to evade capture by the good people at the Tuba City Humane Society for several days after they were first reported as strays to them.  Just another set of feral black puppies scavenging, motherless, in trashcans near the center of town, but my wife and daughter immediately fell in love with them the day their pictures were first posted to the agency's website.  After a brief in-person get-to-know-you session, they brought the more gentle of the pups home.  As with our first rezdog, she's quickly socialized positively into our domestic life, though, because she's still not quite a year old yet, she continues to be inclined to be cautious and nervous when out in the world beyond our home. She is never far from Nellie’s side no matter where we are.  We call her Skadi.

Mid-summertime and the livin' is easy

Left my shoes under my desk on the last day of the school year, just found them there yesterday, and hadn't missed them for even a minute.

Thus far, with some three weeks to go, summer has been just what I needed it to be: the opposite of work, filled with good rides with good friends, time spent together as a family, visits each week from faraway friends and family passing through town, and ample quantities of cheap hot grilled food and cheaper cold Tecates consumed in good company, and a bit of new ink for good measure.

Red Tank Draw

We hiked into Red Tank Draw east of I-17 at exit 298 today.

We'd set out with the intent to hike a few miles up the Bell Trail beside Beaver Creek this morning, but it was slammed, both the main parking lot and the overflow lot up the hill from the trailhead were full.  So we backtracked about a half-mile and parked the car in a turn-out near the one-lane bridge that passes over Red Tank Draw, which looked quite inviting beneath an ample canopy of cottonwoods and sycamores and was flowing a bit with monsoon runoff.

Parson Springs

We drove down to Cottonwood early this morning and hiked part of the Parson Springs Trail in Sycamore Canyon.  Just the three of us.  And the dog.

Didn't see another soul.

'Twas lovely.

And then the dream was done

I had a dream the other night in which our old dog, Shadow, visited me.  We were lying in tall green grass on a sunny hillside in the mountains, the three of us, my wife, my daughter, and I, and Shadow nosed-up quietly from somewhere behind me, as she was prone to do, and gently stuck her snout in my hand, as she was similarly prone to do.  I saw her vibrant blue-black coat and the so-familiar gleam in her deep-brown eyes, and I knew, in my dream, that she was an apparition, the spirit of our dog, come in this dream to greet me.  I stroked her ears, still as soft as velvet, and the broad furry patch of her scalp between them, and she grunted quietly. Content, as always.

And then the dream was done.

When I awoke, I told my wife about my dream.  "I had almost the same dream," she said.  "About Shadow.  That she'd come to visit us.  She was happy."

I've never been one to put much stock in dreams, except to give credit to the joy that comes, at times, from good, lucid dreaming.   But this?  What is this?  It is a strange thing, indeed, and it has caused us to wonder.  And to be glad.  Glad that we have been visited by a happy, healthy vision of our good old dog, both of us, in our own dreams, but on the very same night.

Mountain Gazette #186

Browsing around teh internets this afternoon, as is often my habit after a long day at work, I wandered over to my favorite magazine, Mountain Gazette, to check on the status of their 5th annual Dog Photo Contest issue.

As I did a year ago, I entered another couple photos in this year's contest. Just because.  A: Because I love my dogs, and B: because I really dig Mountain Gazette.  Last year I got lucky and they included one of my entries in the issue, #176.  It was my first-ever published photo.

I didn't really get any word from them about my submission this year, nor did I expect to, other than a quick, emailed "thanks" from the editor.  But, when I didn't get a subsequent request for a high-res version of either image, I kinda figured my beginner's luck had expired, and that I'd been passed over for this year's issue.

So I was pretty darn stoked to come across my photo on their website this afternoon!  Especially since the accompanying article says they had nearly 500 submissions and my photo bears the rather shocking title BEST IN SHOW below it.  How cool is that?!  I don't know much more about any of this than that.  Haven't heard from anyone at Mountain Gazette about this at all.  But there it is one their website, it all it's glory, a fine, favorite picture of our good old dead dog Shadow!

Made my day.

If you look close, you might find Rubi, the dumb-puppy, in winter-camo-mode in the background, too.

Click to enlarge

Bygones, dumb puppy

Bygones, dumb puppy. Only dog now.

All has long since been forgiven.

The fault was never in you anyway.

We are glad!  You are our dog still.

Other people's dead dogs

Well, I think I'm officially done with my homework.  My first of four classes in pursuit of my state school principal certification will officially conclude next week.  But, for right now, it's all done but for the grading, and the turning-in of my final project, which I'll do sometime tomorrow.

So we've enjoyed a nice quiet evening together tonight, sitting around as a family after dinner, listening to folksie seasonal music on Pandora (a nice mix based on Rosie Thomas+holiday) and looking nostalgically at a few familiar pictures of our good old dog.

There's a higher-purpose to our reverie tonight, however.  You see, our favorite local bagel shop, Biffs, makers of the finest bagels in the northland, and one our regular weekend breakfast stops is, oddly enough, themed around a vast collection of individually framed pictures of hundreds of other people's dead dogs.  It sounds a little morbid, but it's not.  Dog-people will understand, I think.  It's really kinda touching.  Anyway, we dig it.  So we always imagined, once Shadow was gone, we would be just-so-pleased to hang one of her pictures on the wall at Biffs, where we could see it now and then, whenever we visit.

But it's taken us a little time to find one we all like enough to place into Biff's permanent collection.  We've got thousands of pictures of Shadow.  Literally thousands.  But we didn't look through all of them to find just the right one.  We did, however, scrutinize several dozen looking pretty carefully for just the right one among the 190 favorite-photos of our good old dog in a set of her pictures we've kept for years on flickr.com.

We think the one we picked captures Shadow as perfectly as any photo could.

Dog is patient. Dog is kind. Dog never fails. [UPDATED]

A good dog is a great blessing.


Reprinted below is a post I wrote about our dog, Shadow, in December 2010.


We said goodbye to her today.

---

A Few Borrowed Lines About Our Old Dog Shadow

[Originally posted December 2010. Updated June 2011 - See below]

There's this great poem, by a writer named Paul Mariani, which I memorized long, long ago, back in college, when I was competing on the Arizona State Forensics Squad.  At the time I used the poem, entitled Lines I Told Myself I Wouldn't Write, as a dramatic-interp piece, and I did pretty well with it.

It's about a guy who loves and then loses a good old dog.

"I promised myself I wouldn't go soft over one fleabag arthritic half gone in the head..."

I can only remember bits and pieces of it by heart now.

But lately, when I watch as my own old dog "limps down to the Sawmill" I think of that poem; it returns to me like scent memory, unexpectedly.  And it returns with increasing regularity. Even though Mariani's poem isn't about watching an old dog age a little more everyday, I nevertheless find myself grateful for his words, which so well-express what it means to love a dog you never really expected to love.

With that in mind, I wanted to write a few words about our dog, Shadow, in what I hope may be ever-so-slightly the style of Paul Mariani's poem. As an homage.  Both to him and his poem, and likewise, to our dog.

---

She came to us already named
like a Barbie
as a Shadow. An obvious, but fitting brand

for a blue-black dog with a cautious, shrinking demeanor
afraid of the wind
and unseen food-thieving curs

Two weeks
a fort-night
she was supposed to be with us.

Just while we're gone,
they said. Dogsit for us.
So we did. While they jetted off to London

Tally-ho.
In that time, like all good fortune
she found us

while we were not seeking her
by gently imploring us for wooden walks
paws crossed in front of her looking into us

for that spark
which she seemed to know she could kindle
curled on the foot of our bed without invitation

and to our surprise
knowing she was welcome there.
They returned. She stayed.

And years later we understood better
that to love a dog (despite the way she can stink-up a room)
or perhaps just this dog, was a harbinger,

a bell-weathered insight
of what we might likewise hold for a kid
and so we had one

taught well as we had been
by this Shadow
about how to cherish and find joy and to care

for something other
and bigger
than me and or us

I know I said
I wouldn't go weepy when it came, and I haven't.
At least not that much

Not yet.  But it's hard to watch her get old
and be troubled by the jump
into and out of the back of the car

To be growing bony and lumpy
grey around the muzzle
as she slowly rises to her fourteenth year

Her restless creaking snore awakens us both now
and at times we wonder aloud in the night What if...
But her breathing always resumes

steady before she bestirs herself to pace the floor
dig a new nest
and slip off into her dogish dreams again.

Her paws twitch
her lips curl
she is chasing squirrels

---

UPDATE - June 2011

I shared this blog entry with the guy who wrote the poem that inspired it, Paul Mariani. In an email to him at Boston College I wrote:

Hello Dr. Mariani,

We've never met. But long ago I read and loved a poem you wrote, Lines I Told Myself I Wouldn't Write. Some time ago I was compelled to use it as inspiration for a blog entry and, likewise, to write a kind of homage to it. I am not a poet. Nor much of a writer, in fact. I am an elementary school teacher, truth be told. But the poem has long been special to me. I have shared it, or parts of it, with many people over many years. And I am reminded of it regularly of late. My dog is not lost, but she is getting old. For all of those reasons, I wanted to share what I've written with you. I know that's probably a silly thing. But I wanted to say, "Thanks for your words. You are an excellent writer."

Here is the link to my blog: http://rockychrysler.blogspot.com/2010/12/few-borrowed-lines-about-our-old-dog.html

He was kind enough to respond the same day with the following:

Thanks, John, for forwarding your lovely poem about Shadow. I don't think one ever forgets a dog you've had this long. And though my son Mark has lost yet another dog, Bergen, a golden retriever--we still remember Sparky. In fact, about 15 years after I wrote Lines I wrote another poem for him, which I enclose here. The English in particular seem to love this one, for BBC has aired it several times, though I've never heard it. Take care, and may those Arizona fires finally quiet down. Best, Paul Mariani

Here's a link to the poem he forwarded to me. It's very good. Made my wife cry.

Happy Birthday, Dumb Puppy

I've paid a lot of attention to our old dog, Shadow, on the pages of this blog recently.  She's getting lumpy and gimpy, and has become a bit of a crank.  But she was our first dog.  And we love her.  So it's been fun to write about her a few times, and even get her picture published in the dog-issue of one of my favorite magazines a while back.

However, we have not one dog, but two.  Both labs. Of a kind anyway.  The old one a hairy, dark black, stockier blend of this and that sort of retriever.  And the new one, the puppy, Rubia, a yellow lab of the pedigreed variety, short-haired and sleek, full of muscle and vitality, as well an abiding and endearing love for her people.  Which is us.

We did not intend to get another dog with which to fill our already too-small home. But as with the first one, who, as a quiet and gentle 18-month-old dog arrived in our home unexpectedly, thanks mostly to someone else's divorce, the second one, too, came to us before any kind of management plan was put in place.  An alignment of stars, perhaps, drew her to us... or maybe just another new dog owner's daughter and her profound and previously undiagnosed dog-allergy.  Regardless, in short order, while we were enjoying the carefree last-days of yet another school year set to end soon, we were given the chance to adopt the cutest-dang-lab-puppy-you-ever-saw, totally free-of-charge, complete with kennel and sundry other accessories, and we did.

And as must happen to all new, inexperienced puppy owners: the halcyon days of our life as we once knew it came abruptly to an end.

Puppy's are hard.  Like babies, but because they lack diapers and binkies, messier and far chewier.   Much more than older dogs do, they require oversight.  Ample exercise.  Strict discipline.  And food.  Mounds of food.  From which they make surprisingly massive mounds of poo.  In multiple stacks.

Moreover, puppies are stupid.  They come with almost no programming.  They are blank chewing, eating, pooing, sleeping things when you get them.  And, as they slowly grow older, much of the time it seems like they're just becoming bigger chewing, eating, pooing, sleeping things.  Ours anyway.

But somewhere in their first year of life they begin to become dogs.  Gentler.  Slightly more predictable.  Somewhat cognizant of your ways and means.  More the loving, affectionate pet you were expecting, rather than the destructive, senseless thing you once thought you might actually grow to hate.

Rubia has her first birthday tomorrow.  Something a bit less a puppy and more a dog now, I can safely say: we're happy to have her.  And she's learning, though less from us than she is from Shadow.  But that's really as we intended.  Or at least as we had hoped.  It was, from the git-go, our deep desire that a few of the best things about Shadow would somehow rub off on Rubi while there was still a chance of such things occurring.  And they have.  Shadow's showed Rubi how to sleep quietly on the bed at night.  And how to wait patiently until 6PM to eat dinner.  She's showed her how to run in the woods unleashed without losing track of us.  How to settle in and nap between romps and before bedtime.  And how to bark, just once but loudly, when strangers come to the door.  But most of all, we're thrilled that Rubi has learned, through Shadow's example, how to fit so nicely into our lives... how to be our dog.

And so, I will say this, from the bottom of my heart: Happy birthday, dumb puppy.  We love you.

Mountain Gazette #176

As I mentioned a few weeks back, Mountain Gazette actually did accept one of the photos I submitted to the magazine's annual Mountain Dog Photo Contest.   It's in the latest issue, #176, on page 25.  Mountain Gazette is not a huge publication, but I think it's great fun to read.  And, as a writer, they've been a real pleasure to work for in the past.  It's distributed all over the western U.S., and usually you can find it locally at places like Biff's Bagels, Late For The Train, and Aspen Sports.   It's free.

For the record, I've never had a photo published anywhere before.  And, I'm super stoked because this one is one of my all-time favorites.  For whatever it's worth, it wasn't a shot that I planned or posed or anything.  Just a lucky shot of our kid and the old-dog, Shadow, hanging out out together beneath the cottonwood tree.

Dog is...

Buddha Beach Oak Creek

The other day, over the long MLK weekend, we took our kid and the dogs down to Oak Creek at Buddha Beach for a hike and a swim.  Everyone had a blast.  Templeton trail to Buddha Beach is a short but lovely hike, red rocks to riverside.  Midwinter-perfect.

But that evening, a few hours after our return home, we woke our older dog, Shadow, for her dinner.  And she couldn't rise to walk.  Eventually, after some stretching, massaging, and coaxing, 5- or 10-minutes later she was able to get her feet beneath her and wobble outside to her bowl.  The next day, she was just fine... perhaps a little slower than usual, but mostly just fine. But the whole episode, it kinda shocked us.  We'd processed it mentally.  Discussed it openly.  But never really witnessed it: Shadow's getting old.

I've been thinking about this for a while now: our aging dog.  And, as another homage, I submitted two photos of her to Mountain Gazette magazine a while back, for their upcoming annual Dog Photo Contest issue.  And, I'm pleased to say, one of them made it through the first-round of cuts.  That's not to imply that I'm actually going to have a picture I took published in a magazine.  It's only to say that a picture I took actually got through the first round.  Which is cool!  But it is by no means the prize.  I guess, one of these days, they'll let me know if my other picture made the final-cut.  But until then, have a gander at this: the picture (at right) that didn't make it through the first round.  No surprise, I guess.  It's not really a superior photo or anything.  But it's really-and-truly a photo I like, one that I think captures Shadow in her essence: outside, soaking wet, and so black she's almost blue.

I'll wait to reveal the other photo until I hear who made the final cut.

But today I got an intriguing email from the editor of Mountain Gazette... an email he sent to all of us who submitted photos to the magazine for this little contest, which read:

I'm putting together a list of 10-20 reasons why people should have dogs for inclusion in our subscription ad. If you'd like to send in one (and, please, one only) one-sentence reason why people should have dogs (or what dogs bring to our lives, anything along those lines), I'd love to see what our dog photo contributors come up with. Funny, poignant, obvious, not obvious— as long at is relates to dogs in general and necessarily to one specific dog... If nothing comes to mind, fret not.

I thought about it all morning, whenever I had a moment... Why do we love our dogs?  I re-Googled a few old quotes, favorites of mine, about dogs, to find inspiration.  I love Travels With Charley.  It's one of my favorite books of all time.  So much of what Steinbeck had to say about dogs, especially his giant poodle, Charley, rings true to me.  Like:

"A dog is a bond between strangers."

And:

"It is my experience that in some areas Charley is more intelligent than I am, but in others he is abysmally ignorant. He can't read, can't drive a car, and has no grasp of mathematics. But in his own field of endeavor, which he is now practicing, the slow, imperial smelling over and anointing on an area, he has no peer. Of course his horizons are limited, but how wide are mine?"

My favorite dog-quote really has very little to say about dogs.  But it is one borne by many a Bookman's employee and customer; it's on one of their popular T-shirts, a quote by Groucho Marx:

" Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."

I like that one because it's kinda funny, and a bit unexpected the first time you read it.  It gets less funny the more you read it.  But still...

As I've said before, I love our old dog, Shadow.  And I'm learning to love our crazy puppy, Rubia, too.  I think most dogs are good dogs.  Better than people sometimes.  I think dogs are a means for us to better understand ourselves. In my case, our first-dog was an important means to help me gain unexpected insight into my capacity to love something, or someone, that I really never expected to love, in a bigger and better way than I ever imagined I could.

I really do think it was this dog-borne epiphany that compelled me to really want to become a dad.  And I'm so glad it did!

So in the end, after a lot of thought, I sent this to the editor today:

"Dog is patient.  Dog is kind.  Dog does not boast.  Dog never fails."

Gotta say: I think I got that one right.

A Few Borrowed Lines About Our Old Dog Shadow

[UPDATED June 2011 - See below]

There's this great poem, by a writer named Paul Mariani, that I memorized long, long ago, back in college, when I was competing on the Arizona State Forensics Squad.  At the time I used the poem, entitled Lines I Told Myself I Wouldn't Write, as a dramatic-interp piece, and I did pretty well with it.

It's about a guy who loves and then loses a good old dog.

"I promised myself I wouldn't go soft over one fleabag arthritic half gone in the head..."

I can only remember bits and pieces of it by heart now.

But lately, when I watch as my own old dog "limps down to the Sawmill" I think of that poem; it returns to me like scent memory, unexpectedly.  And it returns with increasing regularity. Even though Mariani's poem isn't about watching an old dog age a little more everyday, I nevertheless find myself grateful for his words, which so well-express what it means to love a dog you never really expected to love.

With that in mind, I wanted to write a few words about our dog, Shadow, in what I hope may be ever-so-slightly the style of Paul Mariani's poem. As an homage.  Both to him and his poem, and likewise, to our dog.

---

She came to us already named
like a Barbie
as a Shadow. An obvious, but fitting brand

for a blue-black dog with a cautious, shrinking demeanor
afraid of the wind
and unseen food-thieving curs

Two weeks
a fort-night
she was supposed to be with us.

Just while we're gone,
they said. Dogsit for us.
So we did. While they jetted off to London

Tally-ho.
In that time, like all good fortune
she found us

while we were not seeking her
by gently imploring us for wooden walks
paws crossed in front of her looking into us

for that spark
which she seemed to know she could kindle
curled on the foot of our bed without invitation

and to our surprise
knowing she was welcome there.
They returned but she stayed.

And years later we understood better
that to love a dog (despite the way she can stink-up a room)
or perhaps just this dog, was a harbinger,

a bell-weathered insight
of the affection we might likewise hold for a kid
and so we had one

taught well as we had been
by this Shadow
about how to cherish and find joy and care

for something other
and so much bigger
than me or even us

I know I said
I wouldn't go weepy when it came, and I haven't.
At least not that much

Not yet.  But it's hard to watch her get old
and be troubled by the jump
into and out of the back of the car

growing bony and lumpy
grey around the muzzle
as she slowly rises to her fourteenth year

Her restless creaking snore awakens us both now
and at times we wonder aloud in the night What if...
But her breathing always resumes

steady before she bestirs herself to pace the floor
dig an earnest new nest
and slip off into her dogish dreams again.

Her paws twitch
her lips curl
she is chasing squirrels


UPDATE - June 2011

I shared this blog entry with the guy who wrote the poem that inspired it, Paul Mariani. In an email to him at Boston College I wrote:

Hello Dr. Mariani,

We've never met. But long ago I read and loved a poem you wrote, Lines I Told Myself I Wouldn't Write. Some time ago I was compelled to use it as inspiration for a blog entry and, likewise, to write a kind of homage to it. I am not a poet. Nor much of a writer, in fact. I am an elementary school teacher, truth be told. But the poem has long been special to me. I have shared it, or parts of it, with many people over many years. And I am reminded of it regularly of late. My dog is not lost, but she is getting old. For all of those reasons, I wanted to share what I've written with you. I know that's probably a silly thing. But I wanted to say, "Thanks for your words. You are an excellent writer."

He was kind enough to respond the same day with the following:

Thanks, John, for forwarding your lovely poem about Shadow. I don't think one ever forgets a dog you've had this long. And though my son Mark has lost yet another dog, Bergen, a golden retriever--we still remember Sparky. In fact, about 15 years after I wrote Lines I wrote another poem for him, which I enclose here. The English in particular seem to love this one, for BBC has aired it several times, though I've never heard it. Take care, and may those Arizona fires finally quiet down. Best, Paul Mariani

Here's a link to the poem he forwarded to me. It's very good. Made my wife cry.