Some of my favorite people are dogs - The English Major
I have never been one to keep loads of them around like the winged people who work at dog shelters or foster packs of them for as long as they can until adopted or, well, meet a different fate. To paraphrase Johnny Vegas, ‘Dogs are a lot like farts - you relish your own but you detest others.'
When I was a child our dog was a golden retriever named Meg. She was Dad's hunting dog and an expert at swimming with a bleeding duck in her mouth in freezing cold waters. Show me a person who can do that, then show me a person who does it while wagging their tail or shaking their respective booty. Dogs like Meg are so eager to please their masters that I honestly don't know if she enjoyed swimming with a dead duck in her mouth or if she happily wagged her tail because she knew this horrid exercise would make the old man happy, but I suspect it's the latter.
Meg was a part of the family when I was born and I thought of her as exactly that, a furry family member. I was in elementary school when she passed away and I sobbed for weeks over the loss. When you are the youngest child in the home and everyone else is barking orders at you from their height of judgment and experience, the silent four-legged hairy beast is often your best friend. My father has a portrait of her that still hangs in his study and I give her a nod whenever I visit.
I'm an adult now and thoroughly familiar with the truth about dog lifespans and the deeply dark lining of the silver cloud that surrounds the bond between a person and their canine best friend. This has changed my relationship somewhat with dogs, knowing in advance that I will see their day come long before my own may have the effect of cherishing my time with them even more, but the impact of the day of reckoning is still quite devastating.
Tobey was a punk. He was our 'junkyard dog' adopted from the SPCA when I was in the eighth grade. Tobey was a smaller dog, some kind of border collie mix of about 35 pounds of black and white, a tuxedo of a dog but he was no class act. He was not so terrible either. He didn't bite or chew things up or pee or poop where he shouldn't. He was too smart for all that; he knew when you wanted him to come but was audacious enough to walk away, like a punk. Tobey would be walking around in the street in front of the house and you would call him and he would stop, turn and look at you just long enough for you to know he knew what you wanted him to do and then he would head in the opposite direction. Tobey was a perpetual precocious teenager, smart and rebellious. I remember over a decade later living in New York City and being surprised to hear that he was even still alive, but he was, he always came home eventually and Mom and Dad fed him as he sat on his polka-dot cushion under the desk in the kitchen. We all liked Tobey, were amused by Tobey, but we knew that we had saved one of the punks who seriously did not seem to care at all that he had been rescued from a different fate by my family. Maybe we made him that way, but I really think it was a con. He may have looked quiet and constrained but what he really was was an adorable punk.
I never had my own dog. I knew enough about them and myself to know throughout the majority of my twenties that I was too irresponsible to have one of my own. One day, after my roommate moved out, I found myself living alone, aged 28. After maybe 2 weeks I realized the quiet solitude I experienced at the end of a workday was not quite as comfortable as it had been for me in previous apartments in which the large majority of my nights were spent somewhere else. My old roommate had an English black lab, Roxy, that was an expert hunting dog and it was Roxy that I missed as a companion more than anything (no offense, buddy) at the end of a long day.
Then I met Camper in March of 2006. A German Shepherd mix that chose me at an SPCA in a rural county outside Raleigh where I wound up accidentally after getting lost on the way to a farm I took a stroll down the corridor of loudly barking inmates when Camper came in through an out door, threw herself up against the paddock and looked at me with a silent grin.
She had deep brown eyes that shone through a perfectly balanced black and tan facemask that said she was a Shepherd mixed with something that may have been mixed with a Rottweiler. Her disposition was more of a retriever or very human friendly Shepherd. You could see her assess a situation quickly to determine if she needed to raise the hair on her back into a mohawk and tense her body, lie down and cross her legs ladylike, or some combination of the two; constantly re-assessing her surroundings and how to be ready to handle what may happen next. She was incredibly in tune with other dogs and other people, especially her owner. After a visit or two I adopted her and she became my almost constant companion. She took to guarding my house like it was her job and no bump in the night went without a thorough investigation. She spent her days sitting by a giant window that looked out into my front yard and if you were to step foot onto my lawn you were going to hear about it from Camper. You would also see her very long and sharp teeth. Fortunately, she only put them to use once and it was on a man who was breaking and entering and was fired from his construction job after Camper sent him to the emergency room for his crime.
Other than that, if you were familiar or non-threatening she would pleasantly greet you, and if you were sad she would comfort you. If you were the one that saved her from what was most likely a different fate she loved you completely. And she did, like a person. 100% in tune with all of my moods. She didn't ask for much, just to be let out at least twice a day for a bathroom break, one bowl kept full with water and another bowl for food and as much exercise as I could provide. She liked to watch everything. She was a lady in every way and we had a running joke that everyone she came in contact with assumed she was a boy, we got one last laugh at this at her final visit to an ER Vet who had just examined her 15 minutes later referred to her as a 'good boy.' Children were often scared of her appearance at first, but she was always patient with those bold enough to tug and crawl all over her. Everyone who knew her loved her.
They say that outdoor dogs know when their time is up and they wander off never to be heard from again. I think that Camper would have done that but I don't think she ever thought her business with me was through. She had gotten me through break ups, job loss, financial ruin and depression in the years following 2008 and no matter what she knew about her health, she, like Meg the Golden Retriever of my childhood, was too occupied with pleasing her master to show it. Being happy and snuggling and securing the house and wagging her tail when I spoke to her were her priorities, not pain, not suffering, and definitely not showing it. She knew when I hurt and I mostly could reciprocate.
I don't know when the cancer started but it was some time over the past two months, about a week or so after I got married. My wife had been living with us for some time and they took to each other with ease and she got a long with my wife's goofy-go-lucky white lab, Hank. They were playmates and the few times they stayed at the kennel the report card always said that she looked after her little brother.
My wife knew something was wrong a few weeks ago, I guess I did too. Camper and I went down to the beach one last time and walked for hours on the quietest of winter days with the seagulls, fisherman and an artist painting one of the prettiest skies we had ever seen. It was the following weekend that she stopped eating and the night she couldn't muster the strength to jump into the bed was the night I told my wife to take her to the vet.
It was a cold Monday morning in January, a great day professionally when my wife calls and she puts the vet on the phone and he's in my ear telling me about the tumors that were eating Camper's body. It was the best of times it was the worst of times. It was a long afternoon, but the writing was on the wall and Camper and I spent a few hours talking and once we both knew the score and had thoroughly taken stock of our time, we decided it was time for her to take a nap.
We enter an agreement with our pets, we know we will outlive them but the impact of the day of reckoning is still just as devastating. Especially when your dog is as good if not better than the best people you know. I'm not the first to point out that Dog is God spelled backwards and if the believers believe God moves in mysterious ways then I can believe the spirit moves best and quite frequently through man's best friend, his dog. The Scientists have recently come out to say that the human species would not have evolved without the domestication of dogs for hunting and protection, I have to wonder when companionship became a factor. We owe them the best lives we can give them. After all, that's what the best people do for each other.
So work hard, play hard, scratch their bellies, behind their ears and treat them as well as they treat you.
Happy Poets Day
When I was a child our dog was a golden retriever named Meg. She was Dad's hunting dog and an expert at swimming with a bleeding duck in her mouth in freezing cold waters. Show me a person who can do that, then show me a person who does it while wagging their tail or shaking their respective booty. Dogs like Meg are so eager to please their masters that I honestly don't know if she enjoyed swimming with a dead duck in her mouth or if she happily wagged her tail because she knew this horrid exercise would make the old man happy, but I suspect it's the latter.
Meg was a part of the family when I was born and I thought of her as exactly that, a furry family member. I was in elementary school when she passed away and I sobbed for weeks over the loss. When you are the youngest child in the home and everyone else is barking orders at you from their height of judgment and experience, the silent four-legged hairy beast is often your best friend. My father has a portrait of her that still hangs in his study and I give her a nod whenever I visit.
I'm an adult now and thoroughly familiar with the truth about dog lifespans and the deeply dark lining of the silver cloud that surrounds the bond between a person and their canine best friend. This has changed my relationship somewhat with dogs, knowing in advance that I will see their day come long before my own may have the effect of cherishing my time with them even more, but the impact of the day of reckoning is still quite devastating.
Tobey was a punk. He was our 'junkyard dog' adopted from the SPCA when I was in the eighth grade. Tobey was a smaller dog, some kind of border collie mix of about 35 pounds of black and white, a tuxedo of a dog but he was no class act. He was not so terrible either. He didn't bite or chew things up or pee or poop where he shouldn't. He was too smart for all that; he knew when you wanted him to come but was audacious enough to walk away, like a punk. Tobey would be walking around in the street in front of the house and you would call him and he would stop, turn and look at you just long enough for you to know he knew what you wanted him to do and then he would head in the opposite direction. Tobey was a perpetual precocious teenager, smart and rebellious. I remember over a decade later living in New York City and being surprised to hear that he was even still alive, but he was, he always came home eventually and Mom and Dad fed him as he sat on his polka-dot cushion under the desk in the kitchen. We all liked Tobey, were amused by Tobey, but we knew that we had saved one of the punks who seriously did not seem to care at all that he had been rescued from a different fate by my family. Maybe we made him that way, but I really think it was a con. He may have looked quiet and constrained but what he really was was an adorable punk.
I never had my own dog. I knew enough about them and myself to know throughout the majority of my twenties that I was too irresponsible to have one of my own. One day, after my roommate moved out, I found myself living alone, aged 28. After maybe 2 weeks I realized the quiet solitude I experienced at the end of a workday was not quite as comfortable as it had been for me in previous apartments in which the large majority of my nights were spent somewhere else. My old roommate had an English black lab, Roxy, that was an expert hunting dog and it was Roxy that I missed as a companion more than anything (no offense, buddy) at the end of a long day.
Then I met Camper in March of 2006. A German Shepherd mix that chose me at an SPCA in a rural county outside Raleigh where I wound up accidentally after getting lost on the way to a farm I took a stroll down the corridor of loudly barking inmates when Camper came in through an out door, threw herself up against the paddock and looked at me with a silent grin.
She had deep brown eyes that shone through a perfectly balanced black and tan facemask that said she was a Shepherd mixed with something that may have been mixed with a Rottweiler. Her disposition was more of a retriever or very human friendly Shepherd. You could see her assess a situation quickly to determine if she needed to raise the hair on her back into a mohawk and tense her body, lie down and cross her legs ladylike, or some combination of the two; constantly re-assessing her surroundings and how to be ready to handle what may happen next. She was incredibly in tune with other dogs and other people, especially her owner. After a visit or two I adopted her and she became my almost constant companion. She took to guarding my house like it was her job and no bump in the night went without a thorough investigation. She spent her days sitting by a giant window that looked out into my front yard and if you were to step foot onto my lawn you were going to hear about it from Camper. You would also see her very long and sharp teeth. Fortunately, she only put them to use once and it was on a man who was breaking and entering and was fired from his construction job after Camper sent him to the emergency room for his crime.
Other than that, if you were familiar or non-threatening she would pleasantly greet you, and if you were sad she would comfort you. If you were the one that saved her from what was most likely a different fate she loved you completely. And she did, like a person. 100% in tune with all of my moods. She didn't ask for much, just to be let out at least twice a day for a bathroom break, one bowl kept full with water and another bowl for food and as much exercise as I could provide. She liked to watch everything. She was a lady in every way and we had a running joke that everyone she came in contact with assumed she was a boy, we got one last laugh at this at her final visit to an ER Vet who had just examined her 15 minutes later referred to her as a 'good boy.' Children were often scared of her appearance at first, but she was always patient with those bold enough to tug and crawl all over her. Everyone who knew her loved her.
They say that outdoor dogs know when their time is up and they wander off never to be heard from again. I think that Camper would have done that but I don't think she ever thought her business with me was through. She had gotten me through break ups, job loss, financial ruin and depression in the years following 2008 and no matter what she knew about her health, she, like Meg the Golden Retriever of my childhood, was too occupied with pleasing her master to show it. Being happy and snuggling and securing the house and wagging her tail when I spoke to her were her priorities, not pain, not suffering, and definitely not showing it. She knew when I hurt and I mostly could reciprocate.
I don't know when the cancer started but it was some time over the past two months, about a week or so after I got married. My wife had been living with us for some time and they took to each other with ease and she got a long with my wife's goofy-go-lucky white lab, Hank. They were playmates and the few times they stayed at the kennel the report card always said that she looked after her little brother.
My wife knew something was wrong a few weeks ago, I guess I did too. Camper and I went down to the beach one last time and walked for hours on the quietest of winter days with the seagulls, fisherman and an artist painting one of the prettiest skies we had ever seen. It was the following weekend that she stopped eating and the night she couldn't muster the strength to jump into the bed was the night I told my wife to take her to the vet.
It was a cold Monday morning in January, a great day professionally when my wife calls and she puts the vet on the phone and he's in my ear telling me about the tumors that were eating Camper's body. It was the best of times it was the worst of times. It was a long afternoon, but the writing was on the wall and Camper and I spent a few hours talking and once we both knew the score and had thoroughly taken stock of our time, we decided it was time for her to take a nap.
We enter an agreement with our pets, we know we will outlive them but the impact of the day of reckoning is still just as devastating. Especially when your dog is as good if not better than the best people you know. I'm not the first to point out that Dog is God spelled backwards and if the believers believe God moves in mysterious ways then I can believe the spirit moves best and quite frequently through man's best friend, his dog. The Scientists have recently come out to say that the human species would not have evolved without the domestication of dogs for hunting and protection, I have to wonder when companionship became a factor. We owe them the best lives we can give them. After all, that's what the best people do for each other.
So work hard, play hard, scratch their bellies, behind their ears and treat them as well as they treat you.
Happy Poets Day
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