Missing the Here Dogs

 

Jenni

I walk behind the racing dogs, their tails sailing flags of joy. We know our steps; when we come to the choice of going up or going straight, they stop and turn, awaiting my wish. Up is through more woods, over fallen trees, meeting a rather hidden trail leading to an entrance behind the pretty church into the pastures that await. Ahead’s path brushes the small pond, through the trees, opening into the fields where the tennis balls begin to fly. Up or ahead, we wind up in the same place, fields littered with tennis balls left and lost, waiting for next time. Our neighbors are wonderful.

 I watch their joy as they run all out, and I find myself jumping the years (I pray many, many years) before us; I feel myself starting already to miss them.

 Such a foolish sense, that nagging foreboding thought. These three dogs who run so freely in front of me, eyes skyward searching for or following flight of a yellow sphere, have no serious health problems of which I’m aware (at least if I could get Mike to stop feeding them so much). Happy smiles dim only to open mouths to grasp their toys. Whisper even smiles around the ball he carries back to me.

 But, truth is, Jenni is ten. How? How did that happen? This little girl who came to ease Mike’s heart after Puppy Trey left us at 18 months old, memory still raw of the loss of Mac the year before, that dog of a lifetime who let me know you could bond with a dog and literally have them anywhere with you. Jenni’s lovely golden markings, her sweet, sensitive eyes, her quiet, shadowy presence continuously near Mike. Mike and Jenni placed in third at their first competitive herding trial seven years ago and eventually won one. This year’s case of pancreatitis so encumbered her, so frightened the humans who love her; she’s not quite as spry, perhaps, but still, once out with the boys or seeing stock, she flows along the ground. And, once inside, she worships Mike, pining when he leaves, quietly joyous when he returns.

 Next week, Whisper will be eight. EIGHT! The cutest puppy I have ever seen who, from the moment he came home with me from the foothills of the Carolina mountains, believed himself to be my boy, will be eight. His run doesn’t flow as smoothly as Jenni’s or River’s; at six months old he had surgery

Whisper

on his shoulder, and his back legs almost, not quite, but almost bunny hop a bit. My sweet, damaged, happy, worried beautiful boy. Even now he waits for my word to bring him to my side. In a half-acre field, he can sniff out his very own, particular tennis ball, THAT ball, the one he has used today. He knows more tricks that both the other dogs combined. And here, with Mike and me (and Dr. Manchild when he returns) he is happy and safe. The best thing we ever did for him was to get him Puppy River. But, eight.

River

 And in January—just a few short weeks away—my River dog will be five. That tiny puppy who so dreaded car rides for the sickness it made in his tummy, that terrified baby who could not master any element of an agility course unless the trainer and I picked him up and, literally, carried him over or around—that sweet boy grew. . . . and grew. . . ..  and grew. He loves the car now, accompanies me to the barn, careful of the horses’ size, careful of their clopping feet. But always with me. Even today he, Tripp, and I walked the path between pastures and paddocks, River always to the side, ever close. And now, he tries any obstacle I ask of him. So similar to my lovely, late Millie as any dog I can imagine, his sweet, soft self has become friends with a couple of dogs that accompany their owners to the barn. One little creature that might weigh five pounds, white fluff, wags her whole self and comes to try to reach and sniff his butt, that eternal canine greeting. River’s face turns patient, but when she finishes, he wags
his tail, and with the other, younger dog, and little white puff, squiggles to the other humans. “I’m cute, too!” He yearns for his people, mainly me, not understanding why ever now that the car doesn’t make him sick he has to stay home at all. I see that pure sweetness Millie had, that wanting to make everything right, and I miss those lovely friends from our “Golden Age of Dogs,” Mac and Millie, such beauty and grace, who had people stopping me in stores:  “You have those smart dogs.”

 I wish to have again the dogs now gone—Princess, Benjamin, Pluto, Mac, Millie, the ones from my childhood, the ones I cared for well and not as well—I wish I had them now. Even as I long for the dogs who brought me through some difficulties, who helped me raise a son, who kept me company and gave companionship, I find myself feeling already the loss not yet experienced. Too short—the lives of these amazing creatures is too short.

 Part of knowing time’s passage is knowing loss as part of life, grief best borne with others, and, as my life carries on, a looking forward to recoup of loss when I feel I will see the people I love and my beloved animals again. It is through such beliefs comes the phrase “the hope of Heaven.” It is through such beliefs one learns to grab the moment now and live it fully. “Take no thought of tomorrow.” Well, it’s a goal.

 Even so, as I watch my lovely dogs play, gaze adoringly up at me, my heart grips a bit, and already I start to miss these amazing animals. Such is the gift of these dogs, and all the dogs I have had, that they mean so much—that they ARE so much—that, always, I hope to have a furry presence in my life. As deep as the pain at their loss, none would want me without a dog to help me through. I can hope now, though, to have these three here with me for years to come. Just the merest hint of the grieving for them brings me to tears.

 But, doggy eyes have no idea of my silent thoughts—and all they want, now, is food, tennis balls, Mike and me, each other, a safe, happy pack. I will put off the sadness and live as they do—right now is what matters.

My lovely, sweet, wonderful dogs, their presence proving unconditional love exists. I do not deserve them. I hope I still can learn the lessons they teach.

 

A Wiener (Dog) For Dinner

Princess and my brother, Davie

               I grew up in the time of family supper each night. My mom, leaving home at 6:00 a.m., arrived back home after 5:30 p.m. and cooked a full supper for her family then cleaned the kitchen. “What,” you might ask, “were her family doing in the afternoon and evening?”

               Good question. The answer is, “Never enough.”

               Princess brought begging to high art. She came in after we sat down around the smaller kitchen table. While we said grace, she decided on her mark. Then, she looked up, raised the upper part of that l-o-n-g deep chestnut body, carefully balancing with her tail, tottering at times because, truly, dachshunds are called wiener dogs for a reason. Finally, her balance reached, she carefully s-l-i-d down until her bottom hit the floor, her short front legs folded in front of her, those beautiful brown eyes looking up at the target, eyebrows brought close together in a begging frown, a quiet, staring presence.

               Just try to eat with those eyes boring into your hand as it brings a bite to your mouth, back to your plate, to your mouth, to your plate, back, up, down, her head barely moving, that long nose pointing the way.

               After a few minutes of this, en masse the four humans came to agreement. “Princess! Go to the living room! Go on!” At which point, her short legs lowered that long body. “Go on!” Her sad eyes looked up, nose pointing to the floor. “GO!” And with sadness defining every vertebrae in that extended back, she slowly, one short leg at a time, walked to the living room.

               At which time we sighed and enjoyed eating without a little dog staring hopefully at us, measuring our every bite.

               Invariably, it seemed, after a few minutes, wild barking broke out in the living room! “Ark! Ark! Ark! ArkArkArkArkArkArk! ARKARKARK!!!!” Or, translated, “Somebody’s at the door!! Come quick! Come quick! COME QUICK!” Somebody’s at the door!”

               And somebody—usually my older brother or I—got up to go rescue whoever dared arrive at our door and disturb the dog. We hadn’t heard a knock, but, well, who needed a doorbell or door knocker? We had Princess.

               Once at the door, we quietly asked her to stop the shrieking barking. “PRINCESS! SHUT UP!” which did no good at all, then opened the door.

               And saw no one. Hmmm. No one there. Well, she had heard something and alerted us just in case. “Good girl! Good girl, Princess!”

               Then, as we walked back to the kitchen, the little, stubby-legged dog came trotting along behind.

               “No one there?” asked my mom or dad?

               “Nope.”

               “Well, Princess must’ve heard something. She sure let’em know, didn’t she!”

               “Yep.”

               Meanwhile, in a new spot, different than earlier, a little, long-backed dog, lifted her head and front legs, and balanced her stretched-out body on her tail, got balanced j-u-s-t right, then s-l-i-d down onto her bottom.

               It took us longer to figure out her scheme to return to the kitchen than it had her to come up with it. My whole life I’ve had dogs smarter than I am.

               And, I don’t care.

Princess

              

               My mom wanted a dachshund; I wanted to name her Princess. Turned out the puppy’s mother wore the name something like “Queen Esther of Camelot” as her owners lived on Camelot Avenue. They called her Queenie, of course; her father was King Something-or-Other of Camelot. So, Princess fit her well.

               As I recall, she cost fifty dollars. According to Google, that’s over $400 today, and a quick glance for dachshund puppies today shows her to have been a bargain. Even so, she proved herself worth well more her dollar value; she wiggled that long little body into our lives, and became our beloved family dog. She had a prominent overbite, her bottom lip not reaching her top one, that row of top teeth showing the whole of her life. As her back stretched into adulthood, and her legs didn’t seem to increase in length much, if at all, her overbite stayed the same, and for her whole life, her top lip overlapped her bottom lip.

               From the first, she slept with me, a little red bundle pasted to my side at night, sleeping to my rhythms, beginning the habit I learned to crave off and on throughout my life:  a dog beside me—or between two people—in the night. As a child of 12, she became the confidant I couldn’t find at school, the ever-present friend. She learned the cadences of our home, greeted us at the door with the joy of dogs from time immemorial, and captured the hearts of her family for the over 13 years she lived.

               As we knew at the time, we did our best with her, taking her for the occasional walk which started with her excited jumping around, gleefully starting up the sidewalk, and usually ending with whoever handled the leash picking up and carrying her home, those legs not able to last the entire walk. Of course, we should have used consistency and added gradual length to those walks to make the whole thing more fun for her. But, truly, we did our best with the knowledge we had, and loved her fiercely and fully—and she returned that love.

               At one point my parents bred her beautiful solid deep chestnut self to a male dachshund who had the same red, but only on his feet, the end of his nose, and, if you raised his tail, you could see his shining red little bottom. One amazing morning we woke to Princess’ seven puppies—five marked just like their father, two little red miniatures of Princess, one of them complete with her overbite. A good mother, her problem came with only having six feeding stations, and my mom got a toy baby bottle, some pablum mixture from somewhere, and helped her feed her brood. I wanted badly to keep the little girl with the overbite, but my dad put the kibosh on that, and they never bred her again, a decision I’m sure Princess appreciated.

               But if dogs are the ever loyal, never changing creatures, children or young people in a home tend to grow up and leave. First my brother finished high school and left for college. Though his family missed him, of course, at least we knew what caused his absence. What Princess knew was that one day he was there, then he wasn’t. The brave little badger dog, who would have fought any threat to her family she knew about or could see or find, could not fight the invisible hazard that had made her boy disappear.

               She couldn’t understand; but she could mourn.

               And one day she, herself, seemed to disappear.

               My mom couldn’t find her; she called her, but got no response from the dog who lived for her family and always—ALWAYS—ran to answer her name. She looked in each room; we had no doggy door, so Princess couldn’t go outside with no help. She checked each bedroom, opened each closet door with a crack in it. And, then, in the bottom of my brother’s closet on top of some clothes fallen to the floor lay the little red wiener dog, her misery obvious. “She really had tears in her eyes,“ my mom said.

               By the time I left, she had adjusted to my brother coming home periodically, happy to see him, but her allegiance to my mom grew as we came to other times of life, college taking us away, always happy to see her when I came home. As I recall, she still came to my bed when I slept there, but age took the toll it takes on all creatures, and those little “hot dogs” have long backs that can falter with age, that can, eventually, hinder their movements. So, my parents built a ramp for her as stairs became a barrier too great for her to overcome.

               And I—I left for a summer in Galveston with a Christian college group, then for a couple of years in Liberia to teach with a Mission group. I went to graduate school for a year and when the boy who claimed to love me more than life itself, who begged me to wait for him as he finished his last year with the same Mission group. . . .  as I finished my first year of graduate school and that boy decided that, really, he knew I had done my best, but he actually loved the girl from Mississippi with the  long blond hair who moved into my apartment a few weeks after I left more than he loved me, so I unwisely didn’t finish grad school but moved to the lovely North Carolina mountains to housesit for friends, Princess, continuing to age, still continued to offer comfort and love when I came home, packing and planning before leaving home again. Now she slept more on her blankets in the corner under my mom’s prized antique railroad desk, still loved, still a feisty representative of her breed.

Till, one day my mom called me and said, “Princess has died.”

               It almost broke my mother. An era of my own life ended; the dog who raised me had died. As so frequently happens, until then, I didn’t realize all she had given me.

               I know how blessed I was to have that sweet, kind dog love me so as I grew from child to woman, her little legs moving as fast as she could make them, but her loyal, loving heart as big as any dog alive.

               From Princess I learned what every person who loves a dog knows: that their dog is the best in the world. . . .. and every person is right. Now I have border collies. But, many border collie folks I know have a small dog of some kind as well, not infrequently a dachshund. At times I think I, too, should get a small dog, one you can carry in one arm. None of my dogs fit that description. Maybe, someday.

               Till then, I know the standard—a little red dog, overbite prominent, who loved me, who gave me the gift of the dog—that unconditional, ever present heart, that dogs give. I was fortunate to find that gift early.

               With dogs before her, certainly, but the standard finalized forever in a dog named Princess.