THE MEASURE OF DOGS

I don’t know what it is about dogs and why we love them so fiercely, or why we can’t go about our lives without them.  I know that I can’t seem to find my compass without a dog in my life. My dog companions enable me to map the territory of the heart, and when they leave, I am broken of heart until the next one comes along and trains me once again to remember to be kind, and compassionate, and to love unconditionally.

It seems that the older I get, the harder it is to let go when a dog passes. I grieve more deeply and can’t seem to bounce back as quickly. It is the fragility of age. My rubber ball is cracked and dry and doesn’t roll with the punches or the resilience of youth. Perhaps it is because death edges ever more closely once you skid over the hump of middle age, and it’s hard to ignore the fact that we too will follow our beloved little friends into the dark unknown.

We measure our lives in the years of dogs. They come to us, foreshadowing our future and guiding us from one stage of our spiritual development to the next. When a dog passes, I suspect that the intensity of our grief is not only for the loss of our best little friend and his companionship, but the loss of another stage in life. Each of our beloved dogs has ferried my husband and I through marriage and our life together. Some were more benevolent and human than others, but all of them accomplished their mission in one way or another – a job well done.

Having been raised by at least two dogs at a time throughout my childhood, it’s hard to imagine a life without them. I relied on their comfort and protection when the adults seemed remarkably absent. I was sure that my dog, Lassie, had saved my life more than once from the danger and anxiety my mother harbored and projected onto the world. When I think of the dogs of my youth, I see the romping of children in the yard and the pitter-patter of little feet around the holidays. They were my brothers and sisters in a lonely little life.

Throughout one’s life there are dark days and dog days, and the darkest of days for me were those spans of time when I did not have a dog. Sure, it allowed me to be foot-loose and fancy-free during a frenzied resistance to settling down. I know I had cats come and go during those years, but I don’t find them particularly centering or grounding. You can have a cat on your bed one day and gone the next and they just don’t seem to be able to navigate the territory of the heart in the same way as dogs. I don’t know where the Ancient Egyptian cat stars might be in the night sky, but I sure as heck know where to find the Dog Star.

It is possible that I never got to bond with cats because I wasn’t allowed to have a cat from the age of five until I left home at eighteen. We used to have a cat named “Bootsy” when I was very young, and I still remember his big white socks and double paws, and the rumble of his baritone purr. But cats disappeared from my life abruptly, when I caught Cat Scratch Fever. Yep – I’m probably one of the few individuals you’ll ever meet who almost died from a disease made famous by a rock band.

At any rate, my strange encounter with the disease happened long before Ted Nugent. It was 1960, and I was five-years old. I was sick for so many weeks I never made it to the local kindergarten, which my parents couldn’t afford anyway. I was left to fend for myself on the screened porch in the heat of August and the dog days of September. It was me and Captain Kangaroo, surrounded by my favorite books on the couch through an eternal fever.

As it turns out, I became the poster child for curing cat scratch fever with penicillin. After two surgeries and weeks of a raging fever, and the flax seed poultices, which my mother had to use to draw the infection out of my lanced lymph nodes, the doctors decided to try an antibiotic. It most likely saved my life, but I still bear the scars.

My parents never allowed another cat in the house. I don’t care to wonder what happened to Bootsy and those kittens in the barn that scratched me while my brother milked his cow, Buttercup. They were all “disappeared” by the time I got home from the hospital, probably in some football stadium in Argentina. To this day, the scent of flax seed and burlap bags tied with string conjure up nightmares.

My first dog after leaving home was an English setter. He was a devil dog, and probably had no choice but to act out my bad choices in life. My first husband, whom I’d married at eighteen, named him Damion. When we left him for a weekend in the care of a neighbor, he literally tore our little cottage apart. He pulled down the Christmas tree, chewed up all the bedding and pillows, and ran through the house with a roll of toilet paper on which he defiantly pooped. He was too much dog for young newlyweds to handle, and we gave him back to our friend who had given him to us. He was one of those lopsided dogs with two different colored eyes, a gangly gate, and random spotting from every genetic trait in his setter lineage. He could have turned out to be a good dog, but already, my feet were getting itchy to move on and it wasn’t the right time for either of us (meaning the dog and I) to be together. I hope he found his people and was able to accomplish his mission in life. We were his failed experiment, and that marriage couldn’t possibly have lasted. After all, that practice husband was a cat person in his heart, and we parted ways after four years.

It wasn’t until I met my present husband after several years of nomadic life, that I was able to find my dog star again. I suppose it was best not to have had a companion during my hobo days, but I do wish I’d had a dog with me when I hiked the Appalachian Trail by myself. When Michael and I settled into our tiny little home on thirteen acres of land, the first thing I did was visit the local dog pound. I couldn’t help myself. I came home with three dogs! A beautiful sable collie for us, named Tansy, and two other dogs which I gave away. I gifted my mother with the white mutt, which my father named Rebel, after a precarious first encounter. Rebel had decided it was his job to protect my mother and he wouldn’t let my dad in the house that first night. That dog later became my father’s constant companion, riding shotgun in the truck. I think I gave the shepherd mix to a friend or neighbor, but I can’t recall who. It was in the 80’s – a long time ago, and the lens of my memory is blurred around the edge of reality.

Unfortunately, Tansy, the collie, didn’t last long. We’d inherited heartworm along with the dog, and he died of a heart attack while under treatment. He was a joyful lion-maned collie who captured our hearts and reminded me of my own Lassie from childhood. My husband, who came from one of those odd families who never had a pet bigger than a goldfish, was smitten and finally understood the love of a canine friend. We soon embarked on collecting a series of collies who ferried us through two decades of nesting and trying to build a family. Our collies were a just-right combination for two busy people, working to build a life while putting ourselves through college.

They were devoted, but gave us space, always watching over us as though we were their very own tiny flock of sheep. Never underfoot, just there in case they were needed. They were a noble breed and brought us many years of joy with their individual personalities.

The collie years were a domestic phase, all about building a home and a community. Guinness, the noblest of our tri-colored collection was the most beloved of that tribe. He touched our hearts more deeply than any of the others. He was our high priest, watching over us from his throne on the berm, where he surrounded himself with plastic he’d collected in the neighborhood. We were devastated when he passed, and our refrigerator became his shrine.

It wasn’t just the dog – it was the passing of happiness, and an unfortunate turn of events – a hysterectomy and the loss of hope for a family of our own. Yet there were new things on the horizon – a dawning of creativity and a different way of being in the world without the burden of trying to fit my restless spirit into motherhood. Sadie, our smooth-coated collie held ground for several years, and crankily presided over the changes in our relationships with friends and with each other. She put up with the expansion and renovation of our house and a parade of musicians as I tried to formulate the right band to give wings to the songs I birthed like children. Sadie had a bit of an attitude: “I am what I am – take it or leave it.” She tried very hard to teach me to just be who I am and not to care what people think. But I failed her tutelage. After all, I care a bit too deeply.

As Sadie got old, the wind began to shift. One day, I went to the local pet store to buy crickets for a frog in my classroom. That’s when I met a mini schnauzer who captured my heart the minute I picked him up. That little dog was a game changer. I named him after Django Reinhardt, the Gypsy Jazz musician and the inspiration for my own songwriting. Django became my muse in more ways than one.

Even though we still had Sadie in our lives, she was becoming more of a shadow. Content to sleep most of the time and slither into dark corners, she was not so attached to us anymore. Her spirit had already left. But when we brought Django home, she had a reprieve. She diligently showed him the ropes, taught him how to handle us, and proudly brought him around the neighborhood. He became her puppy, and he brought out the puppy in her, although she was more often than not a bit snippy and impatient with him. The house was filled with the tapping of toes on floorboards, and Django seemed quite happy to have someone besides us whom he could boss around. When Sadie left us, he was quite depressed and went through weeks of mourning. He developed separation anxiety and focused all his attention on me.

One thing about mini schnauzers is they have a strong personality from the get-go. Although all our animals have had their own voices that matched their personality, including special songs we made up about them, Django literally talked to me. The minute I met him, I heard his voice clear as day. Our house was filled with on-going commentary about other humans and life, with Django coining the phrase, “I’m just saying”, long before I’d ever heard people say it.

Because Django was becoming all too human, we decided to stunt his growth in that department so he could stay with us a bit longer. It was selfish, I know, but we loved him so very much and didn’t want him getting the idea that his work was done. That’s when we rescued Carlo, thinking that Django needed to be reminded that he was a dog.

Carlo was found on a rescue site by our friend, Amy, who later became known as the “Fairy (or furry) Dog Mother”. He was fostered to a couple in Cambridge. Because he came from a family with two Boston Terriers who were also rescued, they mixed up his papers and labeled him as a Boston Terrier. But he was oh-so-clearly a mini schnauzer.  Before he died, we were toying with the idea of making a YouTube video with Carlo sitting ever so seriously across from Henry Lewis Gates on the show Finding Your Roots. Dr. Gates would have the big black book spread out on the table, which contains all the genealogy research and DNA of his guest. He would impishly smile, in that way of his, and say to Carlo: “Turn the next page.” And Carlo’s jaw would drop to the floor. He would exclaim in his Spanglish accent, “What?!! I’m a Schnauzer?!! I thought I was a Boston Terrier!”

That little boy had quite the personality. When we walked into the foster apartment in Cambridge to pick him up, he bolted across the room and literally jumped into Michael’s arms. I swear to God, I heard him say out loud in the deep baritone voice of Antonio Banderas, “Dad! You’re my new dad!”

Django and Carlo became fast friends, after Django quickly established that he was the boss, and that I belonged to him. Carlo was so malleable and mellow. When Django was getting all nerved up, he would shrug his shoulder and walk away. More often than not, I heard him say, “Ah – whatever.”

We should have named them Felix and Oscar, after the “Odd Couple”. Their temperaments were so different, yet they blended so well. Django – all white and stiff, was the salt to Carlo’s salsa personality. They became known as “The boys” among friends and in the neighborhood, and they made the perfect little brace of dogs during our many hikes and adventures. Most memorably, was our “Iddy-Biddy-I-Did-a-rod” where the boys went cross-country skiing with me.

It was a lovely time, we had with them. They helped to smooth over some rough edges in our marriage and brought humor and joy into our home, and I miss them so much. I miss their voices and their endearing love. The couches and the bed were cold and uninviting without the soft circle of dogs cuddled up against us. When Django died, I thought we’d get another dog right away. But we didn’t. Carlo, after his mourning period, relished being the only dog and having our full attention. We put it off, thinking we’d have at least five years to think about a companion for Carlo. Selfishly, I wish we had found that perfect little schnauzer friend, because the house wouldn’t have been so lonely when he died. On the other hand, Carlo had the best two years of his life. A life well-lived, and well-loved.

Now we have two new mini schnauzers in our lives, Leo and Carla. The bearers of change, they escorted me into a new era. I think this next measure of dogs will be about reclamation. Already, with their presence I am reclaiming my soul from the hard work of teaching. They have helped me to nurture my creative voice. I hope these little people masquerading as dogs will grow and evolve with me as we each become who we are meant to be in this world. I know that Django and Carlo cannot be replaced, but I do have faith that our new furry companions will fulfill their mission and do a good job as we all strive to become more human.