Got a Black Magic Puppy

On Tuesday, Cleo was executed three times and brought back to life, all in the service of education.  This is how it came to be.

The week before, the ninth grade history teacher, Mr. B., a Santa Cruz hippie born in Lancashire, England, and a true character, approached me with a request.  “Do you think I might borrow Cleo next week?”  He was about to embark on a lesson on the medieval witch trials, and he wanted to put Cleo on the stand.  “I want to try her as a witch, ya see?”

During the witch trials, it was not at all uncommon for dogs to be called as witnesses against their owners, or even to be required to answer accusations against themselves.  The courts would have called cats, too, had they not already had all of them hung for witchcraft.  Of course, without cats the rat population exploded, leading to the Black Death which swept through Europe killing a third to a half of the population of the time, wiping whole villages out of existence, so the cats had the last laugh there.

Mr. B. planned to ask Cleo a few questions, find her guilty and haul her off to be burned at the stake.  He thought that using her, a dog the students all knew and were fond of, would both catch their attention and give them a graphic sense of the brutality of the witch trials.  Initially, I thought it was a brilliant idea, but when I got home that night and told John about it, his reaction was very different from mine.  “I don’t like that at all,” he told me, a frown pinching his forehead.  “What if she gets scared.  I don’t want anybody yelling at her.”  Ah, the protective daddy!  He was worried about his little girl!  Come to think of it, I didn’t want anyone yelling at her, either.  Sure, she’s known discipline, but she has never known harshness.  Dogs don’t understand “acting.”  They don’t do pretend; they’re far too sincere.  She would never comprehend fake yelling, especially if she was simply trying to do what she was asked.

When the teacher came back to me early this week to confirm Cleo’s availability for the next day, I asked for details of what her role would be.  “You’re not going to yell at her are you?” I asked him.  He looked shocked: “Oh, no, no, no!” he said.  Then gave me an outline of what he had planned. 

Mr. B. is a curious fellow.  Regular readers of this blog might remember him as the colleague who, when introduced to Cleo for the first time, looked down at the teensy ball of fluff that she was in those days and sneered, “Hello, dog.”  For months, whenever he came into my office to consult about something, he would look with disgust at the puppy and half turn away from her, doing his best to ignore the unseemly creature.  Then, something changed; students began telling me that she had started to appear in his stories.

 

One of the reasons this teacher is so popular is because he makes history come alive.  For him, it’s not about dry dates and names; no, he puts the story back in history, and he makes it riveting.  Often, as he relates events, he’ll draw parallels to the students’ lives or he’ll introduce schoolmates as characters in the stories.  At first, Cleo was the example of the character who seemed to embody innocence and sweetness, yet who, without warning, went bad and murdered all the townspeople.  As time went by, she “appeared” whenever a noble animal was called for.  By now, her roles have gotten more and more sympathetic and loveable.  So I was pleased and relieved to hear what he had planned for her witch trial. 

The next morning, Maggie, Cleo’s best buddy at school, came by to pick her up.  Mr. B. had arranged with Maggie’s other teachers for her to be at all three sections of ninth grade history.  Because of my own class schedule, I could attend only one.  Off we went to medieval England.  Knowing what was going to be asked of Cleo, Maggie had been doing some training with her just before her debut.  As soon as we walked in, there was a chorus of “Cleo!”  This was followed by, “Hi, Mrs. Sherry,” “Maggie isn’t in this section,” “Why are you here, Mrs. Sherry?” and “Why’s Cleo here?”  Maggie, completely in her role as assistant to the judge, kept a stony face.  Mr. B. responded to all the questions with some jest or other.  Until the last question.  To this he answered, “Because I’m going to try her for witchcraft!”  The students laughed.

“Cleo, please take the stand,” he commanded.  Maggie gestured to the chair that was set up at the front of the room.  Cleo hopped onto it, turned around to face the class and sat, happily looking around.  “Cleo,” Mr. B. continued, “you are charged with casting your spirit into students and causing them to do harm.”  Here, he mixed a little recent ninth grade scandal into the story.  “Last week, one ninth grader played a thoughtless joke on another, daring him to jump over a chain, then raising it, causing the victim to trip on the chain and fall onto asphalt, grievously spraining his elbow.”  The students laughed and shifted in their seats, exchanging knowing looks.  “Cleo, place your hand on the Bible and swear to tell the truth.”  Maggie gestured and Cleo put not one, but two paws onto the book Mr. B. held (a treat was seen to pass from hand to mouth on this one).  “Aha!” Mr. B. exclaimed.  “That proves it!  This was not the Bible.  She has just sworn on the Malleus Malleficarum, the witches’ handbook!”

“That’s not fair!” a student protested.  “You tricked her.”

“Yeah,” called another, “she didn’t know what the book was.”

“No matter,” Mr. B. replied, waving away their comments.  “It’s still proof.  Cleo, do you deny that you have done these deeds?”  He paused.

“Maggie, make her nod or something,” prompted one of the girls.

Mr. B. cut her off.  “She doesn’t deny it!”

“But she can’t!  She’s a dog!”

“Ah!” Mr. B. exclaimed, delighted.  “So you’re defending her?”  He grinned from ear to ear.  “Who else wants to defend her.”

A couple hands flew into the air, and a voice or two spoke out, “I do!”

“Then you’re all in collusion with her!”  Mr. B. looked victorious.  “It’s obvious!  You’re witches, too.  Wait here and I’ll deal with you.  In the meantime….” He laughed ominously and pulled a barbecue lighter off his desk, flicking the flame into a stream of fire.  “Cleo is sentenced to be burned at the stake!”  As he swept out of the room, followed by Maggie and a peppily prancing Cleo, a storm of protest followed him.  A beat, then Mr. B. reappeared in the doorway.  “The job is done,” he announced, holding up a package of hotdogs.

When the laughter had died down, an active discussion began and lasted through class and beyond.  Educators now know, thanks to modern brain science, that lessons that endure and stay with us for years are those that are connected to our emotions.  I initially thought of Cleo as a source of comfort for students.  I love that others can see different, equally meaningful roles for her.  I have no doubt about Cleo’s position at the school.  She is so clearly part of the warp and (forgive me) woof of the whole community.

Cleo & Maggie

The Rain It Raineth Every Day

This has been a busy week for Cleo.  In some ways it’s been a rough one.  The unseasonable torrential rains and icy winds made prolonged outings impossible two days in a row.  On both those mornings, I opened Cleo’s crate in the milky light of 6 AM and after her usual four point stretch, she went straight to the French door, asking to be let out for her morning constitutional.  “It’s pretty wet out there,” I whispered to her, opening the door.  The rain was thunking onto our roof and deck as though each drop were the size of a basketball.  Even where it was slowed by the limbs of the giant Monterey Pine in our backyard the rain pattered and leapt back skyward after hitting the ground.  In her sleep-fogged state (she is as slow to wake up in the morning as I am), Cleo missed all the soggy evidence of the downpour that first morning; she padded outside, froze, then pivoted and came straight back in.  We stood, Cleo staring out at the rain, me staring at Cleo.  She sniffed.  She debated.  “Just come up on the bed,” I suggested.  No, it was clear, she really had to go!  She took a step forward.  Splat!  A rain globule hit her square on the nose.  She backed up in a hurry and sat down a couple feet from the door.  Her left paw held up in supplication, she looked me in the eye, a crease of worry wrinkling her brow.  “Mom,” she seemed to be saying, “make it stop!”  She crept back to the door and gazed out once more, then, visibly steeling herself, she trotted out, hugging the side of the house, and rounded the corner, set to take care of business.  She was out there for a surprisingly long time, given the downpour and gusts of Alaskan wind that shook the pine and rattled the bamboo.  While she was out, I ducked into the bathroom to grab a towel.  Her frantic pawing at the door got me back in a hurry.  Paws wiped, warming rubdown and up onto the bed.  Where she slammed against John, frantically using the comforter cover to thoroughly erase every remaining trace of rain from her face, legs and body.  Once she’s fully awake, she has no problem going out into the rain.  In fact, I think it invigorates her.  But let’s face it, who wants to get out of a nice warm, cozy bed and take a cold shower first thing in the morning?

At School, the grey days have cast a pall over everyone.  Cleo and I were so busy talking to students that at one point, I had to keep a sick student waiting outside my office, ashen and trembling, while I talked to another who was having an I’ve-completely-over-committed-myself-and-now-I’m-overwhelmed meltdown, using up most of a box of tissues.  On Monday, Cleo played with a student who periodically becomes so exhausted from the daily strain of hiding his depression from his friends that he has to take a break.  He presented himself at our door right before last period.  “Can I sit in here?” he asked me.  “I’m just not feelin’ it.”  Though he didn’t want to talk, he did want to lie on the couch and play tug-of-war with Cleo and her stuffed otter.  “She’s sweet,” he told me succinctly after I asked him to let me know if she was bothering him.  When I next looked over to see how he was doing, he was asleep, one leg hanging over the edge of the cushions.  Cleo slept just above his head, nestled in the pillows on the back of the couch.  When he woke up a while later, the first thing he did was reach up to pat her.  She opened one eye and regarded him with approval. 

Another day, we entertained a champion runner who nearly passed out just after lunch.  Between the fact that his resting heart rate is a mere thirty beats per minute and the careless packing of a lunch that didn’t have enough nutritional content, he wasn’t at his best that afternoon.  He jokingly told me, “Sometimes if I stand up between heartbeats, my brain isn’t happy with me.”  I couldn’t help being a bit of a nag and suggesting that taking the time to pack a lunch that could sustain him through the afternoon might be one of those life skills he’ll need in college next year.  “Yeah,” he said, “my mom keeps saying the same thing.”  A package of noodle soup, an active political conversation (he’s a pragmatic conservative; I’m, let us say, not), and a wonderful tussle with Cleo got him going again.

Perhaps the most touching encounter we had this week was with a young student whose family is moving out of state at the end of the school year.  They are all terribly sad to be leaving, the student most of all, but adults sometimes have to make very hard choices for the whole family, and in this case, they are going where the father has found a good job after several months of anxious unemployment.  The mother confided to me that when they told their boys that they would be moving, our student’s only response was, “But what about School?”  I had refrained from saying anything to him for several weeks, hoping that he would find some equanimity with the inevitable.  On Friday, the student met with me to discuss an essay that he was working on.  As he packed up after our meeting, I decided to tell him how sorry I was that he was leaving.  “Bernie,” I said.  He looked up at me with his habitual grave expression.  “I’m heartbroken that you’re leaving us next year.”  He looked down at his backpack.  I went on, “You are an excellent student and truly a lovely human being.  You embody everything we value at this school.”  He turned sharply away from me, an odd thing to do because he had also turned away from the door.  It dawned on me: I had just made a thirteen-year-old boy cry.  What would embarrass a thirteen-year-old boy more than crying in front of his English teacher?  Probably not much.  There was nowhere to go: I was between him and the door; he was between me and my desk.  I tried to salvage the situation.  “But you know, you will be successful wherever you are.”  Without turning around, he hoisted his enormous backpack, almost bigger than he is, and slung it onto his back.  He stared out the window.  I was desperate!  How could I help him save face?  He flipped the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head.  How could I smooth a road for him out the door without him having to turn around to face me?  It’s not like he could back out of my office.  Suddenly, I saw something click in him.  He lunged forward.  His hand shot out.  What is he doing? flashed through my mind.  Cleo, in her favorite spot on the back of the couch, was the perfect cover!  Why, he couldn’t leave my office without saying goodbye to her, could he?  As he patted her, I looked at the floor and scooted past him, around the edge of my desk, allowing him a clear passage to the door.  He turned, head still down, hood still up, and headed for the door.  “Have a great weekend,” I said, trying to put as much warmth and support into the insipid words as I could.  He grunted and was gone.

I sat down next to Cleo and rested my cheek on her side.  One eyelid opened and she regarded me sleepily.  “You are so good,” I told her.  “You are such a help.  Thank you.”  She heaved a sigh, snuggled her nose further under her arm, and closed her eye with finality.

It’s all in a day’s work.  Wake me when the rain stops.

Is Timmy Happier Than Hamlet? Thank Lassie!

I’ve been thinking a good deal lately about digital connectedness.  Obviously there are lots of reasons to love it.  Without it, I wouldn’t be writing this blog and hearing from people all over the world who read and enjoy the stories of Cleo.  I check out multiple news sources every day without killing a single tree.  If I have a question about some allusion in an article, that question is answered in .13 seconds—I know that because Google tells me so.  For whatever reason, my local supermarket has stopped selling my favorite tea.  I just bought six boxes of it on Amazon and it will be delivered to my door, for free, by Wednesday.  Yesterday morning, I suddenly remembered that I needed to read a book for work; it was on my iPad in less than five minutes.  Missed the first season of Game of Thrones?  No problem!  It can be streaming to your TV in the time it takes to mix the evening cocktail.  I love this stuff!

But with all of these miraculous advantages come some drawbacks.  I remember the days when you’d hear that someone received twenty-five emails in a single day and you figured she was the CEO of a major corporation.  These days, I empty my deleted emails folder every week because I don’t like it when the contents goes above five hundred items.  That’s just the deleted ones; that doesn’t include all the emails I’ve read and filed because they contain information about a particular student or an on-going work project.  It’s not uncommon for a student to contact me with a question over the weekend.  Could the question wait till Monday?  Sure!  But why wait when you can have instant access.  When I first started working at the school, we had a twenty-four hour turnaround policy—teachers and administrators were expected to answer all phone calls and emails within twenty-four hours of receiving them.  Lately, I’ve had parents who emailed me at 10 o’clock at night complain that I haven’t addressed their question by 8 o’clock the next morning.  Even colleagues have cornered me as I walk to the mail room, head out to the washroom, or take the extremely rare lunch break in the faculty room.  “Did you get my email?” they ask.  “I haven’t heard back from you.”  How long ago did they send it?  About half an hour.  There is never a chance to be untethered from the electronic device.

In his book Hamlet’s Blackberry, William Powers reminds his readers of the importance of the pause for reflection.  He writes, “If you’re sitting in the office zipping from e-mail to e-mail to text to Web page to buzzing mobile and back again—that is, doing the usual digital dance—you’re likely losing all kinds of opportunities to reach” the depth of reflection that leads to creativity, to insight, to a meaningful human experience.  He argues that digital devices can actually provide us with moments of connectedness so significant that they can “feed our emotional, social, and spiritual hungers,” but only if we build in gaps that allow us unconnected time to nurture the inner life.

When I first began bringing Cleo to work with me, when she was a tiny puppy with a tiny bladder, a colleague at school who spends a good deal of his time outdoors overseeing the physical aspects of the campus, remarked that he’d never seen me outside so much.  “That’s got to be good for you,” he added.  These days, when a potty break mid-day is all she needs, it’s a fabulous excuse to get me outside and onto the field for a romp with Cleo.  Even on the busiest of days, when the thought of having to take twenty minutes or so to let her pee and run around sniffing at gopher holes fills me with palpitation-causing anxiety, I know I have to go.  Within minutes of breathing in fresh air, of watching those tasseled ears flop, the tongue loll and the mouth gape in a smile, my stress level has dipped below the red line.  After a walk and some play time, I go back to the office or into the classroom refreshed, more patient, more creative, certainly more centered.

The other day, a friend at work sent me a link to an article titled “Man’s Best Friend May Be His Best Co-Worker, Too.”  According to the article, the first quantitative study ever done on the effects of pet dogs in the workplace showed that “Dogs in the workplace can make a positive difference. The differences in perceived stress between days the dog was present and absent were significant. The employees as a whole had higher job satisfaction than industry norms."  Not only was stress reduced, the employees communicated better with each other, they were more cooperative with and supportive of each other, and felt more supported by their employers.  Perhaps dogs provide us with that gap that William Powers champions, that pause for reflection and renewal.  They make us disengage from the cold, hard digital and connect with the furry, warm-tongued analog.  It’s long been known that pets lower our blood pressure, raise our spirits, and generally lead to self-reported higher levels of happiness.  Any dog owner could list dozens of reasons to explain this.

This past week, I made it a practice to sit with Cleo and make a fuss over her every time I returned to the office, whether I’d been away for an hour-long class or just for a quick pop out to the bathroom.  As much as I could, I disengaged from the small screens and took my work to the couch where I could sit next to her as she snoozed or gnawed on a toy.  I tried to build gaps of reflection into my day.  Maybe next week I’ll use the Out of Office feature on my email to send a canned reply: “I am currently away from my computer, communing with my dog.  I will get back to you when I feel like it.”

Okay, maybe not.  But I still vow to disengage from the digital and allow myself the gift of reflection.  With plenty of Cleo time.

Dogton Abbey

In Dogster’s delightfully silly photo essay “If the Characters in Downton Abbey Were Portrayed by Canine Actors, What Breeds Would They Be?” it is the character of the love-starved Lady Edith Crawley who gets to be a Bedlington Terrier.  Now, I say “gets to be,” but Dogster describes the Bedlington like this: “Basically an ugly Poodle.”  I mean, really!  I think I have made my feelings about Poodles (and Poodle owners) fairly clear in blog-posts past, and I reiterate that there isn’t a Poodle alive who is worthy of sniffing a Bedlington’s ear tassel.  Ugly Poodle, indeed!

Then again, beauty is often in the eye of the beholder.  It’s true that when we meet people out on our walks, many will furrow their brows, wrinkle their noses and twist their mouths into sneers before asking, in mystified tones, “Is that some sort of Poodle mix?”  As soon as we answer, “No, she’s a Bedlington Terrier,” their expressions clear into wide-eyed delight.  “Oh!  She’s adorable!” they say (right before adding the ubiquitous lamb comment).  It seems to relieve them that she’s not a Poodle-hybrid of some kind.

And it’s not just Bedlington parents or intelligent passers-by who see the beauty in the Bedlington.  As I may have mentioned, our trainer is not given to flights of fancy where dogs are concerned.  Yes, she will rhapsodize about the nobility of dogs. She’ll lecture on the intelligence of the species.  She’ll talk to us about the absolute necessity of respecting our dogs, of learning to communicate with them, not as mini people, but as the dogs they are.  Yet she never gets all gooshy and squishy about dogs.  Except where Cleo is concerned.   Last week, Cleo and I were in class, practicing figure eights.  Our trainer came over to observe us and of course Cleo gazed at her in rapt adoration.  “Yes, I see you,” Pluis told her warmly.  Then she turned to a woman in our group.  “Isn’t she lovely?” she asked.  “There’s just something about that face.  It’s so cute!  I just want to suck on her nose!”  Okay, ewww, granted.  But it was just such a funny, eccentric thing to say that we all laughed.

At school, there is one student who spends virtually all her free time with Cleo.  Two out of every three of her utterances involve the words “so cute” or “the cutest thing ever.”  It’s not uncommon for me to come back to my office after a class or a meeting to find students clustered around my door observing Cleo.  I’ve given up saying to them, “You know you can go in and pat her!”  The usual response is, “We just want to watch her sleep.  She’s so adorable.” 

She’s not just cute, though, not once you’ve seen her move.  It has been pouring down rain here this week.  During a brief respite yesterday afternoon, we walked Cleo up to the park near our house where there’s a wide open grass lawn that is always empty.  We took off her leash and let her rip.  She warmed up with sprints between Daddy and Mommy, flying from one end of the field to the other, looping wide around one of us, then pelting back to loop around the other.  She ran over to an adjacent lawn next to several barbecue pits, tearing around the circuit at top speed.  Around and around she sped, now circling the edges, now slaloming through the center.  As she banked around the turns, she dug into the lawn and leaned, her shoulder almost brushing the grass.  In the straight-aways, she was airborne, her feet seeming to tap the earth just enough to keep her aloft.  She flattened herself to the ground, grinning, tongue and ears streaming back in the wind of her own making.  She was exultant; we were exhilarated.  At the end of one circuit, instead of banking, she launched, up and over a waist high wall that divides the park from the sidewalk.  She cleared it without the least sign of strain.  I had no idea she could jump that high.  The terrifying picture of her dashing into the street (empty though it was) made me shout, “No!”  Instantly, she came to a dead stop and turned to face me, tongue lolling.  The leash safely clipped on and our steps headed back home, I said to John, “I’ve got to get her back into agility classes.”  The beauty of that grace and easy athleticism is kind of awe inspiring.  You feel as if you’re not doing your Bedlington justice if you don’t provide an outlet for that extraordinary natural talent.

To be completely honest, though, I haven’t been a hundred percent complimentary about her looks since last Thursday.  For two grooming cycles, we were trying out a new groomer.  She didn’t pan out, so we returned to our original groomer.  By the time he was able to fit her in, Cleo was looking pretty shaggy.  For whatever reason, he took her hair down very, very short, including on her face which is now pointy rather than having the distinctive Bedlington curve.  She looks like a fuzzy pterodactyl.  At least that’s what I’ve been calling her since last Thursday.  It doesn’t seem to faze her in the least.  Cleo isn’t image conscious; she’s just a little lovey snuggle girl.

Bedlington Terrier

Pterodactyl

After their misguided first sentence, the dogster people go on to say, “Loyal to a fault, hard-working, and just wants someone to notice. Longs to curl up at your (or anyone's) feet and finally be loved.”  Most of that is absolutely right.  The only part I’d argue with is the last phrase.  “Finally be loved?”

 That’s true for Lady Edith, but not for Bedlingtons.  Who can resist loving them the instant one lays eyes on them?

Crate-Gate

In this space, my goal has always been to depict the day to day pleasures, challenges and rewards of life with Cleo.  Though I may, from time to time, drop allusions about politics or my political leanings, I avoid taking this divisive topic head on.  I hope it’s clear, then, that the subject of today’s blog, Seamus the Irish Setter, is in no way intended to be political commentary.  Rather, I hope we can look at the now famous event from the human standpoint without falling into camps of defending or attacking a Republican presidential candidate or even trying to evaluate whether the event has bearing on his suitability for either the race or the office.  Honestly, as a dog lover, I just didn’t feel I could continue to neglect this subject.  If you think you might be offended by a frank discussion of what some have called Seamusgate, please stop reading now.  I promise, I won’t be hurt and will be happy to welcome you back next week.  I’ll give you a moment to click the close button.

Okay, it’s just us now.  Thanks for coming along for the ride.  So to speak.

In case you haven’t heard much about this story, let me give a quick recap.  In 1983, Mitt Romney, his wife Ann, and their five sons set out from Boston for a family vacation in Ontario, a twelve hour road trip.  They loaded the back of the station wagon with their luggage, then hoisted Seamus and his dog crate onto the car’s roof, strapping it firmly in place.  This wasn’t a spur of the moment decision.  In fact, Romney had created what he calls a “windshield” for the front of the crate.  Some time during the twelve hours, one of the Romney lads noticed that a brown liquid was running down the rear window.  The family pulled over at a rest stop, realized that Seamus had developed explosive diarrhea, pulled him out of the crate, hosed the car down, hosed the dog down, then put him back in his crate and finished the drive.

So what might that experience have been like for Seamus?  Romney has described the crate as “airtight.”  He probably didn’t mean that precisely.  For one thing, there is no such thing as an airtight pet crate today and there wasn’t one in 1983.  After all, a truly airtight pet crate wouldn’t be particularly popular as it would suffocate the animal inside.  So, yes, there was a handmade “windshield” protecting Seamus from the impact of wind coming directly from the front.  But anyone who has ridden in the back seat of a car with the windows down—even a bit—knows how much wind comes in from the sides, despite the car’s windshield.  In fact, a Nobel prize-winning physicist has said that the crate itself would have created turbulence, changing the airflow over the top of the car.  Wind diverted around the sides of the “windshield” would enter into the crate through the side vents and “would buffet the side of the dog.”  For twelve hours.  Even with the crate for protection, the speed of the car would exert ten pounds of air pressure on Seamus’ head, essentially making him feel like he had a three pound weight pressing on him during all of the highway portions of the ride.  On top of all this, he was hosed down with cold water at the rest stop and sent back into the wind. 

And what about that brown liquid?  Had Seamus just eaten something that upset his stomach?  Or was he literally scared s_________?  In the many, many times I’ve seen this event discussed and described, it’s been really rare that anyone has mentioned noise.  What would it have sounded like, passing an eighteen wheeler?  I find them loud and scary even with my car window up, and I understand what those rumbling behemoths really are.

Some folks have suggested that Seamus’ experience would have been no different from riding in the back of a pickup truck.  I can’t agree with that.  In this instance, size matters.  In the bed of a pickup, a dog can move around.  The pickup’s cab is significantly more substantial and cuts far more wind than the handmade “windshield.”  The high sides of the truck bed would provide shelter for a dog that wanted to curl up and take a nap.  It would probably be just as loud passing a semi-truck, but somehow, the dog in the steel pickup seems far less exposed than the one in the plastic crate atop a station wagon, hurtling down the highway.

In no discussion of Seamusgate has a Romney ever said, “Oh, you know, we trained Seamus to ride in the crate on top of the car.  Gosh, we spent months getting him used to being up there, taking short trips around the neighborhood, then gradually working up to the highways and byways.”  Preparation went as far as making the “windshield,” but never entailed acclimating the dog to the plan. 

Cleo rides in a crate when we drive, too.  Inside the car, of course.  She has a soft blanket to curl up on.  The idea, obviously, is that if we ever have an accident, she will be in a contained and protected space; she won’t be thrown about.  There have been a couple times I’ve had to stop short, slam on the brakes.  Had she not been in the crate, she would have gone flying.  As it was, her nose bonked the front, which probably didn’t feel terrific, but wasn’t life threatening.

She has been riding in a car as long as I’ve known her, and still, from time to time she whimpers or grumbles as we accelerate on the freeway or navigate a twisty road.  She’s on a cozy blanket, inside her familiar crate, inside a closed car.  Every time she whines, I think of Seamus, unheard on the roof, his family out of reach below him, and my heart aches.  

Angels with Wet Noses

Whenever someone rhapsodizes about their Lab, their Australian Shepherd, their Shih Tzu, I always smile and make encouraging remarks.  It’s so important that people love their puppy dogs.  But I know the truth:  Bedlington Terriers are the best dogs there are, and Cleo is the cream of the crop. 

Of course, I recognize that people have different needs in dogs and that what charms me about Bedlingtons might irritate someone else.  Granted, the irritated person couldn’t possibly be in their right mind, but nevertheless.  Even our trainer, who was recently celebrated as the AKC’s pick for both trainer of the year and breeder of the year, leaned down to Cleo during class the other evening and whispered, “I would take you home in a heartbeat!”  Anyway, it’s pointless even to try to explain the perfections of one’s pet because whoever hears you will just smile and make encouraging remarks, but will never understand that your dog really is the height of perfection.

For the last few nights, Cleo has had to be on her own while John played at one venue or another and I performed a staged reading of a play at a local theater.  Cleo is pretty relaxed about being left alone.  Though she always gazes at us in disbelief as we walk out the door without her, it’s clear that when she hears the car drive away, she makes a nest out of the blanket on the chaise in the living room, then curls up and naps until we get home.  As we walk back through the door, she lifts her sleep-rumpled face and checks that it’s us, then rolls over onto her back and exposes her tummy for a good rub.  That done, she scrambles to her feet and wraps her arms around my neck, giving my face a good once-over with a wet tongue.

Last night, Saint Patrick’s Day (Saint Patrick’s Night?), John’s gig went much longer than mine.  His band played till midnight, then the packing up and the drive home put it close to 1 AM by the time he called me to report in on the success of the evening.  During the three hours that Cleo and I had been home alone together—other than a couple trips outside, once to relieve herself and once to patrol for intruding wildlife—she had followed me from one room to another, plunking herself down somewhere comfortable while I did whatever it was I was engaged in.  When John called, we were in the middle of an active game of indoor fetch.  The rules for this game are that Cleo and I sit on the chaise and when I throw a toy, she launches herself after it (remaining airborne for several feet), grabs it, then scrambles back to the chaise to tag me with it and a cold, wet nose. 

She had just flung herself after a particularly good toss when my cell phone rang.  I have a distinct ring tone just for John.  Until that moment, I hadn’t realized that Cleo has learned to recognize that ring tone—the introduction to “Here Comes the Sun.”  But as soon as it started, she whirled around and looked at me.  As I picked up my phone, she hopped back onto the chaise beside me, curled up and stared at the door.  Behaviorists say that dogs don’t have much sense of time, but Cleo knows that sometime after that song plays, Daddy comes through the door.  Though the venue where John was playing was just down the hill on Cannery Row, it took him several minutes to get home.  While she waited, Cleo put her head down and closed her eyes.  When I knew he was close, I said to her, “Daddy’s almost home.”  Up she sat, staring at the door once more.  As we heard him pull into the driveway, Cleo pranced over to the door, tail wagging gently, ready to let her daddy know that he’d been missed.

It seems odd to say, but Cleo’s level of intellectual engagement with us is a source of constant wonder.  She surprises us daily.  And I have to smile when I think of the changes in my sweetheart.  From the man who never wanted to have another dog to the playmate who races around the house at top speed, leaping over furniture in a wild game of keepaway.  From the loving husband who resignedly told me, “Honey, I understand if you want to get a puppy” to the adoring puppy-daddy whom Cleo presses herself against for an extra snuggle every morning. 

Sure, I think Cleo is the Angel of Perfection, but I know that the folks talking to me about their Lab, their Aussie, their Shih Tzu think that their little darling is, too.  And that makes life pretty sweet.

The Dog Owner's Dilemma

There are certain challenges inherent to sharing one’s life with a dog when one has chosen not to eat animals.

The other day,  I was shopping for a chew toy for Cleo, something that would keep her entertained during meetings when she needed to lie down and not interact with people.  Plastics are out: They either completely fail to interest her or they’re so soft she burns through them in a half hour and risks choking to death on the oversized chunks she gnaws off of them.  Rawhide is out: I’ve heard too many horror stories about pieces getting lodged in dogs’ intestines, slimy strips slipping down dogs’ throats and strangling them, or contaminated samples that cause sickness and death.  Bully sticks are out: I might be able to deal with the fact that they’re made from bull penises, but I can’t deal with the rank smell that wafts from Cleo’s mouth after she’s been slobbering on them.  Bones, of course, are out: I don’t know of any vet who thinks they’re a good idea, though few pet supply stores fail to carry them.  She loves Booda Bones, but they’re short-term entertainment, not enough for those three hour meetings.  She also loves her rope chew toys (the doggie version of dental floss), but only when one end is being held by a human; in her mind, they’re not for solo play. 

Now clearly, given the obvious fact that I must have provided bully sticks (though not rawhide or bones) to Cleo in the past in order to know what her breath smells like after she’s been chewing them, the problem is not that I’m completely averse to providing animal products to my dog.  I am under no misapprehension about dogs; they are meat eaters and must be meat eaters to get the full nutrition they require.  Human beings, the remarkable survivors that we are, may be omnivores who, barring certain medical conditions, can get all the protein and other nutrients we need without ingesting a single animal.  Dogs just aren’t built that way.  Cleo’s food—both canned and kibble—is made of meat: turkey, duck, chicken, venison, salmon, beef and even lamb.  I would be lying if I said it doesn’t bother me.  I feel guilty, even pained, every time I restock the puppy larder.  But as deeply as I feel about not eating animals, my love for Cleo runs far deeper.  And so, the best I can do is mitigate our impact on the animal population. 

My personal choice to stop eating animals sprang from three main concerns.  The planet cannot sustain the number of food animals necessary to feed a world of meat eaters, from the vast amount of water necessary to produce one pound of meat to the noxious fecal pools that neighbor every factory farm, spewing methane into the air and drastically increasing global warming.  My second concern has to do with the way factory farmed animals suffer their miserable existences.  While I can seek out farms and ranches that prove that their animals didn’t suffer during their lives, that only takes me to my third concern.  Other than a handful of privately run, family owned facilities, slaughterhouses are nightmares of atrocities, for the animals brought there to die and for the humans who work there.  So the answer for me personally was to stop eating animals.

And yet, Cleo needs animal protein in order to survive and thrive.  Anybody know of dog food that guarantees that it is made from animals that lived and died humanely?  I read labels.  I haven’t found any yet.  I suppose the answer is to make my own dog food from guaranteed happy meat.  Is kibble baked?

So anyway, there I am prowling the treat aisles at our local Pet Food Express, picking up and putting back one long-lasting chew treat after another.  This one Cleo wouldn’t like, that one is too dangerous, a third makes me feel too guilty.  Finally, I am holding two packages.  One is some kind of remarkable sirloin jerky that I think Cleo would love.  The other is dried bison Achilles tendons.  I stand debating for several minutes.  Finally, I choose the bison bits.  I know how cattle are slaughtered and I can’t bring myself to buy the sirloin.  I hope that the bison lived happy lives roaming what’s left of some Wyoming plain, then, because they are different and exotic, had to be slaughtered by someone who really knew what he was doing and made it quick and painless.  I admit, it’s a pretty slim hope.

When I got home, I plucked a tendon from the bag and presented it to Cleo thinking that it would be a good opportunity to test how long the chew fest might last.  She sniffed it, looked at me, sniffed it again, then very gingerly took it in her mouth and backed up.  She stared at me for another moment.  Then she trotted into one of the back bedrooms.  “Aha,” I thought, “she’s off to start a good gnaw.”  Within minutes, she was back, empty handed—well, empty jawed.  She strolled into the living room, curled up and went to sleep. 

For the next several days, each evening after we got home from work, she would move her treasure from one hiding place to another.  When she is being sneaky, when she’s stolen a pair of socks from the laundry hamper, for example, she tiptoes past us, making a distinctive tick, tick, tick, tick with her claws on the hardwood floors.  As she moves her bison bit, she uses the same gait, casting sidelong glances at us as she sneaks by.  A few times, it has turned up tucked into the space between the refrigerator and the sliding glass door that leads to the side yard.  Once I discovered her standing on our bed, trying to hide the thing underneath my pillow.  For a couple days it disappeared altogether, only to resurface (literally) clenched in the mud-covered maw of a triumphant Cleo.  The worst time was the rainy day last weekend when I came home from a conference in Seattle ready to curl up on the chaise with a book and the little girl I had keenly missed.  Without stopping to wonder why the blanket was so oddly smushed against the back of the chaise, I yanked it up and sent the gnarly animal part, spinning end over end, into my lap.  I’m not too proud to admit that I squealed like a twelve-year-old girl, although I did manage to remove it from my lap with nothing stronger than an “oh, yuck!”  All this time, though, she had not left a single tooth mark on it.  Clearly it is a prized possession, but I had given up any hope that it would ever be put to the purpose for which I bought it.

At some point this afternoon, I realized that Cleo had been outside for an uncharacteristically long time.  I peeked out the glass door.  There she was, sprawled on the Dichondra in the dappled sun.  Her front paws clutched one end of the tendon as she gnawed happily away at the other.  As I watched, her rear end went up into the air, her elbows still on the ground as she maneuvered for better leverage, bringing her back teeth to the job of pulverizing that bison tendon.  Cleo, the happy meat eater.  I don’t know how long it kept her busy.  When I checked on her a bit later, she’d either polished it off or buried it again.  I’m not sure that it fills the bill as entertainment during a meeting, but I do know she has enjoyed the thrill of possessing such a frontier treasure.

I guess all I can do is say, “Thank you, Bison, for your sacrifice.  You have brought great joy to this wolf in lamb’s clothing.”

Cleo and her frontier treasure