Portrait of a Fine Dog

Portrait of a Fine Dog
A few ramblings written to stave off the wave of coming loss as our lovely friend Viggo was declining from Liver and Pancreatic Cancer. We had 6 weeks with him before his body couldn’t hold him anymore.

29th August, 2012, Wednesday
As I sit in the shaft of sun at my desk this afternoon a bit swirly with the grief bullet headed straight for the place in my heart all those of us who love dogs have, I thought I should finally write his story.

It is not a story with any sky rocketing deed which sets him apart from all the other beloved noble dog companions throughout human history. But it is his story. And rather than just weep and wait for the inevitable to hit him I thought channeling the energy to tell his tale would be something I could do to mark him as the great spirit he is in my life.

A week ago he wobbled in my dining room. Just wobbled. Then stumbled. And looked at me with those golden eyes which had gripped me when they were an agate blue at 7 weeks old as he lay atop his brothers in his chain link puppy kennel nine swift years ago. The gaze steady, calm, powerful, knowing bore right into me. This was not a “take me home” beckoning glance. It was a window into the still peace inside this small creature. I at the time hungered for stillness so badly. I said, “That One.”

Nine years later, he has grown the things his genes carry to usher his body into rest. And the news is heavy in my heart. Bear with this tale as it will help me bear the loss, please. I promise, you will love him too and he will live with all of us in these words.

He had happened because a dear friend had heard me talk of wanting another dog. I had 2 wolfhounds at the time and did not want another one. Brecon, then aged 9, already ancient for a wolfhound, and Cu aged 3.

Brecon had been the runt of a mistaken and huge litter in a truly “cracker” world in the back woods outside Tampa, Florida. He had crawled through the milling sea of 20 little girl wolfhound pups all 8 weeks old that were his siblings to come to rest on top of my feet. I was six months pregnant at the time with my youngest at the time. My oldest was just 8 years old and she insisted on this little single boy who was so much smaller than the rest of them. His tale is a part of this one’s in that Brecon was the elder and a wolfhound both of which ended up being lovely checks for the intrepid nature inherent in a German Shepherd pup.

Cu was the Gentle Giantess in everyway. Huge at over 130 pounds and cream colored, she was always deferential to anyone or anything else and this pup ran rough shod over her gentle nature. One of the pup’s favorite pastimes was grabbing hold of the end of Cu’s very long tail with his needle sharp teeth and gnawing away. She would not challenge him for this activity. I spayed her early on and I think she really tried to be mother to this young bearlike pup which in her soul mandated she let him do whatever the hell he felt like to her. Ah, mothers with the instinct NOT to correct their beautiful sons.

5th September, 2012

It is another in a series of beautiful clear days in this late summer of my first year living in the woods in the Pacific Northwest. As I live with and tend to my animal pack, I am more and more aware of how each of their spirits teaches me lessons.

I am, afterall, human and was birthed by people who in various cultured ways had modeled for me the ways of domination which they used to survive. This pup taught me a very poignant lesson about my own brutal nature, both as a reflection of its strength and as its capacity to source a violent response from something it threatened so severely it warranted self-defense.

I had never had a German Shepherd before. I knew a few people who had had them. When I was very young, my sister’s husband had a heroic legendary Shepherd, appropriately named Thor, who had, among other astounding feats of sensitive response, saved his beloved Steve from drowning in the surf off Malibu Beach.

I had accrued over the years without any formal instructions a kitchen soup collection of dog training techniques. As I committed to the idea of a German Shepherd pup, some man who did not know me well and who had dominance issues of his own had told me, “This is going to end badly. You have to be a very strong person to harness a Shepherd.” This illicited in me quite a typical response which was to be even more determined to have this shepherd pup.

But of course something in what he said shot through to my fear zone as I had never raised a member of the three main aggressive breeds I was secretly terrified I would illicit aggression from this pup over time. That fear was key.

Despite this the decision was made and the pup was ours. My oldest daughter, her best friend (both beautiful 17 year olds and closet nerds), my youngest daughter about to be 9, and my future husband all packed into my red Passat Wagon with the pup nestled in between the three girls drove him home. Ever since that fateful trip to his new home he has never been happier than in the arms of his girls.

He was eight weeks old. A bear of a pup. Floppy ears as shepherd ears do not stand up until they reach about three months. Teeth like razors, sharper than any other breed I have ever experienced. And catlike grace. We had a flight of stairs off our back deck to our fenced in yard and the pup learned how to climb those risers in seconds. He used his paws to explore those risers the way a cat explores. His agility was astonishing. His motion up those stairs was like water defying gravity.

And puppy breath. Oh. The most intoxicating smell in my olifactory universe for sure. With this pup at this age the pleasure of the breath had to hard won as his teeth were always a part of the experience.
The most beautiful paws, oh so soft but always busy.

His breath is stale and his teeth are large, a bit yellowed and chipped. His huge body magnificently coated with thick sable endlessly shedding has stiffened. His inherent fluid grace only hinted shadow as he walks. He is old for himself. Age has come to weight him.

His head has a gold velvet pillow between the ears which as they stood first so long ago as large as they are now on the head still yet 3 months old were like satellite dishes as they caught the noises of his world as he learned them.

The weekend before, our first weekend with the pup had been my youngest ninth birthday. Tim had come with his camera to document the lovely exchange his beloved girls were having with their new friend. Those pictures are hysterical. The pup had a biting frenzy as Ellen and I tried to handle him softly. This was not his cuddle moment. His teeth were demanding challenge and our fingers knees dresses toes whatever those ivory needles could find purchase on were fair chew territory he claimed. We both had to stand up for fear of major trauma as his chomps would not stop. I had a moment, not the only one I might add, where the thought crossed my mind that he was a devil of a dog. Hence time for the trainer.

I found a trainer. A woman. Positive Reinforcement. Had no idea other than of all the training methods this was thought to be less evocative of aggression.

Amanda is a tall slender woman with a cascade of thick grey hair. She arrived at my gate as the pup jumped to greet her and she immediately crossed her arms and pointed her face to the sky. He dropped his front paws to the ground and the treat hidden in her hand dropped to his mouth as she uttered the word ”yes”. He has never jumped on another human since.

She taught him the “bridge”, that sound a human makes as the dog gives the behavior one wants before the treat is gifted so their brains which work at light speed do not get distracted with the other signals we give in a nano second they are trying to read and we do not know we even send them. He learned the bridge so joyfully and his focus on Amanda and her bag of treats was so total I was completely jealous. She taught sit in 30 seconds.

Then is was my turn. Different story, me. I have no timing and a brain which argues with everything someone else tells me is true if I do not already know it. This was the first of many lessons at this time in my life where I learned to listen as I did not have all the answers and I could grow again.

As I saw the delight in this unruly body of fur and teeth and claws which I had already rued the day I brought them into my peaceful lovely house, I was smitten. Oh, the light in his eyes and the eagerness with which he wanted to continue this game which trained him with the needed sit for me and the godlike treat for him was something my heart leapt at.
But…the old theme of human animal interaction needing dominance as part of the exchange with dog kept pushing its caution in my head. It couldn’t be right to train him with treats and no “No”. How could it be that I was not to use the word “no” as he tore up my yard’s miles of drip line, my bedspread, the long suffering wolfhound’s tail end and worst of all as he came to eat my feet if they were uncovered. This was “sparing the rod” wasn’t it. And this child could be on his way to being a monster quite literally.

Amanda told me no. She came four times altogether over a 4 week period. In those sessions I was given the key to happy dogs with big teeth who love humans. And without knowing it, I started on the retrofitting of my own parenting faults.

29th September, 2012, Saturday

As I walked with Cara in the forest yesterday, he was with us. He was in the leaf filtered sunlight streaming in between the trees. That golden dun color like the California hills in late summer is the color of his velvet thatch which shed a full floor coat every seven days.

My dear friend who came into my life to clean my house kept breaking the vacuum cleaners at an astounding rate. But his coat was mythically abundant.

The house in California where he was raised was built into a hillside. It had a huge deck with stairs going down a story to the half acre backyard which was largely Viggo’s outside world. Nine years ago when he came I remember trying to find shade underneath the early trees which had been planted by the builder two years before. The tress were as tall as I am and the circle of shade at midday they offered this young active dog was about twelve inches in diameter. Nine years later as we said goodbye in the spring those trees had grown to fifty feet at least and the shade they offered left little sunlight to the struggling grass.

He had shared his yard with three Irish Wolfhounds, two of whom helped raise him, two Scottish Deerhound pups he raised as well as two miniature Dachshunds he also raised. He was always the constant. The cast shifted as my daughters cycled through their joint custody weeks with me /weeks away, my husband staying overnight as we courted to moving in with his cat, and the dogs aging and passing or growing and proving to not be good citizen material.

And the cats. There was a cat who adopted us as we moved in. He had been abandoned in the house at the bottom of the driveway. He stalked us for a few days and then as we were delivering our garbage can to the bottom of the driveway, he came out and spoke. I spoke back to this feline character appearing in the dim light of late December California afternoon. His voice was rowly and deep as he spoke to me again. As we passed him by on our way back up our very steep driveway he was quite vocal in his objection that we should leave his formidable and striking presence.

He followed us up the hill.

I decided to offer him some turkey. My husband to be shook his head as he, being the Cat God, knew well, would bind me to this creature I knew nothing about. The kitty left as soon as the turkey had been consumed.

I was till smoking at this stage of my life. My father’s death and my divorce coming so rapidly on top of eachother had left me vulnerable to that slender friend. But that is another story altogether. I would smoke out on the deck overlooking the hillside at the bottom of which was the Kitty’s house. The cigarette I had at dusk would be barely lit when I would hear faintly in the distance that dusky voice calling. It would become louder and louder if I answered it. And then he would appear formed in the dim gray light at the bottom garden gate. He would leap it and be on the deck at my feet in no time. I had an old trestle table made from a Mexican barn door and an ox yoke on the deck. I would make my offering to the kitty of the kitty food I had found which he liked and we would sit smoking eating and talking for a time and then he would disappear.

This went on for several weeks on this schedule. He seemed then not to be interested in coming in the house. But I was concerned that he had been abandoned. Tim, the Cat God, went and investigated the house at the bottom of the drive. It was indeed empty but there seemed some indication the kitty had access to the inside through a cat door and there was food left for him there. I left a not on the door saying that if anyone knew what his circumstances were I was interested as he and I had gotten to know eachother and he was spending a fair amount of time up at my house up the hill. A few days later my phone rang. The Kitty’s story was that he had raised a family of children now in their thirties, husband and wife had divorced. The kitty had stayed with husband in the house. Hisband had moved out and left kitty and wife was checking on him while the house was being sold. Long and short, the kitty needed a home, yes.

I asked if she would continue feeding him as he had not gotten completely comfortable with staying at my house and I would like to let him choose when he wished to live with me.

A few weeks later at his usual hour of visitation, we coaxed him into the bedroom sliding glass door. He headed straight for the bed. He would sleep all day and then leave at dusk. This went on for another couple of months and then finally he was in the room on and off all day and night. We rigged a wooden rod in the track for the door so it was only wide enough for him to go in and out. This suited him just fine. While in the house he would only be on the bed in the bedroom and he would summarily leave if asked to enter into the rest of the house. This went on for another several weeks until he decided that the house was his own and walked through the bedroom door into the rest of the house and within a day had claimed all of it for his own.

This whole process probably took all of eight months for this kitty to decide his new territory was the one I offered him. I was so pleased to have been able to give him the grace of the open door and access to the other house for how ever long he needed it.

So this aged cat’s reaction to this large pup in the cat’s newly claimed territory was integral to how beautifully adapted this large very curious german shepherd developed into a respecter of smaller creatures.

We well aware quite early on how upset Wild Kitty was at the presence of the pup. My husband had cut a dowel to palce in the track of our bedroom slider which left a gap just wide enough for wild Kitty to come through at his pleasure but certainly not wide enough for anything wider than a cat. He wouldn’t come in the house until the pup was secured and asleep in his crate. Wild Kitty would be gone at daybreak before the pup woke up.

Wild Kitty had history and although we would never find out exact details, evidence started showing up on our bedroom floor.

We crated this pup when we left the house. The pup’s crate was in our bedroom. All our dogs are housebroken by being crated in our bedroom. The instinct of the den is what we are trying to invoke here. So far it has worked beuatifully for the last 20 years as all our animals sleep in our room. The crate came in handy as it served as a time our space when the pup was too rowdy, a safe contained space at night just in case his very busy jaws found things they shouldn’t, and it served as the perfect contained space for when we had to leave the house and couldn’t take him with us

The pup, Viggo, was destined to be large. Velvet paws were almost as big as the palm of my hand. I have large hands for a woman. I would massage his paws with the hidden agenda of looking for foxtails.

Anyway, one day I came home from running errands and went into the bedroom to let Viggo out of his crate. As I ment down to unlatch ther gate on the crate, I noticed something like hamburger on the rug just in front of the crate. Upon closer inspection, I realized the red peices were the remnants of organs from a tiny mammmal. And Wild Kitty was sitting on the bed observing us cleaning his face. I cleaned up the remnants of whatever wee soul had been dispatched and moved on to the rest of my evening.

The next day, arriving home again I found some traces of murder right infront of the crate. And again Wild Kitty sat on the bed watching me clean up what could only have been his handy work. I gave it a bit more puzzle this time than I had the day before. I noticed that as the pup exited his crate he did not look at the cat and all but raced to the door to be let out. He had not interest in the spot where the traces of mayhem had lain.

It was the next day I finally realized what was happening. Again arriving home I went into the bedroom but this time, Wild Kitty was in the throes of Dahmer like vivisection of a wee mouse right in front of Viggos’s crate. The cat was a bit miffed at my arrival as it disrupted his concentration and the wee mouse had enough life to use the break of Kitty murder focus to skeedaddle. I of course interfered and chsed the see thing out the slider screeching. Wild Kitty exited the sider in hot pursuit of the wee thing.