“Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.”
Orhan Pamum, My Name is Red
“The conclusion I have reached is that, above all, dogs are witnesses. They are allowed access to our most private moments. They are there when we think we are alone. Think of what they could tell us. They sit on the laps of presidents. They see acts of love and violence, quarrels and feuds, and the secret play of children. If they could tell us everything they have seen, all of the gaps of our lives would stitch themselves together.”
Carolyn Parkhurst, The Dogs of Babel
My place is a place of dogs. With its many meandering trails, its circuitous rivers, and duck-populated lakes, it is the sanctum of canine blessedness. I have never gone from one point to any other, regardless of the mode of conveyance, without encountering at least one dog. Most usually, many more.
There is fat Frank, an old black labrador whose girth is substantial and whose gait is wobbly and dawdling. His tail continually wags back and forth in a drowsy, sweeping constancy as though it is the key that has wound him up - and he will go and go until it stops. His owner plods along with him, letting him set the pace - slow enough to read her book as they go.
There is yappy, impertinent little Buddy, a self-important Pug. He has something to say about everyone and everything. His perch is the upper floor deck of a house that faces onto the street, his window on the world. He has political opinions, views about his consternation about what is happening in the neighborhood, and a general curmudgeon attitude. On the occasions that he is taken for a walk, he pulls vigorously at the end of his leash, rushing from here to there to push his flattened nose into all businesses.
There is three-legged Cody- a mutt of indiscernible heritage. He has been a dog of three (legs) for most of his life. He moves faster and is more agile than most four-legged dogs I know. His enthusiasm for life is palpable - he is like a sparking, electrical charge at the end of his lead.
There is a white Malti-Poo sort of dog that walks with his elderly lady friend daily past our yard. I watch them sometimes as they take their interminable time to walk past. The dog likes to stop at our yard to do his business. Sometimes the elderly lady notices I am watching. She makes a great show of pulling out a plastic bag, pulling it over her hands like a surgeon with his latex gloves. She holds her hand up in the air in preparation and then bends to the task. She makes a further show of scooping, and twirling, and tying - and with a great flourish, places the bag in her pocket. What !?! When I go out later, the poop is still there, not picked up at all.
Then there is Rocky, a powerful and belligerant Boxer. He is usually confined to the yard but on the occasions that he is left to run in the park, he has beaten up every dog he has met. He is like a big kid desperate for friends but prone to every social faux pas imaginable. His idea of play is everyone else’s idea of assault. He just needs an understanding friend. Kind of like Winnie the Pooh has his Piglet.
Out on the dykes, the dogs encountered are predominantly of the sporting type. There are balls and sticks and ducks to be fetched out of ponds and sloughs. In November there are fetid, stinking Salmon carcasses to roll in, the height of exultation and jubilance. It is a special place for dogs. Young puppies scuttle after butterflies and slugs, mid-aged dogs carry large sticks with great purpose and ambition, trotting along the trail leading their owners to the ‘sweet spots’. And old dogs shamble along - aching and wheezing, lifting their grizzled faces to the sun-warmed azure skies; inhaling deeply the essential odours of hay, and rabbits, and manure, and fish, and ducks, dandelions, and turtles - and thinking that life is pretty good.
And that when they do finally have to go, heaven is right here - in this place.
No comments:
Post a Comment