Four-Legged Stories
Lessons of the Dog
After God finished creating the world, wiping it out and starting it up again, choosing a flock to shepherd, and getting born, He spends his time, I believe, matching dogs to their people, so they can guide us, watch over us, protect us and teach us. This is not New Age, earthy-crunchy hugger-mugger. Dogs can guide us to or through anything, from navigating streets for the blind to finding anything from cancer to dead animals in the ground. Bring a dog into your house, and it will set up a triple-cordon defensive perimeter; you will never not know when someone id approaching. Pay close attention to the laziest napping dog, and you will likely see that the dog has sight lines to all of the entrances to the room. And protecting us? The heroine of this story has been known to put all 16 pounds of herself in-between danger and those she loves. But the greatest of these Canis domesticus gifts is what they teach us.
The first lesson is that if you want to play toy or fetch, at some point you have to drop the ball or the toy from your mouth. A good lesson for everyone. And the greatest lesson of the dog is the observation of how little it takes to put a fellow being into a state of bliss or ecstasy.
= = =
“Bag! Bag!” Caleb didn’t have to say it more than twice. Jubilee came running. He didn’t have to say it at all, really; if Caleb was home and the sun was over the faux yardarm on the park flagpole, Jubilee would eventually be scrambling around the two-bedroom apartment to find and sniff the pink Snoozer handlebar dog basket. It was time to go exploring. Twenty-five miles pedaling the original Trek 400 bicycle, with the helicomatic gearing, for Caleb, with Jubilee like the Queen of Sheba in a sedan chair, smiling at her adoring fans from the basket, with two miles of hiking and running for the dog in the middle of the trip. Today, the Little Red Lighthouse. Caleb loved the trip up to Washington Heights. He remembered his dad telling him the story of how the school kids in New York were organized to write letters and send their pennies to keep the obsolete landmark intact even though the George Washington Bridge was being built on top of it. There was even a little book about the value of the piece of history with a heroic arc; the light was no longer needed, but the blaring Trump of Doom could keep ships safe from the rocks in even the deepest of fogs.
And being this far uptown, Caleb thought he might run into Jeff from his old Inwood neighborhood. Runners could run with ankle and wrist weights to get some extra burn, but that doesn’t work for cyclists; most of the energy expenditure is cutting through the air; double your bike speed and you need eight times as much energy to fight the drag. But Jeff was a cyclist’s cyclist, and he needed something to maximize his workout. So he would ascend the steepest parts of Manhattan, Indian Hill Park and Fort Tryon Park, while singing, full-throated, Beethoven’s Choral, the Ode to Joy. Quite a manifestation to see – and hear – Jeff go by.
Jubilee, barely out of puppyhood, was a dog of Caleb’s, well, not exactly old age, but of that pre-old period in which you get mail from AARP every few weeks. A free-climber in his youth, Caleb was happy to take Jubilee exploring from the boulder piles keeping the Hudson River from eroding Manhattan’s priceless real estate, to 300 feet up through steeply graded forest to where business, machines, and people held sway.
“Let’s go, Doodlebugs, time to see what they’re catching.” Caleb thought that Jubilee must have caught the fishing bug from his wife Harmony’s dad, a dedicated Long Island weekend fisherman. Time to go down the rocks to the water. It never failed to amaze and enrapture Caleb every time the pair took on the precarious and slimy rocks from the lighthouse to the water. Caleb was starting to get slowed down by his osteoarthritis, but Jubilee would have none of it. Somehow, she was always able to pick out a route which was easiest for both her and him.
“Arf! Grr, Arf!” Jubilee announced herself to the literally motely crew casting their lines into the same water the Half Moon traveled 400 years earlier. It looked like the striped bass were running. Caleb got a kick out of that. Years before, after Manhattan’s West Side Highway collapsed, every contractor along the Northeast Seaboard was salivating at the thought of bidding to replace the elevated roadway with a proper stretch of super-highway, and as a sweetener, a cross-town leg replacing Canal Street. The problem with Manhattan is that while you can go up it and down it, you just can’t get across it at more than six miles per hour. The project was named Westway. But to Tribeca, Chelsea, and Greenwich Village residents, it would always be NoWay.
People fought the good fight, as always, but there was just no possibility of turning down a waterfall of Washington, well, Washingtons, Lincolns, Hamiltons, and especially Franklins. Finally, the folks in favor of preserving the riverfront -- newly cleaned due to superfund projects, capable of sustaining healthy marine life, acceptable for swimming and kayaking -- played their last card: endangerment of the striped bass habitat. That was the play that won the game; we now have the world’s largest recreation pier system, five miles of beautiful cycle paths, parks, and dog runs. And, of course, a source of Caleb’s favorite sushi, Suzuki – Striped Bass. And we were saved from the joker in the deck: Had New York City gone ahead with the project, they would have fallen into a $3 billion dollar hole to make one of the East River bridges six inches wider in each lane.
Jubilee was tentatively putting her paw in the water; she would never swim, but she loved shores of any kind. She started licking the seaweed on the bottom row of the rocks. And then, there it was: the nub wag. Paydirt. This time it was a dead seagull in between some rocks, covered by leaves washing downhill. Caleb never knew what Jubilee thought he should do with these finds. He suspected Jubilee didn’t know either. Maybe it was a dog thing, show the pack leader your tracking skills. But it made her do the heiny-dance like nobody’s business.
“Okay, sugar-pie.” Funny thing about dogs; you can call them anything, just don’t call them late to supper. “Time to go home to mommy!” Jubilee leaped from Caleb’s arms and into the basket. Her ears stood up when she heard “home” and “mommy,” even straighter and higher than they usually were. Home was where every animal’s heart was, and mommy was the very center of Jubilee’s being. Caleb took the on-shore Cherry Walk route down; he was getting a little too old to ride up the seven switch-backs to the Manhattan street grid with 30 pounds of dog and carrier and stuff. Maybe he wanted to drink from the 82nd Street water fountain, one of the last of the old-style tulip-bowl fountains, the ones that gave New York the reputation for the world’s best municipal water, snow melt filtered through Adirondack rock, gravity fed into the city. Or perhaps it was a chance to ride by the last vestiges or the Riverside Park meat market benches and grassy knolls.
The ride down from 125th Street featured stunning views of the New Jersey Palisades across the river, the marina, and the kayakers in the newly-cleaned riparian pleasure zone. Benches from 90th Street down to the new Trump Village would be occupied by people reading, people-watching, knitting, perhaps. If you were attracted to someone by the book being read, perhaps you might sit down on the next bench. Perhaps a conversation would start. I was right; Caleb was going to keep his hand in, try a little catch and release. But it was a hot day; first, the city’s premiere water fountain. It was just past an archway heading down from the upper level of Riverside Park, up a walkway from the main path along the river, with stands of leafy trees surrounding sections of lush grass on the hills heading up, facing west, ideal for post-brunch ray-catching. After Caleb drank his fill of the nectar, he filled Jubilee’s little folding water bowl, told her to look extra cute, and went about picking a bench.
Bingo. One woman on a bench sketching something, then two empty benches. Caleb picked the second empty bench, tethered Jubilee to it, draped his jersey over the bench, and turned the bicycle upside down. He hand-cranked the pedals, played with the gears as if highly concerned, held his thumb millimeters from the spinning rear tire. He started counting down from 20. By the time he got to 11, the lady on the bench came by, ostensibly to say hello to Jubilee. After the dog’s inherent cuteness was remarked on, a conversation about fine-tuning bicycles ensued, and then a conversation about the woman’s occupation, artisanal jewelry. But then the chaos factor kicked in. Jubilee did not like it one bit if Caleb was talking to a woman who was not Mommy and did not have a dog. The cult-associated words came next. Caleb didn’t even bother with release, he just cut the line, put Jubilee in the bag, waved goodbye, and headed down. He didn’t know how to score it. Probably as a non-start.
Two more stops to go. A triangular, fenced-in patch between a ball field and the Amtrak right of way, which would eventually become the city’s first special-needs dog run, for a quick game of fetch. Then a kiddy cup of vanilla ice cream for the pooch. And then home. Harmony had been working hard all day on the song list for an upcoming show at Don’t Tell Momma; they were both beat. An evening around the TV. Some hearths are stone fire-pits with burning logs, and some are rectangular LCD panels. Wherever there’s a dog and a family, something is going to be the hearth that the dog sits around with the “pack.” And finally, sleep. And what Caleb thought was the greatest gift of dogs. The unimaginably peaceful feeling of sleeping in a pile with a dog who is fed, dry, and warm, radiating her feeling of bliss.
The years ticked along, from one winter solstice to the next, right on schedule. Jubilee started to slow down a bit; Caleb fought his own slowing down ferociously. If he didn’t take Jubilee for a ride, he would cycle to Connecticut to save ten bucks a carton on cigarettes. One carton for him one for his lucky-charm homeless lady.
Riverside Park was overcome by gentrifiers new to the Upper West Side. The meat market was played; if you’re reading on an iPad, no one can see what you’re reading, or remark on it. And then one day it happened; fortunately, it was not a day when Caleb had Jubilee in the basket. A southbound cyclist pulled out and passed a gaggle of walkers occupying the bike section of the road, and straight into Caleb, heading north. Two 200-pound men hurtling into each other at a combined speed of 30 MPH. Not pretty. Fortunately, denizens of the city parks know what to do when that happens. “Wavers” fan out to warn oncomers to slow down, possessions are secured, ambulances called, friends notified to transport damaged bikes home. Everything by the numbers. The southbound guy wound up with a compound fracture; Caleb only had a separated clavicle and a thumb thing. But he definitely would not be steering a bike for the next three months, at least.
Doctor Bashir, Caleb’s sports orthopedist, who could have been a stand-in for the Doctor Bashir on Deep Space 9, had him in a sling for the foreseeable future, except for sleeping and doing the shower exercise routine and the frozen peas bit. By two months in, Caleb was virtually clawing at his own skin. Something had to give. And when it came, it was in his Facebook news feed. Vibrations promote the healing of bone injuries! And boy-howdy, did Caleb have something that vibrated. Caleb had quite a collection of human-powered vehicles; one of his favorites was the Xootr MG kick-scooter. Because the magnesium deck, the aluminum steering tube, and the steel retaining pin had vastly different hardnesses, the aluminum took the brunt of the deformation and the scooter would wind up vibrating when ridden on anything that wasn’t smooth asphalt. But the Xootr handlebar only had about five inches of moment-arm; there would be minimal stress steering, and the route was mainly straight, anyway.
Caleb worked out how to get the dog and scooter to the PATH train to New Jersey for a ride along the new Hudson River Promenade. He loved it whenever he got off the train and saw the sign that said, “Welcome to Hoboken, a Mental Health Stigma-Free Zone.” It was almost as good as the “Welcome to Jersey City, a Nuclear-Free Zone” sign. He put the Snoozer onto the special adapter that let a Xootr mount any regular bicycle handlebar gear. He took off the sling and looked at Jubilee. There was a moment of indecision. And then Caleb learned the next lesson of the dog. Sometimes a dog will turn her head over her shoulder and look at her master – her pack leader – if the leader is doing something unbecoming of a leader, like indecision; in a case like this, she’ll give you the WTF look. Caleb translated this body-language, sub-telepathy message: “We’re both apex predators. Never worry what’s behind you, what happened in the past. Just move forward.” Caleb put her in the bag and kicked off towards Newport. After two months, they were rolling again!
He didn’t know if the ride actually promoted any healing. The only damage was from Jess, his physical therapist friend, who let him know that he was an idiot, that the orthopedic vibration therapy was dependent on very specific frequencies. Caleb didn’t care. His therapy was successful.
After God finished creating the world, wiping it out and starting it up again, choosing a flock to shepherd, and getting born, He spends his time, I believe, matching dogs to their people, so they can guide us, watch over us, protect us and teach us. This is not New Age, earthy-crunchy hugger-mugger. Dogs can guide us to or through anything, from navigating streets for the blind to finding anything from cancer to dead animals in the ground. Bring a dog into your house, and it will set up a triple-cordon defensive perimeter; you will never not know when someone id approaching. Pay close attention to the laziest napping dog, and you will likely see that the dog has sight lines to all of the entrances to the room. And protecting us? The heroine of this story has been known to put all 16 pounds of herself in-between danger and those she loves. But the greatest of these Canis domesticus gifts is what they teach us.
The first lesson is that if you want to play toy or fetch, at some point you have to drop the ball or the toy from your mouth. A good lesson for everyone. And the greatest lesson of the dog is the observation of how little it takes to put a fellow being into a state of bliss or ecstasy.
= = =
“Bag! Bag!” Caleb didn’t have to say it more than twice. Jubilee came running. He didn’t have to say it at all, really; if Caleb was home and the sun was over the faux yardarm on the park flagpole, Jubilee would eventually be scrambling around the two-bedroom apartment to find and sniff the pink Snoozer handlebar dog basket. It was time to go exploring. Twenty-five miles pedaling the original Trek 400 bicycle, with the helicomatic gearing, for Caleb, with Jubilee like the Queen of Sheba in a sedan chair, smiling at her adoring fans from the basket, with two miles of hiking and running for the dog in the middle of the trip. Today, the Little Red Lighthouse. Caleb loved the trip up to Washington Heights. He remembered his dad telling him the story of how the school kids in New York were organized to write letters and send their pennies to keep the obsolete landmark intact even though the George Washington Bridge was being built on top of it. There was even a little book about the value of the piece of history with a heroic arc; the light was no longer needed, but the blaring Trump of Doom could keep ships safe from the rocks in even the deepest of fogs.
And being this far uptown, Caleb thought he might run into Jeff from his old Inwood neighborhood. Runners could run with ankle and wrist weights to get some extra burn, but that doesn’t work for cyclists; most of the energy expenditure is cutting through the air; double your bike speed and you need eight times as much energy to fight the drag. But Jeff was a cyclist’s cyclist, and he needed something to maximize his workout. So he would ascend the steepest parts of Manhattan, Indian Hill Park and Fort Tryon Park, while singing, full-throated, Beethoven’s Choral, the Ode to Joy. Quite a manifestation to see – and hear – Jeff go by.
Jubilee, barely out of puppyhood, was a dog of Caleb’s, well, not exactly old age, but of that pre-old period in which you get mail from AARP every few weeks. A free-climber in his youth, Caleb was happy to take Jubilee exploring from the boulder piles keeping the Hudson River from eroding Manhattan’s priceless real estate, to 300 feet up through steeply graded forest to where business, machines, and people held sway.
“Let’s go, Doodlebugs, time to see what they’re catching.” Caleb thought that Jubilee must have caught the fishing bug from his wife Harmony’s dad, a dedicated Long Island weekend fisherman. Time to go down the rocks to the water. It never failed to amaze and enrapture Caleb every time the pair took on the precarious and slimy rocks from the lighthouse to the water. Caleb was starting to get slowed down by his osteoarthritis, but Jubilee would have none of it. Somehow, she was always able to pick out a route which was easiest for both her and him.
“Arf! Grr, Arf!” Jubilee announced herself to the literally motely crew casting their lines into the same water the Half Moon traveled 400 years earlier. It looked like the striped bass were running. Caleb got a kick out of that. Years before, after Manhattan’s West Side Highway collapsed, every contractor along the Northeast Seaboard was salivating at the thought of bidding to replace the elevated roadway with a proper stretch of super-highway, and as a sweetener, a cross-town leg replacing Canal Street. The problem with Manhattan is that while you can go up it and down it, you just can’t get across it at more than six miles per hour. The project was named Westway. But to Tribeca, Chelsea, and Greenwich Village residents, it would always be NoWay.
People fought the good fight, as always, but there was just no possibility of turning down a waterfall of Washington, well, Washingtons, Lincolns, Hamiltons, and especially Franklins. Finally, the folks in favor of preserving the riverfront -- newly cleaned due to superfund projects, capable of sustaining healthy marine life, acceptable for swimming and kayaking -- played their last card: endangerment of the striped bass habitat. That was the play that won the game; we now have the world’s largest recreation pier system, five miles of beautiful cycle paths, parks, and dog runs. And, of course, a source of Caleb’s favorite sushi, Suzuki – Striped Bass. And we were saved from the joker in the deck: Had New York City gone ahead with the project, they would have fallen into a $3 billion dollar hole to make one of the East River bridges six inches wider in each lane.
Jubilee was tentatively putting her paw in the water; she would never swim, but she loved shores of any kind. She started licking the seaweed on the bottom row of the rocks. And then, there it was: the nub wag. Paydirt. This time it was a dead seagull in between some rocks, covered by leaves washing downhill. Caleb never knew what Jubilee thought he should do with these finds. He suspected Jubilee didn’t know either. Maybe it was a dog thing, show the pack leader your tracking skills. But it made her do the heiny-dance like nobody’s business.
“Okay, sugar-pie.” Funny thing about dogs; you can call them anything, just don’t call them late to supper. “Time to go home to mommy!” Jubilee leaped from Caleb’s arms and into the basket. Her ears stood up when she heard “home” and “mommy,” even straighter and higher than they usually were. Home was where every animal’s heart was, and mommy was the very center of Jubilee’s being. Caleb took the on-shore Cherry Walk route down; he was getting a little too old to ride up the seven switch-backs to the Manhattan street grid with 30 pounds of dog and carrier and stuff. Maybe he wanted to drink from the 82nd Street water fountain, one of the last of the old-style tulip-bowl fountains, the ones that gave New York the reputation for the world’s best municipal water, snow melt filtered through Adirondack rock, gravity fed into the city. Or perhaps it was a chance to ride by the last vestiges or the Riverside Park meat market benches and grassy knolls.
The ride down from 125th Street featured stunning views of the New Jersey Palisades across the river, the marina, and the kayakers in the newly-cleaned riparian pleasure zone. Benches from 90th Street down to the new Trump Village would be occupied by people reading, people-watching, knitting, perhaps. If you were attracted to someone by the book being read, perhaps you might sit down on the next bench. Perhaps a conversation would start. I was right; Caleb was going to keep his hand in, try a little catch and release. But it was a hot day; first, the city’s premiere water fountain. It was just past an archway heading down from the upper level of Riverside Park, up a walkway from the main path along the river, with stands of leafy trees surrounding sections of lush grass on the hills heading up, facing west, ideal for post-brunch ray-catching. After Caleb drank his fill of the nectar, he filled Jubilee’s little folding water bowl, told her to look extra cute, and went about picking a bench.
Bingo. One woman on a bench sketching something, then two empty benches. Caleb picked the second empty bench, tethered Jubilee to it, draped his jersey over the bench, and turned the bicycle upside down. He hand-cranked the pedals, played with the gears as if highly concerned, held his thumb millimeters from the spinning rear tire. He started counting down from 20. By the time he got to 11, the lady on the bench came by, ostensibly to say hello to Jubilee. After the dog’s inherent cuteness was remarked on, a conversation about fine-tuning bicycles ensued, and then a conversation about the woman’s occupation, artisanal jewelry. But then the chaos factor kicked in. Jubilee did not like it one bit if Caleb was talking to a woman who was not Mommy and did not have a dog. The cult-associated words came next. Caleb didn’t even bother with release, he just cut the line, put Jubilee in the bag, waved goodbye, and headed down. He didn’t know how to score it. Probably as a non-start.
Two more stops to go. A triangular, fenced-in patch between a ball field and the Amtrak right of way, which would eventually become the city’s first special-needs dog run, for a quick game of fetch. Then a kiddy cup of vanilla ice cream for the pooch. And then home. Harmony had been working hard all day on the song list for an upcoming show at Don’t Tell Momma; they were both beat. An evening around the TV. Some hearths are stone fire-pits with burning logs, and some are rectangular LCD panels. Wherever there’s a dog and a family, something is going to be the hearth that the dog sits around with the “pack.” And finally, sleep. And what Caleb thought was the greatest gift of dogs. The unimaginably peaceful feeling of sleeping in a pile with a dog who is fed, dry, and warm, radiating her feeling of bliss.
The years ticked along, from one winter solstice to the next, right on schedule. Jubilee started to slow down a bit; Caleb fought his own slowing down ferociously. If he didn’t take Jubilee for a ride, he would cycle to Connecticut to save ten bucks a carton on cigarettes. One carton for him one for his lucky-charm homeless lady.
Riverside Park was overcome by gentrifiers new to the Upper West Side. The meat market was played; if you’re reading on an iPad, no one can see what you’re reading, or remark on it. And then one day it happened; fortunately, it was not a day when Caleb had Jubilee in the basket. A southbound cyclist pulled out and passed a gaggle of walkers occupying the bike section of the road, and straight into Caleb, heading north. Two 200-pound men hurtling into each other at a combined speed of 30 MPH. Not pretty. Fortunately, denizens of the city parks know what to do when that happens. “Wavers” fan out to warn oncomers to slow down, possessions are secured, ambulances called, friends notified to transport damaged bikes home. Everything by the numbers. The southbound guy wound up with a compound fracture; Caleb only had a separated clavicle and a thumb thing. But he definitely would not be steering a bike for the next three months, at least.
Doctor Bashir, Caleb’s sports orthopedist, who could have been a stand-in for the Doctor Bashir on Deep Space 9, had him in a sling for the foreseeable future, except for sleeping and doing the shower exercise routine and the frozen peas bit. By two months in, Caleb was virtually clawing at his own skin. Something had to give. And when it came, it was in his Facebook news feed. Vibrations promote the healing of bone injuries! And boy-howdy, did Caleb have something that vibrated. Caleb had quite a collection of human-powered vehicles; one of his favorites was the Xootr MG kick-scooter. Because the magnesium deck, the aluminum steering tube, and the steel retaining pin had vastly different hardnesses, the aluminum took the brunt of the deformation and the scooter would wind up vibrating when ridden on anything that wasn’t smooth asphalt. But the Xootr handlebar only had about five inches of moment-arm; there would be minimal stress steering, and the route was mainly straight, anyway.
Caleb worked out how to get the dog and scooter to the PATH train to New Jersey for a ride along the new Hudson River Promenade. He loved it whenever he got off the train and saw the sign that said, “Welcome to Hoboken, a Mental Health Stigma-Free Zone.” It was almost as good as the “Welcome to Jersey City, a Nuclear-Free Zone” sign. He put the Snoozer onto the special adapter that let a Xootr mount any regular bicycle handlebar gear. He took off the sling and looked at Jubilee. There was a moment of indecision. And then Caleb learned the next lesson of the dog. Sometimes a dog will turn her head over her shoulder and look at her master – her pack leader – if the leader is doing something unbecoming of a leader, like indecision; in a case like this, she’ll give you the WTF look. Caleb translated this body-language, sub-telepathy message: “We’re both apex predators. Never worry what’s behind you, what happened in the past. Just move forward.” Caleb put her in the bag and kicked off towards Newport. After two months, they were rolling again!
He didn’t know if the ride actually promoted any healing. The only damage was from Jess, his physical therapist friend, who let him know that he was an idiot, that the orthopedic vibration therapy was dependent on very specific frequencies. Caleb didn’t care. His therapy was successful.
Andrew Paul Grell lives in a park in Manhattan with Melody, his wife of thirty years, and their Malti-poo puppy, Cyrus King of Persia. At 59, he is an “emerging writer.” He is the author of the recently-released science fiction novel SCAPEGOATS: The Goat Protocols, which has just been entered into the Sacred Cannon of the New York Public Library and has been anthologized in American Writers Review and Surprised by Joy. He also makes occasional appearances in Writers Newsletter and is proud to be an Ugly Writer. By day he uses mathematical models to ferret out fraud, and he gets everywhere by bicycle. He owes everything to Melody for letting him glom the contacts she had from her Masters program at Wilkes University.
Ammo.
Delhi, 2013.
I was standing over watching the starving litter of stray pups feed, lest any greedy interlopers steal the food, when I saw him. A strange dog bounding full speed from the other end of the park. Maybe chasing a cat or a squirrel, I thought. But no, he came to a skidding stop right at my feet and gave two sharp woofs. I was taken aback by the impudence. The haq se, by right, style with which he demanded his share! No obsequous tail wags, no liquid stares full of longing, the usual doggy tricks, in him. The beggar had smelled food and he wanted it. Straight forward.
“ Want to steal from pups is it? Bad dog.” I scolded him.
He sat on his haunches, listening to my stern tone, looking very solemn and attentive. When I got busy checking which pup still needed to be fed, ladling broth and bread, Ana saw him lowering himself on his tummy. He crawled imperceptibly, till he was close to one of the discarded ice-cream tubs cum feeding bowls. Before I could turn, I heard a low rumbling growl and he was upon the food, a whimpering pup shoved aside. He wharfed or rather inhaled the slop in an instant, uncaring of all rebuke. When done, he turned attention to me, bread hanging from his wet moustache and all, with a look of such dignified innocence, it would have been cute on any other dog.
This one though, was a regular rapscallion. He had the compact body, the thuggish bearing and distinct smelliness of a garbage dump don. Fearing that he would maul the pups, I tried to shoo him. He took it as an invitation to gambol. Playfully touching paws with the pups and running away, stopping to let them chew his tail, sprinting, skidding and doing that happy skip of a dog in for a game. From time to time, he would invite me to join the game by jumping on me and pushing me with his forelegs no matter how much I shouted 'No'.
Despite his resplendent ugliness, there was a regal fluidity in his bearing, an economy of movement that spoke of complete confidence. His colour was a dirty brown, speckled with grey bands. Yellow discharge hung from the corners of his amber eyes. His very broad head and wide strong jaw ended in an elongated black snout; his ears went horizontal before twisting in a slight down turn. On his chest he wore a white tie like patch with a courtly air. His paws were big and white, completing the hilarious feet-in-socks, office-goer look. He bore his thick, proud tail like a flag of some victorious cricket team. Always up. Sitting on his haunches, on the green bench, to fob the the pups who eagerly pursued him, mewling and sniping, he could have been the National Geographic poster boy of genetic diversity. He was too noble to snipe back at them.
When I started walking the three blocks to home, he ran along and ahead as if showing me the way. He would run full speed ahead, come to a skidding stop and then look back, slack tongued and furiously panting. When I reached near him, the show was repeated. This style of his, created a hullabaloo on the road, causing genteel, uptight strollers walking their immaculate pure -bred, tightly leashed dogs to stare and roll their eyes. A horrified lady squealed in disgust. I felt mortified at this creature who had adopted me. I was new to the locality and this stupid fellow who was not even a pet of mine, was creating a ruckus and giving me a bad name. I pretended not to know him. What must my neighbors think of me ! Shucks !!
As soon as I unlatched the gate, he bounded in as if he owned the place. He peed on a planter, exchanged a friendly, put-in-the- place growl with Sheru the young white dog who was the troublemaker -in- residence, and installed himself on the porch.
My, My !! Such audacity. Wait till the man of the house comes and shows you the door, I thought.
When Purushottam came, the dog sat very gravely, erect on his haunches, as if a convenor of a seminar on saving canines of the world. No hint of ill manners he had freely displayed minutes before. My husband, connoisseur of breeds, saw him and fell in love. He said he had the broad head, the thick muscled neck, the speckled coat and the bearing of a pit-bull. Definitely some pit-bull DNA in there. Hearing the male voice, or perhaps the praise, there was a slight tail wag and complete attentiveness. When he got a chewy bone, he knew he had passed the test and went rolling on the grass.
Ananya immediately christened him ABP. Ajeeb Badsoorat pet. The strangely ugly pet. He indeed looked very strange and ugly to us then. He was underfed, street hardened, a bit haggard and behaved with a peculiar mix of affection and aloofness. Domestic enough to wag a tail or sit on the porch but growly, grouchy and wild when any efforts to bathe, cuddle, groom or leash him were made. He wanted us to be his friends, but he was a free spirit, nobody’s slave.
Soon other names got appended to him. The one that stuck was Ammo, as his live wire sprints reminded us of live ammunition. He would present himself, every morning, when I unlocked the front gate, no doubt after spending the night trawling the garbage bins and fighting turf wars. He would not beg or implore, just accept the meat, milk and broth as his due. Lots of it. Stomach full, he would run to the playground opposite our house for a gambol and sleep. His favorite places were a mud pit in summers or a warm sunny corner in winters. Whenever he saw anyone of us, his adopted family, emerge for a walk, he would lead and escort us, for our own safety. Running ahead with a playful sense of duty and pride. He dropped and picked up children from the bus-stop. He spent Sundays with them on the cricket field being spectator, cheerleader, guardian and digger of mud-pits.
Monsoon came and mating season hit him like a tornado, making him disappear for days. Coming only for an occasional feed. I saw him now and then during my walks, but engrossed in his affairs, he would ignore me. He was clearly the Top Dog : fearless, virile and ready to take on singlehandedly, any bunch of gangsters who came between him and his lady loves. No tail between the legs and no belly upping in him.
Then we did not see him at all for three whole months. I looked around the numerous parks, calling out to him, but to no avail. How could he just disappear like that, was the question we asked again and again. One cold night in December, when my husband was coming back from the gym, he saw a skeletal, four- legged figure emerge from the darkness and creep up to him. It was Ammo.
I came running and switched on the porch lights. Ammo was badly hurt. There was a fetid-sour smell of sickness about him, a dying animal’s mute acceptance in his eyes. A huge chunk of flesh had been taken from the mid-back; the wound had been festering with maggots for some time. He could not even lick it, nor could he stand my coming near him, let alone allow me to minister to the wound.
“There is nothing we can do for him at this stage,” Purushottam said. I agreed, “except feeding and sheltering him. I don’t think he will last for another two days. Let’s just let him be. Make a warm bed for him. Let him die in peace”
The whole night I worried that I would find a dead dog on my porch in the morning. Twice I got up to check. But he survived the night. He would surely be gone by evening, I thought. Let me feed him a grand meal- his last supper. I got Qaleem to get me choice bone cuts and meat chunks and made a super meaty –garlicky-marrowy broth. I spoke to the vet and he told me there was a turpentine based spray which could be spritzed on maggot wounds to seal them.
Like a cunning General plotting a battle strategy, I got ready for the operation. First came the broth bowl with a big fat marrow bone in center. He loved meat so much, that even in the semi-conscious fog of pain, he raised his head and held himself up to slurp.
I surreptitiously positioned myself above and behind him. Not so near as to alarm him, but near enough to give a good spritz midback. It was awfully smelly and I could see his exposed spine, under the billowing, pulsing, worm laden miasma of raw tissue.
I whooshed the spray, just as he was on to the marrow. I think his delight at that divine taste made him overlook the outrage. He merely gave himself a shake and carried on. I heaved a sigh of relief. Then came part two. Novaclox ladoo, twice a day. He gulped it and I clapped. He had survived another evening. And the one after it. And the one after it. Till death no more crouched on his back. Till he retrieved a little more of his ugly dog brightness everyday.
We did this marrow bone, turpentine spray and Novaclox wrapped in sweet ladoo thingie for a month. Very soon, he cottoned on to my treachery. He knew I was hiding the horrid smelling spray behind my back every time I came smiling with a broth bowl. He would growl at the whoosh of turpentine, but also keep slurping. How I loved those growls of life seeping back into him!
He understood now, that the ladoos needed to be chewed carefully and tested for hidden contraband. More and more, I had to pick up and throw the blue -white capsule after the ladoo containing it was carefully eaten.
Ammo’s wound started drying and filling. His fur gained shine and his body girth. Instinct made him just rest at nights instead of waging battles. By spring, the spring in his step was back. There was a bald scar on his back which itched all the time, but he was again the regular old ruffian that he used to be.
But he might not survive this again, we thought. He being the crazy fight- to- death kind of creature he was, his instincts needed pruning. He required sterilization. So I chained and bound him by cunning, to be taken to Friendicoes for the surgery. He looked at me imploringly as the Friendicoe's guy dragged him with a wire hoop around his chained neck and finally shut him in the iron cage mounted on his Tata 407. That look he gave me from behind the bars. He would never speak to me again. I was sure.
Three days later, I found him returned, hale and hearty, well- pruned, bounding with abandon when I got down from the car. The big nut pouch had shrunk and shrivelled but his happiness was intact. However, he got into the habit of chasing any vehicles that reminded him of his ordeal. Clattering autos, Tata 407s , dumpers, they were all dog stealing prisons. He hated them. Ears pinned back, body low and taut like a speeding arrow, running neck to neck with big wheels, he barked menacingly and chased them.
This scared us. This could cause serious accidents. It earned him a bad name with the big bureaucrats who lived in the colony. Complaints were lodged by them and one day a Dog Van came and caught him - no doubt with a wire lasso that he so dreaded, and took him away. When I came back from office I heard of what had happened from the gardener.
I made inquiries. Spoke to the dog van driver and found that he had been let off some where near the Asian Games Village. I took a drive in the night to the place, racking my wits. Walking. Calling out.
How do you find one medium-sized brownish-grey stray dog with upright bushy tail, who loves to dig the earth, roll in puddles and sprint like a bullet in a 100 acre locality, thirty kilometres away from his habitat? And would the resident stray -dogs allow him to stay alive even for a day? Without food, without any understanding of what had befallen him, how would he manage survival?
After two days of search, I gave him up as a lost cause. All our conversations were what would Ammo be doing? And remember when Ammo did that? Seven days later, it was still dark, when I unlocked the gates. Drums beat for early morning parade practice for Republic Day in the adjoining cantonment. The streetlights had been switched off, the sun had not risen and the moon was yet to sink. A haggard, scruffy looking Ammo stood silhouetted in the silvery moonlight, wagging his proud tail furiously, nudging and looking at me with clear amber eyes. I took him in my lap stroked him and baby-talked him and for once he did not mind. The whole household got up and he deigned to come inside. He ate and ate and ate and slept and slept and we marveled and marveled.
He had walked seven nights, and God knows how many miles, from Siri to Chanakyapuri, guided only by his canine GPS of smells and memories and reached Home. Fighting hunger, thirst, mean dog gangs and his own monumental smallness in this big bad world. Who were mere men to relocate or displace him? This place was his. He had staked a claim. He had earned the right.
He was my Darling Ammo, the Prince Of Dogs , to me, the most Handsome Dog in the Entire Universe .
Delhi, 2013.
I was standing over watching the starving litter of stray pups feed, lest any greedy interlopers steal the food, when I saw him. A strange dog bounding full speed from the other end of the park. Maybe chasing a cat or a squirrel, I thought. But no, he came to a skidding stop right at my feet and gave two sharp woofs. I was taken aback by the impudence. The haq se, by right, style with which he demanded his share! No obsequous tail wags, no liquid stares full of longing, the usual doggy tricks, in him. The beggar had smelled food and he wanted it. Straight forward.
“ Want to steal from pups is it? Bad dog.” I scolded him.
He sat on his haunches, listening to my stern tone, looking very solemn and attentive. When I got busy checking which pup still needed to be fed, ladling broth and bread, Ana saw him lowering himself on his tummy. He crawled imperceptibly, till he was close to one of the discarded ice-cream tubs cum feeding bowls. Before I could turn, I heard a low rumbling growl and he was upon the food, a whimpering pup shoved aside. He wharfed or rather inhaled the slop in an instant, uncaring of all rebuke. When done, he turned attention to me, bread hanging from his wet moustache and all, with a look of such dignified innocence, it would have been cute on any other dog.
This one though, was a regular rapscallion. He had the compact body, the thuggish bearing and distinct smelliness of a garbage dump don. Fearing that he would maul the pups, I tried to shoo him. He took it as an invitation to gambol. Playfully touching paws with the pups and running away, stopping to let them chew his tail, sprinting, skidding and doing that happy skip of a dog in for a game. From time to time, he would invite me to join the game by jumping on me and pushing me with his forelegs no matter how much I shouted 'No'.
Despite his resplendent ugliness, there was a regal fluidity in his bearing, an economy of movement that spoke of complete confidence. His colour was a dirty brown, speckled with grey bands. Yellow discharge hung from the corners of his amber eyes. His very broad head and wide strong jaw ended in an elongated black snout; his ears went horizontal before twisting in a slight down turn. On his chest he wore a white tie like patch with a courtly air. His paws were big and white, completing the hilarious feet-in-socks, office-goer look. He bore his thick, proud tail like a flag of some victorious cricket team. Always up. Sitting on his haunches, on the green bench, to fob the the pups who eagerly pursued him, mewling and sniping, he could have been the National Geographic poster boy of genetic diversity. He was too noble to snipe back at them.
When I started walking the three blocks to home, he ran along and ahead as if showing me the way. He would run full speed ahead, come to a skidding stop and then look back, slack tongued and furiously panting. When I reached near him, the show was repeated. This style of his, created a hullabaloo on the road, causing genteel, uptight strollers walking their immaculate pure -bred, tightly leashed dogs to stare and roll their eyes. A horrified lady squealed in disgust. I felt mortified at this creature who had adopted me. I was new to the locality and this stupid fellow who was not even a pet of mine, was creating a ruckus and giving me a bad name. I pretended not to know him. What must my neighbors think of me ! Shucks !!
As soon as I unlatched the gate, he bounded in as if he owned the place. He peed on a planter, exchanged a friendly, put-in-the- place growl with Sheru the young white dog who was the troublemaker -in- residence, and installed himself on the porch.
My, My !! Such audacity. Wait till the man of the house comes and shows you the door, I thought.
When Purushottam came, the dog sat very gravely, erect on his haunches, as if a convenor of a seminar on saving canines of the world. No hint of ill manners he had freely displayed minutes before. My husband, connoisseur of breeds, saw him and fell in love. He said he had the broad head, the thick muscled neck, the speckled coat and the bearing of a pit-bull. Definitely some pit-bull DNA in there. Hearing the male voice, or perhaps the praise, there was a slight tail wag and complete attentiveness. When he got a chewy bone, he knew he had passed the test and went rolling on the grass.
Ananya immediately christened him ABP. Ajeeb Badsoorat pet. The strangely ugly pet. He indeed looked very strange and ugly to us then. He was underfed, street hardened, a bit haggard and behaved with a peculiar mix of affection and aloofness. Domestic enough to wag a tail or sit on the porch but growly, grouchy and wild when any efforts to bathe, cuddle, groom or leash him were made. He wanted us to be his friends, but he was a free spirit, nobody’s slave.
Soon other names got appended to him. The one that stuck was Ammo, as his live wire sprints reminded us of live ammunition. He would present himself, every morning, when I unlocked the front gate, no doubt after spending the night trawling the garbage bins and fighting turf wars. He would not beg or implore, just accept the meat, milk and broth as his due. Lots of it. Stomach full, he would run to the playground opposite our house for a gambol and sleep. His favorite places were a mud pit in summers or a warm sunny corner in winters. Whenever he saw anyone of us, his adopted family, emerge for a walk, he would lead and escort us, for our own safety. Running ahead with a playful sense of duty and pride. He dropped and picked up children from the bus-stop. He spent Sundays with them on the cricket field being spectator, cheerleader, guardian and digger of mud-pits.
Monsoon came and mating season hit him like a tornado, making him disappear for days. Coming only for an occasional feed. I saw him now and then during my walks, but engrossed in his affairs, he would ignore me. He was clearly the Top Dog : fearless, virile and ready to take on singlehandedly, any bunch of gangsters who came between him and his lady loves. No tail between the legs and no belly upping in him.
Then we did not see him at all for three whole months. I looked around the numerous parks, calling out to him, but to no avail. How could he just disappear like that, was the question we asked again and again. One cold night in December, when my husband was coming back from the gym, he saw a skeletal, four- legged figure emerge from the darkness and creep up to him. It was Ammo.
I came running and switched on the porch lights. Ammo was badly hurt. There was a fetid-sour smell of sickness about him, a dying animal’s mute acceptance in his eyes. A huge chunk of flesh had been taken from the mid-back; the wound had been festering with maggots for some time. He could not even lick it, nor could he stand my coming near him, let alone allow me to minister to the wound.
“There is nothing we can do for him at this stage,” Purushottam said. I agreed, “except feeding and sheltering him. I don’t think he will last for another two days. Let’s just let him be. Make a warm bed for him. Let him die in peace”
The whole night I worried that I would find a dead dog on my porch in the morning. Twice I got up to check. But he survived the night. He would surely be gone by evening, I thought. Let me feed him a grand meal- his last supper. I got Qaleem to get me choice bone cuts and meat chunks and made a super meaty –garlicky-marrowy broth. I spoke to the vet and he told me there was a turpentine based spray which could be spritzed on maggot wounds to seal them.
Like a cunning General plotting a battle strategy, I got ready for the operation. First came the broth bowl with a big fat marrow bone in center. He loved meat so much, that even in the semi-conscious fog of pain, he raised his head and held himself up to slurp.
I surreptitiously positioned myself above and behind him. Not so near as to alarm him, but near enough to give a good spritz midback. It was awfully smelly and I could see his exposed spine, under the billowing, pulsing, worm laden miasma of raw tissue.
I whooshed the spray, just as he was on to the marrow. I think his delight at that divine taste made him overlook the outrage. He merely gave himself a shake and carried on. I heaved a sigh of relief. Then came part two. Novaclox ladoo, twice a day. He gulped it and I clapped. He had survived another evening. And the one after it. And the one after it. Till death no more crouched on his back. Till he retrieved a little more of his ugly dog brightness everyday.
We did this marrow bone, turpentine spray and Novaclox wrapped in sweet ladoo thingie for a month. Very soon, he cottoned on to my treachery. He knew I was hiding the horrid smelling spray behind my back every time I came smiling with a broth bowl. He would growl at the whoosh of turpentine, but also keep slurping. How I loved those growls of life seeping back into him!
He understood now, that the ladoos needed to be chewed carefully and tested for hidden contraband. More and more, I had to pick up and throw the blue -white capsule after the ladoo containing it was carefully eaten.
Ammo’s wound started drying and filling. His fur gained shine and his body girth. Instinct made him just rest at nights instead of waging battles. By spring, the spring in his step was back. There was a bald scar on his back which itched all the time, but he was again the regular old ruffian that he used to be.
But he might not survive this again, we thought. He being the crazy fight- to- death kind of creature he was, his instincts needed pruning. He required sterilization. So I chained and bound him by cunning, to be taken to Friendicoes for the surgery. He looked at me imploringly as the Friendicoe's guy dragged him with a wire hoop around his chained neck and finally shut him in the iron cage mounted on his Tata 407. That look he gave me from behind the bars. He would never speak to me again. I was sure.
Three days later, I found him returned, hale and hearty, well- pruned, bounding with abandon when I got down from the car. The big nut pouch had shrunk and shrivelled but his happiness was intact. However, he got into the habit of chasing any vehicles that reminded him of his ordeal. Clattering autos, Tata 407s , dumpers, they were all dog stealing prisons. He hated them. Ears pinned back, body low and taut like a speeding arrow, running neck to neck with big wheels, he barked menacingly and chased them.
This scared us. This could cause serious accidents. It earned him a bad name with the big bureaucrats who lived in the colony. Complaints were lodged by them and one day a Dog Van came and caught him - no doubt with a wire lasso that he so dreaded, and took him away. When I came back from office I heard of what had happened from the gardener.
I made inquiries. Spoke to the dog van driver and found that he had been let off some where near the Asian Games Village. I took a drive in the night to the place, racking my wits. Walking. Calling out.
How do you find one medium-sized brownish-grey stray dog with upright bushy tail, who loves to dig the earth, roll in puddles and sprint like a bullet in a 100 acre locality, thirty kilometres away from his habitat? And would the resident stray -dogs allow him to stay alive even for a day? Without food, without any understanding of what had befallen him, how would he manage survival?
After two days of search, I gave him up as a lost cause. All our conversations were what would Ammo be doing? And remember when Ammo did that? Seven days later, it was still dark, when I unlocked the gates. Drums beat for early morning parade practice for Republic Day in the adjoining cantonment. The streetlights had been switched off, the sun had not risen and the moon was yet to sink. A haggard, scruffy looking Ammo stood silhouetted in the silvery moonlight, wagging his proud tail furiously, nudging and looking at me with clear amber eyes. I took him in my lap stroked him and baby-talked him and for once he did not mind. The whole household got up and he deigned to come inside. He ate and ate and ate and slept and slept and we marveled and marveled.
He had walked seven nights, and God knows how many miles, from Siri to Chanakyapuri, guided only by his canine GPS of smells and memories and reached Home. Fighting hunger, thirst, mean dog gangs and his own monumental smallness in this big bad world. Who were mere men to relocate or displace him? This place was his. He had staked a claim. He had earned the right.
He was my Darling Ammo, the Prince Of Dogs , to me, the most Handsome Dog in the Entire Universe .
Varsha Tiwary hates housework, loves dogs and eats books. Currently on a sabbatical from her nine to five life, she is engaged in turning her piles of unreadable journals into readable prose.
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Now That I am a Bat
I do not want to drink your blood. I do not long to be tangled in your hair. What I have sacrificed in eyesight is more than made up for in hearing. I have come to appreciate sleeping upside down. The Schaefers, whom I have never really gotten along with, now love to have me over, especially in the early evening. They have even built me a house, affixing it to the side of their garage. I may decide to live there, since I am angry with the zookeepers. They play practical jokes on me and my fellow bats, keeping the lights on all night to trick us into sleeping so that we will remain awake during the day, darting about our cage to thrill and terrify the groups of third graders that pause by our glass on their way to the monkey house. The Cows’ Ennui We were grazing in the meadow beside the highway. No surprise there. Dorothy was sitting down. She thought it was going to rain. She always thinks it is going to rain. Esther turned back to look at me with her massive eyes. She seemed to want to say something but continued her silent masticating. I had an itch on my flank but didn’t feel like going over to the fence to rub it. Esther lifted her tail straight up into the air. She let out a lengthy, powerful torrent of urine. There must be more to life than this. |
A librarian, as well as three time Pushcart Prize nominee, Thomas O’Connell’s poetry and short fiction has appeared in Caketrain, NANO Fiction, The Broken Plate, and The Los Angeles Review, as well as other print and online journals.
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