Thoughts About Four-footed Friends

My children have four feet and fur. He rests on me a moment, spent from play, and in his bright,
black eyes I see his love and feel my tail begin to wag.

To Catch a Swallow
Mary S. Van Deusen
Daring Attempt 8 (a Star Trek fanzine), 1987

Being able to remember so much, so clearly, was not always a blessing. As Spock waited for someone to answer, seven large, grey dogs paced proudly across the mists of his mind. As each one reached the center of the foggy plain, it would stop for a moment and meet his eyes, tail waving in the joy of memories shared. And, for that moment, past and present merged.
Far in the distance, a grey blur could be seen racing toward the pack. As it came closer, the blur became a form and the form became a dog -- legs extended in a long, smooth motion that, for a moment, brought a memory of the gliding swoops of swallows against the morning mist. The dog was like the others, grey and huge, but there was something in his posture that was immediately recogniable. Magnificent, yes, but with something that was maybe just a little crazier than the rest, something that Spock knew would burrow just a little further into his heart. With a silent bark of farewell, the last dog joined the line and slowly they faded into the mists.
"I'll remember."

WAVERLY
From the noisy confusion of five cats and three dogs, our household had shrunk to a single dog, our three year old Cairn, Ilya. And, for the first time in ten years, our physical households had shrunk to a single location in Massachusetts. Early retirement from our New York jobs at IBM Research looked like a smarter and smarter move. But there was something missing from our home. On one of my last trips back and forth between the lab and home, I discovered what that was -- a small, white fluffball Bichon Frise that had only arrived in the Connecticut petshop the day before. Waverly was bundled onto my lap and began the first of many long car trips. Paul was not sure he was ready to welcome a new addition to our family -- there was so much confusion in just trying to integrate two households into one. But Waverly was persistent and licked his way from Paul's nose into his heart.

WAVERLY
Waverly was barely arrived in Massachusetts before we set out again -- this time for Maine. Using some of IBM's early retirement retraining money, I was signed up for a course in screenplay writing, and the Maine Workshop was quite agreeable to find me lodgings that would help with a brand new puppy. Waverly was bumdled into the car and off we went to Maine. I imagine that it was these early trips that imprinted on the puppy that the proper place for a dog in the car was on the driver's lap. To this day, Waverly will sit in my lap when I drive, but not when I'm the passenger.
If you can see the adult in the child, you can certainly also see the dog in the pup. Deciding that Waverly would probably enjoy class as much as I did, I invited him along for the day. After all, what class wouldn't be better for an infusion of Bichon Frise? Except for one "woof" that was, undoubtedly, a statement of his own opinion on the topic at hand, Waverly spent the day in what would become another of his favorite positions -- body fitted to my lap and nose resting on the back of my wrists as I tapped at my laptop keys. Rarely does he decide to add to my ramblings, which is good since most of his writings consist of undecipherable, secret sentences. Perhaps I should have let him eat a spelling book when he was still a mallable mutt.

It was in Maine that he discovered his first passion for people food -- iced coffee to be precise, sweet and creamy and cold. Driving along the ocean, a classmate and I stopped at the local Dunkin' Donuts for a break. Waverly's nose began twitching and it wasn't long before the twitch had reached his tail. Coffee -- this was what the world must be all about. He started out by licking the paper cup, then discovered that there was even more of the tasty stuff up by the straw. That brought him perilously close to hysteria as he tried to get into the cup. The more he chewed at the straw, the more coffee spilled out with the motion of the car and that, in turn, made him even more eager to rip the cup to shreds. We came back from that drive with coffee all over the front seats - luckily leather - and all over us and all over an incredibly happy puppy. If you ever come to visit, just remember that Waverly takes his coffee with extra cream and sugar.

ILYA
I always had a sense of defeat when I would see beautifully posed photos of dignified pets. Mine always seemed to be in motion or asleep in some highly undignified posture. But temptation proved too strong when I saw an ad for a traveling pet photographer's arrival at our local petfood store. At least, I argued to myself, his photos will probably be in focus. Paul and I brought in Ilya, our Cairn, and Waverly, our Bichon Frise. The trick, we learned, was speed -- speed, that is, and brute force. The photographer assigned each of us to one of the dogs and told us to hold them forcefully into position. He then focused the camera and took into one hand the remote trigger for the camera and into the other, a dog toy. Upon command, Paul and I let go of the dogs and stepped out of frame. The photographer immediately squeezed the toy, which gave off a loud noise. Both dogs ears pricked and he squeezed the remote trigger. Then all hell broke loose. So now I have a photograph that I can show around to make everyone who does not know the trick green with envy. "What lovely, well-behaved dogs!" they say. I just nod and smile knowingly.

KASHKA
Kashka was one of the first of so many cats that shared our lives. I brought her by to show to Bruce and he captured this moment in what must be my favorite picture of any of our four-pawed friends. Kashka was a sweet girl, with long soft fur and a habit of sucking on ears. She would attach herself to my lobe and suck with loud purrs until she had comforted herself at such a deep level that she would just fall off to sleep -- still attached. Paul wanted very much for the kitten to suck at his ear, too, so I explained that the way to do it was to spread tuna oil on his ear. He proceeded to thoroughly coat both ears and couldn't understand why Kashka wouldn't start licking or why I wouldn't stop laughing. Of memories such as these are our lives made.

TRISKIT and LYRAE
The moment Paul and I moved into an apartment that allowed dogs, we ran out to find Triskit. She was such a small Shetland Sheepdog puppy that Paul would carry her around in his jacket to keep her warm. Because Shelties are working dogs, we decided that Paul would take her to obedience class. The instructor told the handlers to give the down command and Paul did. Triskit rolled onto her back and put her paws into the air, refusing firmly to have any more part of this confusing and disturbing place. Thoroughly embarrassed, Paul took home his delinquent child and refused to return to the scene of their humiliation. It all turned out alright, though, since Shelties almost teach themselves. Before too long, Triskit was easily working to silent hand commands.

We enjoyed having Triskit so much that we decided to get another Sheltie. In fact, we decided to breed Triskit and keep a puppy. Finding a western champion that had just moved into our town and had not yet established a local reputation, we proceeded to introduce the dogs and let nature take its course. Well, nature and two dog handlers who had to hold the dogs throughout the entire mating. It turns out that a male dog can be injured by a female trying to pull away too soon. It also so happens that the only day that was right to do this on was the day that I was having my blessed, aged mother and another elderly woman over to dinner. While the champion's owner and I proceeded to ensure the future of the species, five feet away my mother attempted to make small talk with our guest and pretend that nothing was happening almost under her chair. The result of this day's endeavor appears to the right of her mother as we swung together on the lawn - Beta Lyrae, the daughter of Champion Mickey Finn of Rorrelore.

TRISKIT and LYRAE
Some of my best memories are of days that Paul and I would spend walking through the woods with Triskit and Lyrae running loose around us. The air would be fragrant with autumn's incense and crisp with winter's promise. Triskit would stop to bark at some unoffending tree branch and then try valiantly to bring it home. She never seemed to get the knack of picking on something her own size. Lyrae understood stick chasing but could never figure out the association between bringing it back and seeing it thrown again. She was also never the rock climber that her mother was. But she was such a beautiful dog! She had her father's face and her mother's sweetness. I can close my eyes and still feel the softness of their ruffs and the daintiness of their paws. I wish I believed in a heaven for pets. I'd like to think that somewhere they were still running through a forest chasing some forever elusive stick.

CORY
You don't understand the size of an Irish Wolfhound until it stands on its hind legs and looks down at you. They stand over 6 feet tall in that position. Their back is at the height of a doorknob and their head is bigger than yours. But for all their size, they're just big babies. At least Cory was. For most of his very short life, Cory suffered with a hereditary skin condition, generalized demodectic mange. We suffered together through twice weekly baths where I would scrub his skin down with a plastic tuffy to loosen the scabs and then coat him with a terrible smelling plant poison. He would come out of the tub shaking and I would wrap him in towels and hold him to keep him warm until he stopped shivering. I loved that dog with a depth that I can hardly bear to remember, even today.

Two years later, six months after he was finally cured, Cory would die at the hands of a vet who didn't understand how to anaethesize a hound -- dogs like Cory have a different fat to muscle ratio than other animals. I miss the weight of his head upon my shoulder as I drive. I even miss the panic of having him jump into the front seat as soon as I reached highway speed and settle himself down. Of course, with Cory, that meant that his rump was on the passenger side, his head was on my lap and my stick shift was out of gear. I lean my head against his memory still. Oh, that we could clothe today in yesterday's cloth, fabric woven from each day's precious strand and frayed with each year's merciless wear and tear.

WAVERLY
There are always a few dogs that stand out from the pack. Something about them has the power to drill deeper into your heart and memories than all the rest. Cory, our first Irish Wolfhound, was one such dog. Waverly, our Bichon Frise, is another. Waverly was born licking, I'm convinced. Put him next to any object, moving or not, and he'll clean it. What he wants to wash most are his paws. I'm convinced that Bichons are drip dry. Take them into the mud, and 24 hours later they're clean. The problem is that Waverly washes his paws by licking them into a soggy mass, as well as whatever surface lies below him. Sometimes the only way to keep him on my lap is with both his paws wrapped in paper towels. I fear he heard early in life that cleanliness is next to godliness, because he is the cleanest, as well as the most blessed, of all our four-footed children.