If I hadn't specifically checked, I'd assume it was the full moon, because
the dogs can't settle down this morning. Or they couldn't, until I finally
moved the computer back to the office and opened a file to write. It's as
though they know I've made commitments to myself and they are frantic for me to
follow through. Dogs.
I read Mary Oliver's Dog Songs last night. She writes like she's an old
friend, and I loved the book. I suppose people who love dogs and have known
them as best friends would also feel that way. One thing she talked about that
made me a little sad was how dogs on leashes walking the sidewalk are not real
dogs. That dogs need to run free. I confess that my dogs don't get that
privilege. I'd like for them to, but they just don't have any common sense. I
take them to the beach and they would run forever after the gulls and pelicans
and my voice calling them back would be lost in the wind. They'd run so far I'd
never catch up to them. I take them to the dog park, but they hover next to the
little dog weight limit (twenty pounds) ... he is a little over, she is a little under, so they are not
safe from admonition in either section. The big dogs would have them of course,
but the little girl simply cowers in fear, and begs me to hold her. The big boy
looks tine amidst the Great Danes and German Shepherds and Boxers. He tries to
play, but the big dogs don't take him seriously.
It makes me long for the fields back in Iowa, where we used to take the dog
of the moment and let him run. But that dog was Barney, the black lab, and he
would not run so far that he couldn't hear me, and would always come back. Or
the dog-friendly beaches of Michigan, but that was Millie, the golden
retriever, and she'd jump into the cool water and swim until the humans had to
go home. You could throw a ball from Michigan to Chicago, and Millie would
bring it back to you. And it makes me remember sadly my Scout, the Border
collie who never needed a leash, so long as you had a ball or a stick. She was
not letting those "sheep" out of her sight.
But my dogs now, sweet little stuffed animals that they are, half golden
retriever, with their common sense, and retrieving and swimming, and half
poodle, also swimmers and retrievers, with a good dose of clever thrown in,
exhibit very few of the traits of their parental breeds. I toss a ball for them
and they look at me like I’m crazy. I take them to the beach, either the cool
fresh water of Michigan or the sensuous salt of the gulf, and they love to look
at the dead fish, and chase the birds, but they are very much not interested in
going in. The little one hides behind my feet, the big one pulls away.
But they love to run around their fenced yard, love to walk on their leashes
with me wherever I want to go (except please not that new park, they get cockle
burs there!) And they don't shed, love brushing and they love my husband and
me. They know our kids on sight and love them too, even though none of them
live here. And strangers? They will do their tricks... one legacy from their
poodle dad... and smile sweetly until anyone who meets them loves them back. I
think that is their equivalent to off leash time, or maybe they are really not
dogs, but stuffed animals come to life.
Anyway. Dog Songs, by Mary Oliver. Easy, quick little book of poems and
sweet sketches.
