When the dogs went out at 1 a.m. Thursday, a canine — a coyote, I think — was barking and howling nearby. It sounded as close as the field just north of the house, so I stood on the deck while Summer and Dejah did their business down below.
I hope it was a coyote. The barks sounded like a domesticated dog, and if so the howls could have been a cry for help. But the howls sounded like a wild animal, and the moon bright in the clear sky is growing full, and so I assumed it was a coyote howling at the moon for whatever reason they do so.
Given that assumption, the sound was beautiful, another reason for settling in the country where wild animals still have a little room to be wild. I don’t know what was really happening out there in the dark, any more than a city dweller knows why a siren is howling in the night, but I find that I prefer the animal howl to the machine’s howl.
Sometimes you’ll hear someone say, “He treats her like a dog,” usually when someone is especially mean and nasty to someone he supposedly cares for.
Let me tell you how I treat my dogs.
Dejah is prone to allergies, especially food allergies, so she is on a special diet of “hydrolyzed protein,” which means it’s a specially formulated hypoallergenic dog food to improve digestibility.
Summer is prone to bladder stones, so she is on a special urinary tract diet designed to dissolve the stones. If the stones don’t go away soon, surgery is the only other option. But she seems to be better since I switched to a new brand of treats. More on that in a minute.
I would rather not divulge how much I spend on dog food and veterinary bills, but I believe it’s worth it to keep my girls healthy.
Dejah likes to climb into the other easy chair while I’m watching TV, and Summer usually sleeps in my bed. Most of the time she curls up in a corner of the bed near my feet, but sometimes she gets there before I do and sprawls across the end of the bed — on those nights I sleep horizontally, or kind of diagonally actually.
We live on a three-acre lot, but Red and I built a fence to create a backyard area where they can play without fear of any predator-type critters in the woods, and so they don’t wander away from home.
At least once a night, and often twice, Dejah will whine to go out. She is 12 years old, which is elderly for a golden retriever, and her bladder is not as strong as it used to be. And so I get out of bed and let her outside for a few minutes at 1 or 3 a.m.
When Summer was a puppy, it was a challenge to get her to come back into the house, so I started to bribe her with treats — Beggin’ Strips or Blue Health Bars. These past few months after the bladder stones were not going away, I switched her a few weeks ago to a special veterinary-formula treat. Dejah still gets the cheap stuff, and Summer seems to love her new crunchy treats.
I’m not saying this to complain or to lift myself up as anyone special. This is just the kind of thing that dog owners do for their furry family members.
I’m just saying that being treated like a dog can be living like royalty. I’d like to suggest we come up with a different metaphor to describe the jerk in the first paragraph.
I let Dejah go out on the back deck for a few minutes, then swigged the rest of my coffee, set the cup next to the pot, and went to grab my coat and the leash.
The other golden retriever looked up at me with sad, expectant, and perhaps anxious eyes. I smiled at her.
“Just a little while longer, Will,” I said to her. The dog’s name is Summer, of course, but she does resemble her predecessor, to whom I often referred as Willow The Best Dog There Is™.
It’s a compliment — as well as evidence my brain is aging — that I sometimes mix up Summer’s name. Willow was the canine love of my life. I’ve had a special bond with a handful of dogs, but Willow and I were so close that — and I paused writing this sentence to come up with the precise adjective, but all I could come up with was “indescribable.”
When a fellow dog lover describes the best dog ever, it’s Willow’s face that springs to mind. Calling her Willow The Best Dog There Is™ was my way of poking fun at myself, because I know there are millions of Best Dogs Ever depending on who you ask.
Summer entered my life about five months after Willow left us, when I sat down on the breeders’ floor and let 10 six-week-old puppies swarm over me. Somehow after 45 minutes I concluded the pup with the yellow collar was Summer, although a few of her seven sisters almost earned that designation.
She is a sweet soul, this dog, and she often snuggles next to me when I write or type. When I wake up in the morning, I sit on the side of the bed looking out at the back yard, and most mornings Summer will come up and look at the outside world by my side, my arm around her shoulder.
Most mornings, too, we will take a walk up the hill and back. Her disappointment is palpable on the days when I skip that routine.
When I slip and call her Will or Willow, it’s a testament to how special Summer has become to me. I wonder sometimes if her eyes are sad because she senses my bond with Willow was once in a lifetime and that I am holding back just a little bit because of the memory of that devastating loss.
Or perhaps she wants to reassure me that I can have two once-in-a-lifetime bonds. It is, after all, once in her lifetime.
