BackwaterBlog

My wife and I are dog people. In nearly 28 years of wedded bliss (insert cackling laughter) we’ve had a dog for all but the first 2. Newlywed apartments being what they are, we had to settle for a cat during those times.

Picked up a Lab/mix in ‘83 who spent the next eleven years with us and witnessed the birth of our three children.

Picked up another Lab/mix in ‘94. Seems like he was a yearling at the time. This one passed just a few weeks ago, having lived for at least 15 years. That’s old for a Lab.

Along the way there’s been the occasional attempt at having more than one dog, or a guest dog would show up for a spell. Cats would wander in, or a lizard or hamster. When you have children and a home and a wife who can’t say no the menagerie promises to be in a state of flux at odd given moments.

But always, there was the prime dog. Given the not-so-difficult task of anchoring the home and making it his own. Growling at intruders to give me a little warning, a little head start to the Remington. The keeper of the space, a presence for the woman when I’m off down the road on some dusty jobsite for days on end. An entertainer. A lounging sloth in the workshop to serve as a sounding board, a keen observer of kitchen activities.

We keep a dog because it’s the way things are, and have always been.

People in the Backwater understand this. Rare indeed is the house down here without one, or several. They roam at large because fencing is expensive and limiting, and a dog content with his lot won’t go very far anyway.

Ally and I made the trip yesterday to a rescue shelter. It’s a strange way to add to your family, to roll dice and hope for the look, a spark, when seeing all sorts of dogs cramped behind steel and shouldering each other for a look at strangers in khaki and boots, the kennel deafening with the howl and bark of dogs in trouble. A dozen such dogs, sent to the very back edge of a backwater swamp, to a building hard to find and out of the way.

I believe in a lot of the undercurrent things that go on between dogs and the humans who attempt to herd them. Who attempt to know what’s best for them. I looked at one who huddled, shivering in his pen on a hard concrete floor. He was much older, a silvery mix of breeds and obviously new from a home of some kind, a soul accustomed to carpet and regular meals and a soft hand. He had the stare of the defeated, and the thought went through me that no, this one wouldn’t work for what we are. And he turned and slumped to a corner and would look no more. He knew, and I knew. And a hard old thing it is to know.

Just as simple or hard to reject the jumper, the loud one, the downright ugly one. I followed in Ally’s wake and she was being very slow about the whole thing. Would have taken just about all of them I’m sure. But there was one, yes, and he spoke without sound and for a wonder, he was a Lab. He tracked us with his eyes, just a couple of barks, trying to peer around the corner of the pen when we walked away. I saw all this because I was tracking him as well, and his alertness. Like I say, I believe in that sort of stuff. Just like I believe in the spark between man and wife who speak without words, and it was no surprise to me when Ally said, “Can we see that one please, the Lab?”

It was a start, the start of the first day for a dog we’ll call Sam.

There was the skittish nervousness of a juvenile Black Lab, all big feet and muscle and tail going in four directions at once. He was thin, bony even, from some never to be explained wandering before the Shelter got hold of him. Skinny or not, he pulled me to the car like a crazed mule, a rope lead digging into my hands. “Good lord”, I said to Ally. “There’s nothing wrong with his energy!” And he hauled me to the nearest big pine tree and pooped like he’d been holding it for a week.

“Good dog! Good Sam!” He was, well, like someone just released from jail, and I worried about his past, my stinging hands and the cars upholstery.

But he glided into the backseat and calmly sat upright as if he did it every day.

We stopped at the grocery and laid in food. And a proper leash. And a long training lead. And because we are foolish spoilers of grandsons and dogs, a rawhide bone.

Ally was all set to walk him when we got home, and he demonstrated no lack of a sense of equality as he dragged her around the acreage on a jailbreak flight.

But once in the house, he was mannerly and obedient. He watched my wife, he followed her, he wouldn’t let either of us out of sight.

There was an agreement made, and the proper signs were exchanged.

Right now, he sleeps and dreams on the floor alongside the bed of his mistress. There is a look about him, from his eyes, and it isn’t the look of eagles just yet. It’s a look of wanting, of course, always a dog is wanting a touch, a meal. This is a look of wanting to be part of something. He wants to join the club and we’re just as wanting that he do so.

It’s the way things ought to be. Welcome, Sam.