The Return of the Son of More Dog Stuff

                        Naomi and Rhonda

From the time that I was 21 until I was 37 or 38

I was attached to a shaggy little dirtball

of a hybrid-vigour dog,

whom I’d named Naomi,

just because it’d seemed to me to be a pretty name for a pretty puppy.

Unlike me, she charmed everyone she met

with her sweet, engaging personality.

It seemed to me that she loved me as a daddy,

and enjoyed lying by my side with her head on my shoulder.

Sometimes we danced.

When I went to see her in the veterinary hospital

where she’d gone after suffering a fall from a balcony

she put one small paw through the mesh of her kennel

and just rested it on my hand.

She died in her sleep

curled up on her favourite blanket in front of the gas heater

a few weeks later.

When I was 53 I took on the responsibility

for a fox terrier,

whom I named Rhonda

in the mistaken hope that she’d help me.

It seemed to me twelve years later

that she considered me primarily to be a provider

of things that she needed and enjoyed –

and little else.

I’m sure she didn’t mean any harm,

she was just hard-headed and self-centred and it wasn’t her fault –

it was just part of her fox-terrierness.

Anyway, we both knew that she depended on me

totally

for everything important,

which was serious stuff,

and then she got sick and died before her time.

            Definitely Asymmetrical

I’m sorry, but I just don’t allow

my dog to watch me when I’m in the loo,

even though she looks up at me,

expecting me to watch her

and use the word ‘good’

whenever she relieves herself on our walks.

           Rhonda the Challenger

For twelve and a half years

I had a fox terrier whom I’d named Rhonda,

and who was definitely one hard case.

Not only did she have her breed’s

peculiarly challenging characteristics

of mischievousness, marked stubbornness,

and an inclination to use her cleverness

to get away with any shit that she could,

she was also abnormally big for a foxy

and had been by far the largest in her litter,

which had taught her from her earliest days

that it was natural for her to be the top dog.

She challenged me almost daily.

I often had to snarl or shout

to make her obey – sorta –

and sometimes she even didn’t come to me

when I called her name at the park.

I also had to demand

that she come to me

every time I was ready

to put on her harness to go for a walk.

During those walks near home

I often had to jerk her 15-to-16 kilos up by the lead

and drag her across streets

or pull her back from dicey situations.

Even though having to prevail

in such petty daily struggles

was truly a drag,

I could never let her win.

I was the human, she was the dog, and it’s a hard world.

If I wasn’t the leader of our two-unit pack

we would’ve both gone down the gurgler.

            Differentiation

For me what is,

is pointless bullshit stupidity and agony.

For my dog what is,

is what is.

                    Afternoon Walkies

Since with advancing years both my dog and I

discovered that things go best when each day’s pattern

closely resembles that of the day before,

the circadian pattern in the winter of 2011

had for some time been awakening pre-dawn,

doing desk things until after morning drive time,

with a small breakfast for her only at about six,

then an hour or so in the dog exercise park,

rain or shine, healthy or sick,

including a short game of stick – weather permitting with this –

her major meal of the day when we returned home,

then desk things, errands, or both until mid-afternoon,

when she got some supper and I had my only meal of the day,

washed down with a bottle of cheap plonk,

and after I finished the wine along with a book

we took an afternoon turn around the footpaths

of our leafy inner-city suburb of Claudelands

and then around Claudelands Park.

Sometimes, when the editing work had been

particularly strenuous mentally that day,

I prefaced my meal with a small glass of whisky,

and was in no mood later to go out for the walk –

although I almost always did,

telling myself it’d just be a short one.

Then, as we reached the farthest corner

of the park’s circumferential footpath,

I told her that she’d been lucky once again that I’m so indulgent,

although as my nerves calmed down and my digestion picked up

I tended to wonder who was doing a favour for whom.

After she died my late-afternoon strolls

became increasingly infrequent,

which did nothing to improve my physical condition.

  Doomed One-Way Abstract Discussion

I tried to explain

to my dog

that as much as things in general

seem to bewilder her,

I’m more bewildered still.

                  Dog-Proofing

Being a smooth-haired fox terrier,

Rhonda shed copiously in all seasons

and at all times of the day and night.

Since she had, at various phases of her life,

enjoyed her daytime snoozes on my giant waterbed,

and since a coating of bristly dog hair on my bedclothes

would fail to enhance my sleep environment,

I had from the start covered it with bedspreads

during the day for dog-proofing.

At the start of the autumn of 2012

she hadn’t been up on the bed

since some time the previous spring,

I supposed either because the bed is heated

and the afternoons had still been warm

or because she’d decided that the considerable leaps

involved in getting both on and off –

the mattress and frame sit atop a twelve-drawer pedestal –

were no longer appropriate

for a dog of her increasing age and weight.

I still went through the ritual of covering it

with two bedspreads every morning

and folding them up

on a corner of the foot of the bed every afternoon

before going downstairs for food and wine.

It seemed likely to me that the first day I didn’t do that

she’d be back up there,

so I kept the routine till she died.

          Relative Consistency

I think that my dog appreciated

my being consistent with her

except when she preferred that I’d be consistent

in some other way.

              Kennelside Manner

She was bristling with

generalised, non-specific hostility

that was alert for anything

that she – or it –

could possibly consider provocation.

I certainly tried not to provoke her,

but of course that was impossible,

so I received some really nasty, unfair innuendos

about how I was caring for my newly adopted dog.

I refused to let her ruffle me, though,

or call her names even in my mind.

I reckoned that it wasn’t personal,

although it seemed that way,

and that she couldn’t be like that all the time

and still function as a veterinarian.

Must be love problems, I thought,

or maybe her eggs had been cold that morning,

or something.

Two visits to the vet later,

there she was again,

as nice as a person can be,

and showing empathy for the tribulations

of a person who adopts an older dog.

               What Keeps Dogs Sane

My fox terrier was always totally into the moment,

with no consideration of the past or the future –

but only of now.

          Comparative Social Skills

My little old Schnauzer’s primary objective in life

is to make as many friends as he can.

It fascinates me when

he goes up to say hi-let’s-be-friends

to other dogs on the footpath or in the park

(as he invariably does),

and the other dogs’ people

try to tell them how to react to this:

‘Now, be nice, Buster (or whoever)’

or ‘Don’t bark’ or ‘Go slow’ or ‘Don’t be rough’

or whatever,

as if they know more about dogs’ protocols

than the dogs do themselves.

Of course they don’t.

If those people paid attention,

and could actually see their dogs

through the haze of their own pathetic egos,

they’d know that, left to themselves,

dogs are much better at being dogs

than humans are at being human.