Born to Bark (14 page)

The house was only minutes from the university on a short, twisting street with the odd name of Newton Wynd in an elegant neighborhood with big, expensive homes. I parked my car in a port at the rear of the house, and as I got out of it my friend opened her back door and waved. Rushing past her was a mountain of blond fur—Wolf—that bounded over to me as I opened the gate to the backyard. Big for his breed, he weighed about 95 pounds and his head was much broader than most golden retrievers’, giving him an appearance more bearlike than wolflike. Like all goldens, however, there was nothing wolf
like in his behavior. If dog breeds each had a motto, then motto for golden retrievers would be “You’ve got a face. I’ve got a tongue. I know we can work something out.”

I ran my hands through his sand-colored fur and felt my muscles relax. Wolf turned and led me back to his mistress and into the house. Lou showed me around her home, which was bright, well-furnished, and stylish. She showed me the box in which she kept Wolf’s medication in the refrigerator—insulin for his diabetes. She indicated where the syringes were kept, then showed me the guest room where I would be sleeping. As she was giving me a tour of the house, Arnold arrived.

“Stay and have a drink,” he said. He turned to his wife, “Do we have enough food to set another place for dinner?”

Lou said she could throw another steak on the grill, which sounded quite inviting to me. I sat down and we sipped some scotch and worked out the rest of the details, such as how to contact them while they were away, who their veterinarian was, where the key to their liquor cabinet was, and where the freezer was located (which was filled with steaks and other expensive cuts of beef).

The next day, a few hours after Lou and Arnold had left for the airport, I came back. When I opened the door, Wolf bounded forward to sniff my hands and the small suitcase containing a few clothes and personal items. Then, in the manner of golden retrievers, he accepted me as if I had lived with him all of his life, inviting me into his home with his tail wagging.

The home that I found myself temporarily living in had big windows and was only a short walk away from a strip of parkland that overlooked the water. I grabbed a ball from Wolf’s box of toys and we went out for a bit of a walk and some play. I knew that I should be at work, since this was a Friday and there was no excuse not to be doing my research and writing. I could have easily left Wolf for a few hours, and it would have been sensible to do so since my lab was only about five minutes away. On the other hand, this was also only the second day after my reprieve. I had phone
d the lab and confirmed that only routine testing had been scheduled for the day, which I knew that my laboratory assistant, Wayne, could handle. After all, the reason that I was here sharing this great house with this sweet dog was to provide me with a few days of meditation or therapy. At the very least I was here to establish the fact that I was no longer bound to a lifestyle where my main concern was a clock quickly ticking away the short time
that I had to live. Since I now had time on my side, I just relaxed and tried to get to know Wolf a little better.

Around seven or eight years of age, Wolf still had a lot of energy and, being a typical retriever, he loved to chase a ball. I found myself thinking about what Roger Caras, the author and former head of the ASPCA, wrote in one of his books, “Try throwing a ball just once for a dog. It would be like eating only one peanut or potato chip. Try to ignore the importuning of a golden retriever who has brought you his tennis ball, the greatest treasure he possesses.”

Watching Wolf charge across the grass to catch a ball that I had thrown was a joy. He was not sleek and elegant because he was so large, and rather than bounding around, he sort of galumphed, his ears flapping like the wings of a bird. Looking at him happily retrieving his toy somehow made the sunshine a bit warmer and the day a bit brighter. It was only when the ball became too dirty and soggy to be pleasant to handle that we went back to the house.

After a light lunch I took a mug of coffee and wandered into the front room and settled onto a large wooden rocking chair while Wolf lay down on a woolen rug at my feet. It brought back memories of the times that I used to sit in my room and talk to my boxer Penny when I was still in college.

“Well, Wolf, I have a problem that perhaps you can shed some light on,” I began.

I knew what voice Wolf would answer in since it had come to me as I watched his heavy movements and his way of sometimes running past the ball he wanted to fetch in his enthusiasm. He reminded me of a character named Deputy Dawg in a televised cartoon show that my youngest brother Arthur used to watch in the early 1960s.

Deputy Dawg was an overweight yellow dog with floppy ears much like Wolf. He was a deputy sheriff with a grandfatherly voice who lived in a fanciful version of the backwoods of
southern Mississippi, where bayous abound, and phrases like “dag nabit” and “gosh darn” are commonplace. More concerned with napping than catching bad guys, he was not very bright, but he often got the better of his adversaries due to dumb luck or some far-fetched plan that somehow succeeded, though never the way that Deputy Dawg had anticipated.

When Deputy Dawg’s voice answered me with,
“Well, dag nabit, don’t beat around the bush. Just tell me what your problem is,”
I laughed. I had gotten out of the habit of having these conversations with dogs in the years since Penny and I had parted. Nonetheless, though it was silly, it was also comforting. Out of a long forgotten habit, I quickly glanced around to make sure that no one was watching.

“You know, everything just changed so much when I got the diagnosis—my death sentence. I ended my marriage, and I threw myself totally into my work to the exclusion of everything else.”

“That’s not true,”
said the Deputy Dawg voice.
“Your marriage ended a long time ago and you just let it drag on—maybe for the kids or maybe because it was just easier not to take any action. And about your work—you know that your research and your writing are addictions. You need to do it. You live for it. But, gosh darn it, you’ve also used your work as a hiding place—when things got tough at home or in any of your relationships you hid in your work. Your work was always something that you had under complete control so you could be safe there.”

This oration was a lot longer than any I remembered coming from any other of my dogs’ mouths. Still, it did appear to be a clear summary of the facts. Now that they were lying out in the open, my situation seemed to be quite clear. Wolf was still resting on the rug but had his eyes open just a slit, allowing him to look at me. Apparently, he enjoyed the attention or at least the sound of my voice. As Deputy Dawg he had just put into words a set of truths that I had refused to acknowledge and had ignored or repressed
for too long. Nonetheless, I said to the dog, “Really? Aren’t you being a bit harsh in your evaluation of my situation?”

“Dang it! If you wanted some kind of sympathetic Sigmund Freud, you should have given me a German accent! What I said was true and you know it. Think about it.”

Suddenly tired, I didn’t want to continue talking, so I moved over to sit on the sofa and a short time later fell asleep. After an hour or so, I awakened to find that Wolf had climbed up beside me and was resting his heavy head on my lap. I shook myself awake and wandered out onto the sunlit rear deck of the house and sat down. Wolf followed and sat looking at me.

I looked at him and said professorially, “Did you know that the first dog in Sigmund Freud’s life was named Wolf?”

I asked him, professorially, “Did you know that the first dog in Sigmund Freud’s life was named Wolf? He wasn’t a golden
retriever, but a German shepherd. Freud got Wolf as a companion for his daughter Anna, who was still living at home. Anna liked to take walks, especially in the evening, but the streets of Vienna were not considered safe for a woman walking by herself—especially a Jewish woman during that anti-Semitic era. Freud felt that Wolf’s size and his wariness of strangers would help to keep her safe.”

The Deputy Dawg voice answered,
“Dang! I could have been Sigmund Freud’s dog! So now that you’ve had your beauty sleep, have you decided anything?”

“Well, I will try to make sure that Mossy gives me more access to the kids. I’ve been missing Rebecca and Benn a lot. I’ll see my lawyer next week and find out what can be done.”

“Yeah, but that don’t solve nothin’. You would be better off living with someone. How about Clare?”

“No, that’s over.”

“Okay, then, I’ll give you some advice. Think of it as great wisdom coming from the reincarnation of Dr. Freud’s dog. Don’t get personally involved with another psychologist and certainly not one who you are doing research with. You always get the research and the personal relationship knotted together and when choices have to be made, you always choose the research and get hurt when the relationship goes down the drain.”
Wolf rolled over and seemed to be asking for a belly rub. I scratched at his underside and the Deputy Dawg voice continued.

“Find yourself a nurse, or maybe an elementary school teacher. These are professional, intelligent women who have a caring attitude. They would understand what you are talking about whenever you decide to talk about your work, while they would still have the inclination to try to be supportive when you act like a big child—the way that university professors always do. Keep whoever you find out of your research life. Your research and writing will never stop being your passion, but you need to have passions outside of your career.”

I asked the big shaggy dog, “You want me to pick my life mate based on her profession? I think that all of this therapy is melting my mind. How about some supper?”

The 6 or 7 days that I spent with Wolf were quiet and relaxing. I taught my classes and did some laboratory work, but I kept my hours closer to a 9 to 5 normal workday, rather than the usual 12 to 14 hours I had been working. I would dash back to the house to let Wolf out at noon and play with him a bit. Nobody noticed, or at least nobody commented that I was not working as many hours. Yet the research and writing were still getting finished on time.

In the evenings Wolf and I would spend an hour or more talking. That Deputy Dawg accent was becoming so easy and natural that, at one point, when I spilled a cup of coffee in the psychology lounge I was surprised to hear myself saying, “Dang, what a cotton pickin’ mess I’ve made!” My professional colleagues who were sitting with me laughed, thinking that I was trying to be funny.

During one of my conversations with Wolf, I made another major decision. We had been discussing the first steps that I had to take to get my life back on track.

“Well,”
the Deputy Dawg voice said,
“one thing that you’ve got to do is to get yourself a dog. You need a dog to keep you sane, and I don’t make no gosh-darn house calls.”

“I can’t, there is a ‘no pets’ policy in my apartment building.”

“Then buy a house.”

“They are way too expensive here in the city.”

“Dag nabit, then be creative. You’ve got some money left over from paying off Mossy and settling up your debts when you sold the other house. You can teach summer and evening courses in addition to your regular teaching and salt all of that money away. You can also do some consulting work, some more writing … I figure that if you do all that, then in less than two years you could have enough to put a down payment on a small house—and a small dog.”

The moment the words were out in the air I knew that this was the course of action that I needed to take.