Born to Bark (6 page)

Three or four weeks had passed since Tippy’s obedience test, and on a weekend day my mother was in the kitchen making a big pot of split pea soup. I had a library book in my hand and was thinking about going outside, where the sun was shining and I could read for a bit. My plan was to find Tippy and take him out with me for company, so I had his leash in my other hand. It was then that I heard Tippy barking in the living room. It was his frantic bark and it was superimposed on the sounds of my brother Dennis laughing. I dashed down the hall and into our little living room to
see what was happening.

Dennis was using a flashlight to cast a bright spot on the floor, moving it erratically and laughing and shouting “Bad dog!” as Tippy dashed this way and that trying to catch it.

Even though Tippy was trained, if he became overexcited and entered that state of terrier frenzy, I could not be sure that he would still respond to my commands, and the consequences of him dashing into the kitchen and another collision with my mother were too dreadful to contemplate.

I shouted, “Dennis, stop that!” but he only laughed and jumped up on the sofa while moving the light spot on the floor faster and faster. Tippy was becoming more and more excited, so I quickly closed the living room door to prevent him from charging down the hall. I called “Tippy, come!” No response.

“Tippy, down!” No response.

Accelerating, the little terrier made his dash for the door. Finding the door unexpectedly closed, he made a quick turn to avoid a collision, but lost his footing and slid a short distance on the bare wood floor only to bang against the rickety wooden pedestal table beside the sofa. Time slowed as I watched the table tilt and the red glass lamp tip over and crash to floor, breaking into several large pieces. The noise and the near miss from a large falling object brought Tippy to a halt long enough for me to grab him and clip the leash onto his collar.

Dennis was still jumping up and down on the sofa, laughing and shouting, “Bad dog!” when I opened the living room door and raced down the hall dragging my dog. I had to get him away from this newest disaster. Suddenly I had a flash of inspiration. I shouted, “Mom! Dennis was jumping on the sofa and knocked over the lamp and it broke. I’m gonna take Tippy outside so that he doesn’t cut his feet on the glass. Dennis is still in there.”

I felt no remorse. Dennis was ultimately responsible for this mess, and I doubted that he could shift the blame to Tippy, but I wanted my dog out of sight just in case. Perhaps my dog—my wonderfully trained dog—could avoid suffering the consequences of this latest lapse in control.

I sat on the front steps of the house, my arms around my dog. The warm sunshine helped calm me and I stopped shaking. Tippy turned and gave my face a lick. I faintly heard my mother’s angry voice drift through the window and my brother’s insistent explanation of “Bad dog!” which did not seem to be carrying much weight today. I chuckled to myself and whispered in Tippy’s ear, “Good dog!”

Many dogs would come to live under my parents’ roof, although not all at the same time. The array would ultimately include two schnauzers, an Irish setter, and two Cavalier King Charles spaniels. There would also be a cavalcade of cats including a sweet gray cat, a nasty purple Persian, and eventually four Siamese cats of differing shades and temperaments. The dogs belonged to us kids: me, Dennis, and eventually my youngest brother Arthur. When we boys no longer lived in the house, the dogs belonged to my father. The cats belonged to my mother.

Every dog that touched our existence had its own character, with a variety of strengths and foibles. Each had a life story, and each added its experiences to our lives. During the years that I lived in my parents’ home, one special dog would set the stage for how I would think about dogs for the rest of my life. She was a boxer named Penny.

Penny was there at times of great change and transition in my life—when I finished high school, when I began and later returned from my active military service, a
nd through my undergraduate
college years. Like all of my dogs, her job was to be my companion, but occasionally she was a therapist and teacher.

I never understood how, or from where, my father got our dogs. Even though we had very little money, my father wanted a traditional household and didn’t want my mother to have to work, but circumstances were such that she always had at least a part-time job. By the middle of my high school years, however, our financial condition was better. My parents had their own house and enough income to meet the mortgage payments. Money was still a concern (so I worked part-time jobs to pay for textbooks, school fees, and personal things), and there was really not enough left over to all
ow us to afford luxuries. Certainly an expensive purebred dog would have fit in the category of luxury—yet we always had them.

One of my uncles later told me that my father bought most of our dogs with straight labor, rather than money. Dad was a wonderful craftsman and could build or repair just about anything. Our dogs were usually purchased in exchange for his doing some kind of construction or repair job for people. This involved working weekends and some evenings with the only payment being a puppy when the job was completed. He never explained the circumstances to us, and if we asked he would just
say, “The dog is here with us now and that is all that matters.”

Penny may have been different, since when my father placed the towel-wrapped puppy in my arms, he announced, “Her name is Penny because that is what I paid for her. She is a boxer. Give her a life.” Since he usually left the naming of the dog to the son who would care for her, this was a clear difference, and although he never offered any further explanation, it seemed to matter to my father.

My brother Dennis looked at the puppy and observed, “Her face is so flat she looks like she walked into a wall. That’s one ugly dog!”

My mother also peered over my shoulder and laughed, “She is so ugly that she is actually cute!”

Penny would never grow up to have the classic look of the breed. She was somewhat smaller and lighter than the norm, and her legs would not be quite as long and elegant as her body mass required. She was the classic fawn color of a boxer, though, with a white chest and white “socks,” or paws. Her face was a dark mask that shadowed the area around her eyes and muzzle, although it was not quite as square and jowly as those of show dogs. But her dark eyes were set in a perpetually friendly, attentive look.

I thought she was beautiful. I got down on my knees, unwrapped the towel, and put her on the floor. She immediately began to sniff around, checking each person in turn, and then began inspecting the room.

I called to her in as happy a voice as I could produce, “Penny, come!” and she immediately trotted over to me and shoved her dark face in my hand. She then sat and looked at me with those dark eyes, and if people could melt because of the warmth of a look of love, I would have turned into a puddle at that moment.

Disaster struck a month later. Our house was on a residential street in West Philadelphia, but it got more traffic than most such streets because it was used by many people as a shortcut to bypass two busy intersections. The people who used it that way were obviously impatient and tended to travel at higher than normal speeds for such a narrow lane. This made the street too hazardous for the neighborhood children to play in.

One day my mother was outside talking to the woman who lived next door. Somehow, Penny got out of the house, and wandered between two parked cars and into the street where she was hit by a speeding car. Fortunately, she was clipped by it and
not actually run over, but she flew several yards and landed in an unconscious heap. The car did not stop, and the driver may not have even seen her emerge and might not have known that he had nearly killed my small, young dog.

My mother rushed Penny to a veterinarian, who treated her immediately and later said that if the puppy had been older and had received an impact like that she probably would have been crippled for life. As it was, he was able to patch her up so that all that was left physically was a slight wobble in her hips that gave her a gait that looked much like someone who has had too much alcohol to drink but is trying to hide the fact by walking as gracefully as possible.

Penny’s greatest injury, however, was psychological, for the accident left her with an intense fear of streets and oncoming cars. Taking Penny on walks was nearly impossible. She would not step off a curb to cross a street. If you tried to force the issue she would actively resist, all the while whimpering pitifully. This meant that Penny’s life became confined to our home and our small backyard. Her exercise would be a few circuits around the block, or occasionally I would drive her to a park for a bit of a romp. In all other ways she was as courageous as any other boxer. Ultimately my edu
cation as a psychologist would teach me some techniques that might have been able to rid her of her fears, but that was years away and sadly too late for Penny.

When I got Penny, I was in my last year of high school and doing quite well academically. My personal life was orderly if not exciting, since, as the oldest child, my extended family had basically planned my future. My parents and maternal grandfather had even decided who I would marry. My father had planned my entry into the army as soon as I graduated. My mother had arranged to make sure that my scholarship for college would be held until I left active military service. My parents had also decided which university I would attend, namely, the University of Pennsylvania “beca
use it is an Ivy League school.”

My future career was also planned for me. My reading and interests mostly leaned toward the behavioral and biological sciences, since I had retained my childhood dream of being something like Dr. Doolittle, learning to communicate with animals and to understand what they were thinking. It was the 1960s, however, when the race between the United States and Russia for the domination of space filled the news. Physicists, engineers, and computer scientists were the heroes of the time, and psychologists and biologists did not get anywhere near the same attention or respect. My parents a
ssumed that I’d select a profession that would involve research in the physical sciences or perhaps an engineering or technological specialization, and they exerted every pressure they could to make sure that their expectations came to pass, including continually talking about how I would become a great astrophysicist, nuclear scientist, or aviation engineer. Although I had my own dreams and desires, I was not particularly rebellious and had respect for my parents, believing that they had my best interests in mind. Furthermore, I simply assumed that this kind of control was what everyone my age experienced.

In later years, my parents would ease their attempts at controlling their children’s lives, which would benefit my brothers, but I was their firstborn and they did not tolerate much questioning about their plans for me. I occasionally balked, but in most instances, their constant pressure made me conform. Nonetheless, my parents were not tyrants, so if I was insistent enough for long enough, they would let me take my own course of action, although they did not make it easy and would not let me forget that I had deviated from the path expected of “a good son.”

Under this benevolent dictatorship, I felt socially isolated. I had no confidants to whom I could talk and work out my options. My small circle of friends tended to talk about “things” and “events,” not feelings, personal goals, and futures—and
never about relationships with our parents. Ultimately Penny would become the companion with whom I shared my secrets.

I had a part-time job on Thursday and Friday evenings and all day Saturday. When I was home, I spent a lot of time in my small room studying. I had a little desk there with a goose-necked lamp on it. There was also an old rocking chair near the window. Next to the bed was a floor pillow on which Penny slept. When I would go upstairs to work, Penny would follow me, lie down on the pillow, and watch me at the desk. When I sat in the rocking chair reading she would hop up on my narrow single bed and nap. The reverberation of her gentle snoring became the comforting background music fo
r my life, and ever since I have always found it easier to write or work when I can hear the noise of a dog breathing nearby.