She Cried

Elaine and I are dog people. No, we don't identify as dogs, we just like dogs. But just to be safe I will tell you should you and I get in a fight, I will bite you. (Useless information) Elaine became a dog person naturally. With me, it was something I eased into.

Growing up, Elaine's family had dogs. When Elaine talks about her childhood dogs it seems like she had a couple hundred. Or maybe I didn't listen and they only had six or seven dogs. When I met Elaine, while still in high school, her family had four dogs. Schultz, a rock-eating black lab, Leisel, a super-smart Weimaraner, Cindy, a very fat beagle, and PJ, an all-white mutt with no personality..

My family left the farm and moved to the city when I was four years old. They tell me on the farm we had a full-size collie named Lassie. I don't know if I have memories of Lassie or if I just recall hearing the stories about him. (Lassie was male but was given a female name. She identified as female. Or one of my older brothers watched television and named the dog after the Lassie show. I'm guessing Lassie was ashamed of his name, but that's just a guess.)

Lassie didn't move to the city with us. They tell me he was given to one of the neighbors down the road from our farm. Looking back I hope they changed the poor dog's name and restored the dignity all dogs deserve.

My family didn't get another dog until I was in the seventh grade Truth be told, our family didn't get a dog, my mother did. She got a miniature poodle, not a toy or a standard one. Mom and the poodle are gone, so I feel free to discuss the dog. Mom named her poodle Cherie, mostly because she didn't like the word Satan.

Having Lassie and Cherie/Satan is the reason I had to ease into becoming a dog person.

Getting a dog was not a priority in the early years of our marriage. We were living in apartments that I'm guessing didn't allow pets. I say that's a guess because remembering rental agreements from fifty years ago is something I can't do.

In those days I was a framing contractor building houses and supervising the construction of retail gasoline sales facilities, (Don't worry Fairy Godmother, I haven't even started the stories of building gas facilities.) Life was getting good, Elaine and I and our first batch of kids started having conversations about dogs. I had recently hired a new employee that I will call Calvin, mostly because that was his name. Cal, short for Calvin because I get tired of typing long names, had recently finished his time spent in the U.S. Army where he was stationed in Germany. Again, my memory escapes me but somehow Cal found out my family was considering a dog.

Cal was very excited when he told me he had friends in Germany who bred dogs, Rottweillers. German Rottweilers, huge German Rottweillers. Who wouldn't want one of those? I don't know how but I know it took a long time to get the dog and its papers, but Cal got us a Rottweiler. We named it Odie.

True to his word, Odie got big just like Cal said he would. We loved Odie but she had a habit that didn't make me happy. Odie dug holes in the yard, big ones. I know there are reasons dogs dig and you can lecture me some other time but not today. We ended up giving Odie to a nice lady with several Rottweillers of her own. The finances of that transaction really hurt but at least I wasn't filling holes in the yard every night. This story makes me wonder what happened to Calvin.

A few years later living in a different house with no dog(s) I remember vividly while being at Stan's Club, my first batch of children called to inform me that the next-door neighbor was taking their family's dog to the pound. Before you start questioning the timeline I have had a cellphone from before phones became "smart". I promise it was probably before you. More useless information.) My kids wanted me to say "yes" to keeping the neighbor's dog. "Friday" moved into our house. Incidentally, Friday was the first dog buried on our mountain.

Friday was the kind of dog that just loved. She started turning me into a dog person. I/we decided Friday needed a friend. A big friend, (Friday was a runt.) We needed another Rottweiller. We got Lucy, not named after my Mom, Lucille, who also could be a hard-headed German.

Lucy knew exactly who she was and what she was for. She was big and she was scary ugly. But she was the most gentle dog we've had. She was a great judge of character, she liked most people. Not all but most. She was not without her own set of issues. She never saw a television remote she didn't want to eat. Nine remotes, at the time it was said to be a Comcast record.

Lucy loved eating electronics so much that she took a cell phone out of a technician's toolbelt while he was wearing it. She munched the phone before he could retrieve it

Lucy, along with Friday, moved to the mountains with Elaine and me.

There have been four or five other dogs between Lucy and Friday and Goose and Gordon (current dogs). I know the exact number but I don't like looking like a sappy dog person. Our current puppies have turned out to be everything Elaine wants in a dog. Elaine wants a dog to hug and provide companionship. I want dogs that scare away traveling salesmen, attack predators, and alert me when something is not right outside.

It appears at this point that we both got our wishes. Goose and Gordon love to sit next to or on Elaiine. I'm not crazy about them sitting on me. My back gets jerked around when they move. I've written that Goose chased a fox off the property. They run to the brown truck delivery guy when they hear his truck. He gives them dog biscuits. A state tax collector (not kidding) knocked on our door. I thought Gordon was going to jump through the glass. (Seems Elaine filled in the wrong form and underpaid our share by forty-five dollars) The collector said he wanted out of the office and decided to come see us. (Not kidding) I won't get political, I won't get political!

Sorry, I lost my thoughts for a minute. I think I was talking about Goose and Gordon. I might as well tell you, we had a tragedy this past week with the puppies. Elaine was at work at her computer, I was watering tomatoes in my greenhouse. I watched the puppies through the greenhouse glass. They were headed northwest. Maybe I should have paid more attention but I have watched them head northwest before. I finished watering the tomatoes. I was ready to gather up the puppies and go into the house. They were gone. out of sight, gone. I whistled for them. They didn't come to me. I drove my side-by-side around our property looking for them. They were gone. After thirty minutes I recruited Elaine's help. We drove around the property and down the road. We drove up the road.

Elaine started to tear up. We were fearing the worst. Our neighbors have had dogs killed by predators. That my friends is why we own semi-automatic weapons. That and the occasional traveling salesman. OK, I was tearing up also. Elaine was already planning life without the puppies. I was thinking I've already got a thousand bucks in those dogs, we need to find them. For different reasons were were incredibly sad. Well after an hour we had given up the search. Elaine decided to make a trip to the mailboxes with photos of Goose and Gordon I just couldn't give up. I decided to drive around again leaving the doors to the house open, hoping if they came home they could get in the house. Elaine had been gone a while, not a long while, but nonetheless a while. I was headed up the driveway and met her coming down the driveway. Gordon was sitting on the seat next to her, Goose was next to Gordon.

We have a fox den down by the road at the end of our property. Goose and Gordon were down by the den waiting for a ride home. The tears changed from sad to joyful. Not so much for Goose and Gordon, Elaine has them in lockdown. I don't need to get rid of the new bag of dog food I just bought. All's fine in Livermore.

God Bless, Love ya, Buy yarn, I need to give the state forty-five dollars.

Our crazy lives!

Monner