Requiem

"I want a dog. I've always had a dog".

So had I, as a kid, but I went to a petless private school, had two consecutive petless girlfriends, and I am allergic to anything that has skin.

When we lived in Portland, we had cats. Seven of them. They made life barely tolerable there, and I very conciously chose the allergens over the sterility of city life and stocked up on Benadryl. But we were on the third floor, so a dog was pretty much out of the question (TSG had Wilbur, the dumbest dog on the planet, when my wife and I were colllecting waifs to populate our early abodes. I will write later about how one black lab puppy managed to fit into an apartment containing 7 cats, 3 snakes, 4 permanent adults and up to 12 temporary waif-ish hackysacker couch potatoes. look for it later under the title "The Dreaded Butt Attack"

When our landlord sold our building, our menagerie (minus waifs, unfortunately. I liked the waifs) moved to seven acres in Bath, so, "I want a dog" Bastet said. Bastet wants a dog.

I dont want to contribute to the total suffering on the planet, so I will NOT get a purebreed. So we called the pound, and they asked Bastet what kind of dog she wanted, and she said "Big". And they said to her "we have JUST the dog for you!"

My friend, who I will refer to as Diogenes (yeah, motherfucker, you lucked out. I was tempted to pseudonym you Grasshopper, Gumshoe or Mr. Burton just to retaliate against you for not slavishly reading my every blog post, but my recent tryst with terminality has left me feeling generous)

/*begin freeflowing blogangst what the hell do I call people? I am demanding pseudonimity, but what if I piss off somebody by pseudonyming them myself, poorly? to quote a good movie, "Somtimes, ya just gotta say "what the fuck" end freeflowing blogangst*/

went to the pound to pick up the dog.

I have no idea why he went instead of me, it was too long ago, but anyway, Diogenes went to pick up our new dog,

Diogenes is a martial artist. A VERY good one, too. He moves with grace and determination, and he has excellent balance, better than mine when I was at my best. He is a pretty big guy, and very well trained. Black belt. Grappling instructor. Ninpo Taijutsu. The first thing that our new dog did was knock Diogenes on his ass. I wasn't there, but I got the idea that the dog REALLY wanted to be adopted, and was rather aggressive in agreeing to accompany Diogenes to our house.

Now, in his defense, it was winter, and slippery, and the dog was FUCKING ENORMOUS. 170 pounds enormous. Blocking Out The Sun enormous. he was big. Really really big.

His name was Ben, and he was a problem. His left hip had been crushed somehow, either through abuse or neglect or accident, and had never been correctly set. He was in constant pain in stormy weather, he was affectionate and deleriously happy to be alive at all other times.

He looked like a cross between a German Shepard and a Great Dane. I am 5'8" tall and he could lick my chin with just a little hop up.

We had him about three years. Huge dogs, regardless of their worth and value as living beings, don't live long, and I did not know that at the time.

He was scared of children (there was possible abuse in his past, and he reacted badly to being startled), so whenever we went out, he was muzzled. But his big lips stuck out of the muzzle far enough to carry around a deflated football, which he carried everywhere.

He loved to go walking on the Kennebec river and bark at the water. I could always tell he wanted to jump in the water, but he was terrified to. Our other dog, Gamma, used to swim around frequently, and Ben would watch her jealously. We always tried to get him to swim, he was always too scared.

One day, he found it. The Swimming Stick. I threw it into the river, and he wanted that stick so badly, he jumped in after it, Gamma gleefully yipping at his tail. Ben got the stick, and swam back. His self-pride in his achievement was clear, obvious. He strutted. Ben had conquered the water.

He died a few months later. I miss him.