GOOD DOG

I was driving with my daughter down Franklin Avenue, and I pointed out the apartment building I lived in in 1971. I told her the funny story about how I owned two dogs there, and I thought they were being good, but when I let them out the door at night to go to the bathroom, instead of running out the back door, they went down into the basement and pooped by the furnace. But I never went down there, and I didn't find out till too late.

The female was named Çasi. Originally I called her Zazie, after a character in a French movie. But it was too hard to say, and mutated naturally into Ça-si, which I think meant "so-if." Meaningless but euphonic., or so it seemed to me.

Even as a pup she was built strong, big in the legs and haunches, square in the face. She was doleful looking -- all her life people would look at her and bust out laughing. But she was sweet-tempered, and so devoted to me, from the very start.

Her brother was named Che, who was unpredictable, and had a weeping eye that made a gutter down one cheek. They were the pups of my friend Worth's dog. When we traveled through the west the summer before, her dog was impregnated by a big farm dog in a tree house at a commune on a pile of rock called Jacob's Hill, along the Rio Grande in Colorado.

I was pretty confused and lonely then, and Worth gave me three of the puppies. They used to swarm over me on the carpet as little ones, licking me and batting me with their little tails. They made me feel wildly lovable, and I swore I would protect the little ones. I was very depressed when they came into my life, but they lifted me out of it with their joy.

I gave one away. I can't remember his name. And Che went back to live with Worth, until one day he saw a rabbit by Lake Calhoun, jumped out the car window and was never seen again. Only Çasi stayed with me.

I remember defying the local leash laws. I never used one, because I knew Çasi would never bite or jump on anyone. I wanted her to be free as a country dog, even in the ghetto where we lived. Before Che left I tried adding a doggie entrance to the apartment door, so they could get in and out at night. I took the door down, cut out a square, and screwed in two two-way hinges. When I tried to rehang the door I saw I had put the dog portal on the top half of the door, not the bottom. The two dogs and I stared in perplexity at my handiwork. I latched the piece back onto the door and from then on just left the door unlocked. But they just ran down to the boiler room and squatted on the cement floor.

I didn't want Çasi to have a litter her first heat, because her mom had been a poor mother. But one day I was watering the garden, and I looked over, and this scruffy white dog was already climbing onto her. I cried out no, no, and I came over and tried to pull him off, but it was too late. I guess there's some sort of bulb in the boy dog's penis that swells, and keeps them attached to the end. But I didn't know that then, and I was pulling on the dog's head, turning the hose on them, and finally verbally imploring them to stop -- they looked sheepishly at me, but they didn't stop.

So when the landlord discovered the basement and all the dog poop and had us evicted, Çasi was already heavy with puppies. I told him I only had one dog, and those messes were ancient, but he listened about as well as the dogs screwing did. Years later, when Rachel and I went to an open house for the home we live in now, the realtor was the same guy. I hated to tell him it was me, because we didn't want to lose the house.

Çasi had a bunch of babies, maybe eight. And sure enough, she was a mediocre mother. She lay down and nursed them, but the misgivings were plain on her face. After a few weeks we took the whole basket to the Humane Society to adopt. I never got a glimmer from Çasi that she missed them. Her great love in life was me. We spent every day together, running, playing fetch, watching TV together. Fully grown, she was a large dog, weighing almost 90 pounds. She was no speedster, but her intensity made her seem quick. I remember once biking to the University with her. When the fourth period bell rang, and the doors to Ford Hall opened and the sophomores exited their courses in Thoreau and Emerson, and there was Çasi, onto this astonished college squirrel in a moment and tearing it to bits.

She was so compliant. I could put my mouth on her nose and blow, and she would shake her so her ears stood up, as if my breath had made them stick up.

I joked that I had taught her a 50 word vocabulary. We would perform Dog Jeopardy in front of people. I would ask, "Who was called the Sultan of Swat?" "Ruth!" "What is the structure found at the top of most buildings?" "Roof!" "What is another name for the aesthetic movement led by Post-Victorian novelist Walter Pater?" "Art for art's sake!" "Good dog!"

I got a job as a security guard because the hours were good for us. I would spend the day playing with her, put on my blue uniform, go guard bell-bottomed pants or patrol a parking ramp, punch in the clocks, come home, turn the key in the door, and she would be advancing toward me, roused from her slumbers, squinting with delight, beating the furniture legs with her tail, her hot breath and tongue all over my face.

She could spell. Early on I learned to avoid using the word 'park' in conversation because she would go nuts. But when I started saying 'p-a-r-k' instead, she picked up on it, and went into the same eager routine, fetching the leash and banging her head on the door. And we would go to Powderhorn Park or down by the Mississippi, and she would fetch sticks in the water in any season, dutifully bringing me the stick I needed back, dropping it at my feet, and gazing out alertly over the waters for signs of another errant stick.

She was not perfect. Little kids scared her. They were unpredictable. Toddlers especially sent her into a panic, and she would gallop away, excreting some awful anal scent everyone found repulsive. Every three months or so, if she thought I was neglecting her in any way, she would go on an odor binge, rolling in some neighborhood fisherman's fish mess, or dog feces -- anything to put stink behind her ears. And would come to me, slinking in a crouch, knowing I would go ballistic, knowing it was shampoo and quadruple rinse time.

I didn't date because I thought it would make her jealous, and I had no real need for another person. At night we climbed into bed together, me first, her second, treading circles on the covers till she was sure the coast was clear, and she would kneel and sleep with her chin across my knees. She never complained about my drinking, or sleeping in, or my lack of ambition. I could always see my perfection in her eyes, and I was just enough in doubt to benefit from it.

One day I was invited to apply for a job at the University. Somehow I ended up on a list of applicants, though I had never applied for a job there. I protested that fact, but went to the interview, and eventually got the job, and the salary and benefits. That was exciting but it was a day job, and full-time, and I wondered how Çasi would bear up during the days.

Some days she would get impatient and mosh an unabridged dictionary, or chew up some record albums. But we worked it out. I took her for longer bike rides, just before work and again just after. I even started going out on dates, and she seemed to bear them no ill. I guess, thinking back, she was fine just being my dog.

We traveled. We spent the holidays in Miles City, Montana, snowed in. I went out one afternoon and she trashed the basement bedroom she was locked in. Then we drove all the way from Minneapolis to Boston to visit my friend Ray. Ray and I walked around Walden Pond, with Çasi running ahead of us, peeing on the foundation of Thoreau's old shack. I have a picture of me that day, holding my giant dog against my chest. I look so happy in it, me and my beautiful dog bride.

At a Thanksgiving party at my house in 1974, I met Rachel. She was a wonderful girl. She came into my house, where I was cooking goose in apple and plum sauce, wrinkled her nose, and said, 'You're cooking meat?' Some crazy premonition came over me, and I said, 'You're from -- Indianapolis.' It took us awhile, but by February we were in love, with only one problem to overcome: Rachel was allergic to animal hair, and my apartment -- my entire life -- was full of it.

One night Çasi went out the back door, as she always did, and I awoke to feel her standing beside the bed, trying to jump up. She couldn't. I sat up and felt her. She was trembling terribly, her heart going a hundred beats a minute. I picked her up, and held her in my arms, as frightened as she was. In a few short minutes her heart stopped beating, and she was still in my arms.

Oh, how I cried in the middle of that night. I cried and cried, for Çasi, who was a good dog, and a good friend. And for myself, who would never be loved again like that. I put her down on the braid rug she used as her napping place and played my nylon string guitar for her, as I had done many times, just repeating the same three descending chords, over and over again, tears rolling down my cheeks.

When I was done, I called the animal patrol, and they agreed to get her in the morning. I placed her on the front porch, and went to sleep. She froze overnight. When the pickup van arrived in the morning. I slid her stiff body onto the steel floor, and watched as the van turned the corner and disappeared.

I have had sadder things happen to me. But I never felt sadder. I tried to go to work, but I kept breaking down, and I biked home before lunch. It took me a week before my voice cleared, and I could confidently finish a sentence. I wasn't unsure of myself, as I had been when I first got Çasi and her brothers. I was just in pain from losing her.

Deep down, I was fine. Her love made me feel so important, so lordly. And I had Rachel now, and we were suddenly free to be with one another and have normal fun together. I vacuumed the hair off the upholstery.

Months later I would come across a black sweater in the summer storage box and it would be herringboned with her white hairs, and I would hold it to my nose and smell her musky doggy body, and think of her. So powerful, so gentle, so serious, despite all our fun, so utterly humble in her love.

Oh Çasi, twenty three years have passed since you swabbed me with your frantic puppy licks, and made a man of me. But I doubt that a week goes by that I do not think of you.

The world is rich with adventure. Clever people doing remarkable things. Exquisite relationships, undying loves. But we learn can't from them, we can only learn from the experiences that come our way. In my life it was a big dog.

You fetched for me so often, in so many ways -- you taught me loyalty, and directness, and the joy of the moment. You taught me to laugh so many years ago, and I am still laughing today. I f I could fetch you back to the life you loved, I would.

Çasi, you will always be my girl.

February, 1975

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