My name for him was Doogie Dawg and he was amazing because he just about trained himself. He wouldn't get on the furniture unless invited (unless, of course, we were not home) --we never taught him that trick--, you could leave food on the coffee table and tell him to leave it alone and leave the room (name a beagle you can do that with), we could tell him to stay outside the kitchen while we worked and he would with easy obedience, and we could let him off a leash or let him out to roam the property where we lived for a while in the country, and he would come when called (again, never trained).
Also, he rarely barked, even when we lived in an apartment while I was going through law school. When he barked, you knew there was a stranger about. "Bark," Claire looks out the window. "Yes, strange car Doogie. The driver doesn't live here." Somehow he knew the sound of every car on that densely populated section of the complex. He even knew the sound of the UPS truck and didn't even bark at that ("Bonnie Girl, are you paying attention? You think after 10 years you could learn that trick?")
After being graced with Doogie's being for a few years, we learned he could not be left out to loll about the apartment if we were not at home and a workman was scheduled. They would not enter the home; we were told he was a vicious dog. What he was, was protective. Strangers, unaccompanied by us, were NOT allowed. I could not imagine Doogie being vicious because he was incredibly gentle with small, brutally loving children (even if bound to a leash and unable to get away) and most welcoming to strangers in our home.
Then, one day, I brought a male friend home to our apartment and when I stepped inside the door Doogie, as usual, was happy to greet me and this "stranger to him." But for some reason, as I politely stepped aside to allow my friend to enter, I did something I'd never done before, I stepped into an open space between the tall entertainment center and door, and as I opened the door a tad wider, I disappeared from Doogie's view. The growl that escaped Doogie's mouth as he charged the door let me hear what I didn't have a chance to see because my friend, smartly, stepped back and I flung the obstructing door from in front of me so that Doogie could see that I'd not been disappeared by the stranger. In the instant before I could take him in, Doogie was the mild-mannered Dawg he'd always been and my friend, though unwilling to enter at first, was allowed into the apartment.
Like most people and pets Doogie Dawg was a mix of both wonderful qualities and neuroses. (Like looking for bad qualities in people... don't go asking me to look for bad qualities in my animals... I see them, but really, who wants to focus on that? Who wants others to focus on those things about ourselves we don't even like?) Unlike most people however, Doogie's neuroses were few.
Doogie was crazy afraid of thunder and fire crackers, cars back firing. Once, when he and I were running together at full speed--wow, how I miss running like the wind (reference ME/CFS)--, a truck back fired. Doogie darted in front of me in escape, and I went heels over ass on top of him smack onto the pavement.
He was phobic of culverts, gullies, sewers, open stairs, bridges... anything that shared that "ooh, it's a shadowed opening affect." That is, he was afraid of shadowed openings until my ex and I went on a day-long hike so that my ex could survey, for historic preservation, a series of no-longer-used train over passes through the mountains in southwest Virginia. The very first overpass was this tiny, wee bridge over a miniscule gully at the start of the trail. Doogie stood at the end we entered, and as we passed over the small bridge. We stood at the other end and called and he looked. We turned on our heels and started hiking. Five minutes later, Doogie was at our side. He'd crossed the bridge. By hike's end, he was standing on 120 foot bridges, his head hung over the side, peering at us as we labored to climb down the side of the mountain a ways so that my ex could get a good sketch of the structure.
Yep, amazing.
No doubt I could come up with many Doogie stories and you'll probably hear about him again, but today's topic is flying into the mouths of dogs.
I also had a parakeet for part of the time that Doogie was with us. While we've all seen pictures of cross species bonding, the bird meant nothing to Doogie. Not one way or the other. And Doogie meant nothing to the bird. One day, as I allowed the bird to fly about the apartment with Doogie laying disinterestedly on the floor, the bird flew into his open mouth as he yawned. Full speed. I thought I was watching a birdie suicide.
Doogie, bewildered and with a slightly panicked look pasted to his normally calm face, gently spit the bird out and looked about as if to say, "Hey, what just happened here?" (I don't believe the bird saw the dog lying on the floor as a dog, each were so without meaning to the other. Doogie was so calm and unassuming as he lay there that the bird probably thought he saw a good, safe place to land--or a piece of fruit--, and well, he was right... about a safe place to land.)
I'd wager to guess we've all had that experience. Had something or someone fly at us only to be left wondering, "What happened here?" Had our lolling innocence punctured by an unexpected missile.
We've also probably had the experience of innocently flying into the mouths of a few dogs, thinking we'd find something sweet or a safe landing only to discover them unsafe, angry or perennially unhappy dogs, not the least bit concerned with our safety.
Too bad there aren't more people like Doogie.
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