A Good Dog: The Story of Orson, Who Changed My Life

by Jon Katz

  Orson had friends, almost all of them female. His girlfriends, I called them-dog lovers, neighbors, and friends who adored Orson. They knew him as an affectionate, playful, and relentlessly social creature prone to crawling into their laps; he had a charming, almost flirtatious, mode with women. An attention addict, he loved being the center of things; if attention didnt flow naturally, he was a genius at getting people-especially me-to focus on him. But he didnt have to work hard for attention from his girlfriends, who cooed and fussed over him. His tail started wagging the second he heard their trucks. They brought him treats, brushed his coat until it gleamed, had long conversations with him. When he was not around sheep, doors, or gates, Orson could be pretty sociable. You are a slut, I would mutter, as his girlfriends left. A dog can be a pussycat at home, a rampaging monster outside. How do you explain to a terrified FedEx driver that the dog lunging and barking at him might be the creature thats loved you more faithfully than any other? I was constantly interpreting for Orson, with his multiple personalities. Hes really a sweetheart, its just that border collies bark and nip. Hes a good guy, he doesnt really hurt people, its just a boundary problem. I appreciated the girlfriends, not only because they were my friends, but because I never had to explain. They saw the same Orson that I knew; they, too, loved him for his vulnerability, for having a great heart despite a confused life. Sometimes, even strangers could see that in Orson. A woman in the nearby town of Granville called me one afternoon to say that shed read about him in A Dog Year, a book about our first year together. Catherine had come up from Westchester to stay with her mother, who was gravely ill. Although she hated to ask, she wondered whether I might bring Orson by for a visit. Her mother had enjoyed reading about him, was eager to meet him, and could no longer get around much. Hes not always gentle, I warned her. He can get excited sometimes. But she said she and her mother, Madeline, would take the chance. Madelines husband had been a dairy farmer until his death five years earlier. She had remained on the fm as long as she could, but Madelines days there were numbered. She was failing. Id developed a soft spot for farmers. Many of my friends now were farmers, and I was moved by how hard they struggled, and how doomed their way of life seemed. There was no way I could say no. We drove up that same afternoon. The farm was off Route 22, perhaps fifteen miles from me, four miles north of the only McDonalds for miles. Decaying trucks and tractors, cannibalized for engine parts-the signature lawn ornaments of the dying family farm-littered the drive. Two giant barns, empty and neglected, were both tottering visibly. A few chickens pecked in the yard, but we saw no other animals. Catherine, an attractive woman in her forties, met us at the farmhouse door and showed us in. The house smelled of cats and sickness. Madeline, sitting in an armchair in the living room, had wispy white hair; a cotton sweater hung on her tiny, birdlike frame. She spoke in the sad, reflective tone of someone who knew that time was short. I was hoping to make it to Florida for a few years, she said, after apologizing for the house. But I think Im headed for a nursing home instead. I hoped to die on the farm, but that may not be possible. Orson had spotted a girlfriend-any female who thought him handsome and sweet-and made a beeline to Madeline. As if theyd known each other for years, he circled to the side of her chair and offered her a paw. Then he licked her hand, and rested his head on her lap. I started to call him off, fearing that this frail woman couldnt handle him, but I stopped when I saw her take his head in her arms for a hug. He closed his eyes; she did, too. They probably sat like that for just a few minutes, but it seemed like longer. Im afraid that this may be the last time I will ever hold a sweet dog like this, Madeline said, wiping away tears, looking embarrassed. He is as wonderful as I knew he would be. And what could I say?

  Orson and Jon

  CHAPTER FOUR The Contract A lmost from the moment Orson arrived in New Jersey, our life together was shaped by a nearly continuous series of arguments, confrontations, misunderstandings, and disputes, punctuated by great fun, love, and an ever-deepening attachment. We disagreed over his right to chase school buses, or kids on bikes and skateboards. Or his tendency to charge after small dogs and try to herd them down the block toward me. Or his love of bursting into strangers backyards in search of dogs, cats, and barbecuing burgers. I did not believe it was appropriate for him to open the refrigerator with his nose, take food from plastic containers, and hide the empties under sofas. Or to plow through glass windows. Or find his way through, around, and under the picket fence in the backyard. I felt strongly that he should not stick his nose into paper bags in the car, remove the ham or turkey from sandwiches and leave the bread. One of our typical, often memorable, disagreements centered around a neighbors cat that continually sassed him from the safety of a living room window, hissing and flashing her butt while he barked and yelped on a leash. One summer morning, that window was open, leaving nothing but a screen between this taunting cat and Orson. I did not agree with his decision to rush up onto the porch, leap through the screen (the resulting dog-shaped hole looked like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon), and chase the cat through the living room, over the couple sleeping in their beds, upstairs into the attic, where he cornered and terrorized the cat (but didnt hurt her), and then return via the torn screen. People said my screaming and cursing could be heard all the way down the block. I strongly expressed my differing point of view to him. This dispute cost me $500 in broken lamps and screen repair. We never saw the cat in the window again. We quarreled over his terrorizing of Homer-he glowered Homer away from his food, then tried to steal it-or his charging and nipping of people who approached the gate, or his demented pursuit of garbage trucks and fire engines. We had differing worldviews, he and I. He occasionally obeyed me, when it was convenient, or there was nothing more compelling to do. He was definitely one of those dogs prepared to go his own way and happily take the consequences. Obedience was, to him, a fluid notion, one of those ideas important to me but not always relevant to him. And these were explosive, powerful instincts. There was hardly a nanosecond between the time he saw something-the cat, for example-and he exploded after it. I rarely had time to move, let alone issue commands. Our mounting quarrels culminated in a nearly literal fistfight we had when he pushed open the front-porch screen door one morning, tore out of the house and into the street, and tried to herd yet another passing school bus. I found this obsession neither cute nor trivial: He could easily have been killed, and kids on the bus hurt by the drivers sudden braking. Wed had this fight too many times, including the time wed run from the police. This time I was enraged. I believed-I would perhaps view it differently now-that he understood that he was being defiant and dangerous, was purposefully thwarting me, blowing me off, rejecting my alphaness. All those training books Id been reading said I was supposed to show him who was boss, force him to accept my authority, take charge. At the time, I angrily collared him and dragged him inside, only to have him slip his leash and take off after another bus when I walked him half an hour later. I was tired and frustrated, sick of arguing with Orson, sick of losing. Months of these incidents caused something in me to snap, and I charged into the street, dragged him onto the sidewalk, threw him about ten feet into some shrubs, tossed the pooper scooper at him, along with my Yankees cap, and screamed that he was bad, that he must never do this again, that he could not stay with me if this was going to continue. I told him he simply could not live with me in New Jersey if something didnt change. Orson was shocked by my raging and yelling, and frightened as well. He lay on his back with his feet in the air, a rare gesture of submission from a relentlessly dominant dog. I was nearly weeping with frustration, torn by my growing love for this dog and my growing realization that communicating with, understanding, training, and controlling him was, so far, beyond me, and was leading both of us toward trouble. I didnt know enough about him, or about dogs. I was losing track of how many times hed nearly killed himself or frightened and disturbed some human or dog. During one of Paulas first walks alone with him, hed bolted across the street and gotten hi
t broadside by a passing car. He bounced fifteen or twenty feet, then bounded to his feet. The vet could find nothing wrong with him. But he couldnt live in New Jersey this way. I either had to do better or send him back to Texas. I think it was at that moment that I realized that I would never send him back, that I would do anything within reason and within my power to train him, calm him down, and keep him in my life. I spoke to him of this that morning, as neighbors gawked at the spectacle: Orson cradled in my arms; cap, scooper, and other debris strewn about; the angry bus driver moving off, shouting warnings at me and the dog. Id hurt Orson that morning, throwing him around like that. Id scared him and myself, but Id also grasped the depth of my attachment-and commitment-to him. We cant go on this way, I explained. Ive got to do better. Youve got to do better. Ive got to be clearer, to find a way to get through to you. Youve got to hear me and stop doing crazy things that will get you or some other creature hurt. We both began to calm down. His tail began to swish, and he kept reaching up to lick my face. I felt that Id somehow communicated to him, shaken him up. Out of this confrontation came the fundamental understanding between us. I sometimes called it our covenant, or our contract, because it was in so many ways about faith and commitment, about the love that I have always wanted and needed and which he seemed to need, too. It was a significant agreement, one that was to change my life soon, in dramatic and completely unexpected ways. Looking back, with the cheap benefit of time, it seems an arrogant, inappropriate, even absurd thing to have done. Dogs have complex and wonderful minds, but they are foreign to us in many ways. They think, but not like us. They reason, but not the way we do. They cant enter into agreements. They cant adopt our ideas of faith and propriety, cant be held responsible for our notions of commitment and responsibility, for our needs and wants. As I sit here on the farm, that important argument-a treaty, perhaps-seems a lifetime ago. Its hard to imagine my life before Orson, now that I rise at five to walk the dogs and haul hay out to the sheep, spend my day gathering eggs and tending to a donkeys cracked hoof, and fall asleep by nine. Id always loved dogs, but they hovered in the background of my life. I had no reason to think about them much, until Orson came. Then they suddenly burst into the center and I was thinking about them much of the time. Orson changed the shape and order of things. I was a prisoner and victim of my own bumbling goodwill and ignorance, and so, soon enough, was he. If Id known then what I know now, I cant imagine entering into any kind of compact with a dog. But then, if Id known more, I probably wouldnt have driven to Newark Airport to pick up that dog. And how much poorer I would have been. Heres the thing, I thought out loud and explained to Orson that morning in New Jersey as the life of the neighborhood coursed curiously around us. If people were wondering about a man lying in the ivy with a dog in his lap, they were also going about their business, heading for work or school. Many of them had been watching me chase this dog across yards and streets for months. It was time for a change. I will keep faith with you. I will stay committed to you. We will not quit on each other. We will not give up on each other. I was convinced he was as committed to this understanding as I. I would do anything within reason to help him, to train him, to calm him, to guide and lead him and show him how to live in the world. He would stick it out with me, learn and grow with me, and we would be able to live together, happily and lovingly. Things did get better after that awful fight. Orson never chased after a school bus after that morning. He did pay more attention to me, although not always. Our basic and painstaking grounding and obedience work did begin to pay off. He didnt become a different dog, but he did become a calmer one. I began to understand that my job was to lead and guide him, not to negotiate bargains with him. This did him more good. Our arguments continued, as life on the farm presented a wide range of things to disagree about. I didnt agree with his practice of charging and nipping at gates and doors. I couldnt endorse the rough way he handled sheep. I protested his plunging into brambles and sticky burrs, his wolfing down dead animals and deer scat, his relentless persecution of Homer. But our covenant was a turning point. If we were committed to each other, if there was no turning back, then how could my life with him fail?

  It was a warm spring day at the farm. Rose, a bit worn from walking the sheep across the road and babysitting them in the meadow, was dozing in the fenced run behind the house. Clementine, my new Lab puppy, was next to her, contentedly gnawing on some rawhide. After a few weeks of growling whenever Clem came near, Rose had allowed her to sit close. (Rose did not yet deign to play-she did not play, had not ever played, something that seemed to puzzle Clementine to the core.) Rose occasionally lifted her head up to see where the sheep were, then lay down. Orson and I were off on a picnic, headed together up the pasture hill to the two Adirondack chairs I had positioned there. Most days, if the weather permitted, Orson and I had lunch up there. I usually made myself a sandwich, took an apple and a bottle of water in a backpack, along with a few biscuits. We would enter the pasture-the sheep would make themselves scarce-and Orson would circle me, happy to be coming along. Like Rose, he had a conceptual streak: even if he didnt know precisely what we were doing, he got the idea. If I picked up the backpack and headed through the gate, we were going up the hill, so he would head for the gate, delighted to join in this new ritual. If we had a favorite spot on earth, the top of the hill was probably it, although we would soon find another. The chairs were built by Don Coldwell, a master carpenter and friend who lived in the village. He also made me the beautiful ash walking stick-enscribed with the name Bedlam Farm-that helped steady me as we made the climb. It was about a third of a mile from the farmhouse, and we had to climb a steep hill-I always grew a bit winded, Orson never did-then open the uppermost gate and turn left to a shady spot where the two chairs sat nestled, nearly hidden by the trees. The walk got progressively tougher as my leg troubles increased. My knee hurt and my ankle was weak and sometimes gave way suddenly. Often, increasingly, I fell. It was a Vermont reporter visiting me who noticed that at certain points in our walks, Orson pressed close against my knee. Id assumed he just wanted a pat, but once she asked me about it I realized that this happened at spots where I had fallen in the past. He remembered. When I did fall, he rushed over to me, frantically licked my face and gnawed at my ear until I got up. There was no way he would leave me lying there. At such moments, he seemed especially Rin Tin Tin to me. I believed that if I stumbled and then, for any reason, couldnt get to my feet, I could turn to him and say Orson, boy, go get help! Go get Anthony! and he would be off like a rocket and my friend Anthony Armstrong would soon come roaring up in his pickup to save me. I had come to view Orson as my guardian, my protector. That somehow seemed part of the deal. We would watch out for each other. Rose was an immensely better working dog, but it was Orson I turned to when I thought I might be in trouble-when a menacing dog appeared, when a wild pig popped out of the woods nearby and attacked Rose, when blizzards roared down from Canada, when coyotes circled up on the hill, when I needed company to hike up the hill. Orson had my back. We still had plenty of disagreements, but he was a good man in a brawl, fearless, faithful, loyal, a warrior for love. Once we got to the top of the hill, Orson plumped down and put his head on one of my feet. I took a deep breath and looked out at the beautiful and verdant valley that spread all the way to Vermont, at the sheep grazing below, at my beautiful old farmhouse with its rich history, at the hawks circling above. I shook my head in wonder that I could claim this spot, and was nearly overwhelmed with gratitude for the dog who had somehow, in ways I had not begun to understand, led me here. Sometimes I read or dozed in the warm breeze. This day, I just leaned over to scratch Orsons nose. We were both as peaceful up there as we ever were anywhere. Then we made the much easier hike back down. At the bottom of the hill, I let Rose and Clem out of their fence, and the four of us walked across the road and down into the meadow, so the dogs could plunge into the stream to cool off and swim. Orson was always the first one down the path and into the water; he loved to circle a
few times like an old lady at the beach, then tear back to me. Clem chased sticks and balls, while Rose skittered across to the opposite bank to see if there was anything to herd. Then we all marched back. It occurred to me on those walks that my time on this farm was perhaps limited. I was getting older. The farm rested on steep hills, muddy in spring, treacherously icy in winter. I sometimes felt I was drowning in the rituals and the chores of a farm. My leg throbbed when I walked uphill, and the pain could be punishing. Bedlam Farm was a daunting place for a middle-aged man with a bum leg. But I was not alone or unprotected. Orson and I had made a good deal, and both of us were sticking to it.