Paws and Reflect

by Neil S. Plakcy

  ON THE DREAM LIFE OF DOGS When we were children, we knelt on the living room’s threadbare carpet and watched the dog whimper in his sleep. We went into the kitchen, where our mother was peeling potatoes, and asked her what the dog was doing. She told us it was dreaming, and we inquired as to what the dog was dreaming about. Our mother informed us that dogs only dream of one thing, hunting rabbits, and that they always dream exactly the same dream. We did not know whether to pity or envy them. Either way, this was the most pivotal moment for us in the history of dreaming.

  ON DREAM POOLS AND DOGS Sometimes my mother would forget to mop her dreams off the kitchen floor. My father would come into the kitchen and slip in one of her little dream pools. My father would be yelling, and the dog would rush in to lap the dream pool off the linoleum.

  The dog grew fat on my mother’s dreams.

  ON MUZZLES, BOYS, AND DOGS When I was a boy, riding my bike in the semi-dark, muzzled dogs asked too much of me.

  ON ALEXANDER THE GREAT, ARISTOTLE, SODOMY AND DOGS When sixteen-year-old Alexander the Great would make love to his teacher Aristotle, he would do so roughly, forcing his way in with only a bit of saliva. He liked to hear rationality yelping like a dog.

  Sometimes, Aristotle dreams that he is a rabid dog called Aristotle, ideas foaming out of the corners of his mouth, and that Alexander is his master, to whom he is deeply loyal.

  ON THE GREAT PLAGUE AND DOG’S SALIVA In the fourteenth century during the so called great mortality, King Georg IV, having heard that dog’s saliva could protect you, allowed the palace’s dogs to pant and drool all over him. He took baths full of the thick clear stuff.

  Unfortunately this proved to no avail, and the young King eventually succumbed to the plague. The sores first appeared on his knees; self-conscious, he immediately ordered hemlines to be lowered four inches by royal decree.

  ON DOG LEASHES AND THE END OF THE WORLD The noise the world made as it ended was very loud, but very brief, like God clearing his throat. The dogs would not stop barking, so we patted them and gave them some treats. Then we took them for a walk without their leashes.

  ON FANATICS AND MY DOG My boyfriend Tim and I have a dog, Frida, who is utterly delightful. She is diminutive and weighs approximately twenty-three pounds. Her fur is a warm reddish-brown and she has a black snout. Her breed is a mystery; a cross between something large and something very small, she looks like a miniature German Shepherd.

  Temperamentally, she is somewhat willful and prone to wildness. In the morning, when she greets me, she always has this fervent look in her eyes, that makes me think of the determined desperation of the leader of the 1970s West German terrorist group, the so-called Red Army Faction, Ulrike Meinhof.

  ON THE SUBLIME INEXPLICABLE MYSTERY OF WALKING YOUR DOG After yet another fight, we decided to take a walk. I put our dog on her leash and we set off. As we wandered around our neighborhood, discussing whether or not we should break up, we stopped to look at a sign that had been stapled to a telegraph pole. Above our heads the telegraph wires crackled and hissed. The sign read, “Missing! Young boy with milky white skin and bright red hair. Looks like a fox.”

  Puzzled by what we had just read, we stood in that spot for a long time until our dog gently nibbled and licked at our fingers, indicating that we should continue our walk, for to walk together on a warm evening is a great and serious adventure.

  ON NIETZSCHE, DOGGY-STYLE AND ORIGINALITY Although Nietzsche loves fucking another man doggy-style, the dogs are the orange of orange rinds, the dogs are burning, he realizes that the man who is fucking is guilty of copying (by virtue of the physical fact that he is behind the man being fucked. ) The man who is being fucked was there first. He is somehow more original, more infinite.

  ON DOG HEIRS In this photograph, my mother is standing in the kitchen crying, telling me that Cossack has been put to sleep, he had cancer just like Bandit. She is telling me that when she looks into the future, she sees no barking or fur; Cossack is the end of the McCartney line of Beagles. There will be no heir. Her tears are creating a puddle on the linoleum.

  ON RABIES AND DELICACY As a boy, I was deeply interested in the idea of rabies. Once I saw a photograph of a boy my own age who had been bitten by a rabid dog. The boy had been bitten on the inside of his left thigh. The caption stated that a rabid dog would wander great distances to find a boy it could bite. A hint of foam could be seen at the corner of his mouth, delicate as Bruges lace. I was convinced that one day it would be my fate to also be attacked by a rabid dog.

  ON RATIONALIT Y AND DOG TAGS .Sometimes Descartes dreams he is wearing a

  studded dog collar with his name, Rene Descartes, engraved on a metal disk hanging from the collar.

  ON THE THIRST OF HUMANS VS. THE THIRST OF DOGS When my boyfriend is watering the garden, our dog, Frida, likes to come up and drink the gush of water directly from the hose. Her small pink tongue laps away. In my dreams, I am watering, and she comes up to me, to lap up the water directly. It seems that like mine, her thirst cannot be quenched so easily.

  ON GIVING WINGS TO DOGS Each night I hack off my wings with a meat cleaver. I fry them and feed them to the dogs, waiting for them to cool so they don’t scald their tongues. They eat up everything, even the tough wing-frames.

  ON DEATH BEDS AND DOGS On his death bed Descartes offered no last words, but a last bark, yelping like one of the dogs he feared. Descartes knew that although he had consciousness of the inevitability of his own death, in every other respect he was profoundly doglike; the fear that gripped him in the knowledge of his own death was dog collar–like. In fact he was more of a dog than most dogs, nothing but a canine with a scrap of consciousness. Let us bark in the face of death! He had nothing to offer but saliva when confronted with the world’s calm indifference.

  ON DOGS’ PREDICTING ONE’S OWN DEATH Lately, mindful of the story of Xanthus, the horse of Achilles, who was said to have predicted the legendary warrior’s death after being scolded by his master, and all too aware that just like Achilles, I will never be deathless, I have taken to not disciplining our dog Frida.

  ON THE SORROW OF PUTTING A DOG TO SLEEP When my boyfriend Tim and I put our last dog, Buddy, to sleep, it was dreadful. As the nurse injected him beneath the fur, we gnashed and wailed like we were in the Old Testament. Afterwards we took off his red collar and placed it on a shelf.

  That night I dreamed of the mechanical dog I had as a child, which yapped and walked. In the dream, I was putting this dog to sleep. I was giving the injection, and I was similarly grief-stricken. Real tears fell onto its fake yellow fur.

  ON WASHING ANGELS AND DOGS During the course of the angel’s visitation I detected a foul smell coming from the direction of the angel. At first I thought it must be the angel’s breath; but after careful consideration, I deduced that the rank odor was coming from the angel’s wings, which looked like they had not been washed for ages. Now that heaven is no longer a place, the angels are homeless.

  My dog Frida barged into the room, snout-first. She hates being left out of things. Standing up on her hind legs, she pawed at the angel’s creamy muscular thighs with her sharp nails, which were in need of a good trim: a tiny trickle of blood appeared on the angel’s skin. I noticed that Frida was also smelling a little fruity. If it is warm tomorrow, I thought to myself, I will wash my dog and the angel.

  ON TO BE HUMAN ONE MUST BE A DOG I have found that to learn to be human, I must avoid all contact with humans, and look toward dogs.

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  Brian McCormick: AN UNEXPECTED CHRISTMAS GIFT

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  Many people believe that our dogs come into our lives for a reason. Though we may not know that we need love, companionship, faith, or just to be needed, our dogs know, and they fulfill that need. Brian McCormick’s two dogs came into his life in very different ways, and yet both are equally loved.

  The abandoned dog provides unique challenges to the human who give
s such a dog a home. We can never know what pain that dog experienced—physical abuse, perhaps,

  and certainly the emotional pain of being cast aside. Much more so than a dog adopted directly from a mother’s loving care, the abandoned dog needs special attention, socialization, and love.

  Many resources exist in books and online, answering questions about how to approach an abandoned dog, how to integrate an animal guest into your household, and the many ways to help the staggering number of dogs abandoned each year.

  Psychologist Carl Jung taught that every human contains within his or her consciousness dozens of archetypes.”The Abandoned Child” is an archetype that stirs our sympathy and produces the urge to protect. Maybe it was that archetype that moved Brian McCormick to an extraordinary act of kindness one Christmas Eve. He knew he risked the anger of his husband and the resentment of his first adopted dog, but something made him reach out and care for a Boxer who had no other friend in the world. With his busy life as managing director of a dance company, professor to media-studies graduate students, and editor of the Gay City News arts section, the last thing he needed was another dog.

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  FOR FOURTEEN YEARS I worked in the corporate world: information strategy, business analysis, and systems testing and training. I didn’t want a dog. When I stopped doing that an d moved to Brooklyn, we got a really big place. My husband, Nick, was traveling a lot, and he wasn’t that thrilled with the idea of getting a dog, but I told him, “I don’t want to spend all this time by myself.” So he had to agree.

  In the fall of 1999, I asked around at the New School, where I was teaching, and another faculty member sent me a flyer with a picture of a big, hunky-looking dog. The minute I saw it, I knew this was the right dog for me. I made an appointment to see him.

  Homer had been found wandering the streets in Washington Heights. The people tried to find his owner, but eventually they concluded that someone had let him go. After I knew him for a while, I could see why: He was not an easy dog to live with. He is half pit bull and half Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, over sixty pounds.

  I went to meet him and took him for a walk. My hunch was right; he was the dog for me.

  Everyone is scared of Homer, but he is a total sweetheart. He’s the typical big dog that is afraid of little dogs.

  The first three months were total hell. We couldn’t leave him alone because he freaked out. We tried to do the crate thing, but he peed in it. He chewed up everything. He ate shoes. Every time I went to put on a pair of shoes, the backs were ripped out.

  Then, he ate the arm off a leather couch. I let him have it. I yelled and screamed and told him, “It’s over! That’s it! Enough! You have to find a new home.” He felt terrible. He hid behind a chair and just peeked out at me with his eyes real wide. I’d never yelled at him like that before.

  Ever since then he has been the most amazing dog—never does anything wrong. The irony is, Homer ended up getting the best of the whole couch situation. We had to replace the couch he ate. We took it out and bought another one, but when we tried to bring the new one in, it didn’t fit. So we had to leave it downstairs in his room, and now he’s the only one who uses it. It’s a sofa bed. He likes to stretch out on it.

  Homer doesn’t like to be left alone. We left him in a kennel once for a weekend, and he completely freaked out. So now we plan our vacations around him. We only go places where we can take him.

  Two summers ago, when I got a job at a dance festival in North Carolina, he came with me. It was the first time I took him away with me, and he was great.

  Then we took him to Massachusetts, where he became intimately acquainted with a porcupine. He thought, Here’s a great animal to chase, he’s really slow. When he came out from the bushes, he had fifteen quills hanging off his muzzle. They have a sort of fishhook on the end, so when they go in, they don’t come out. He had to have emergency surgery to remove three of them that got far under his skin. He was really sad after that.

  Then came a life-changing incident for us, on Christmas Eve morning 2004. Homer and I got up at six to take our walk. He chose to begin the day going up the hill toward Montague Street instead of heading over to Brooklyn Bridge Park, and that was fine with me.

  As usual, Homer bypassed the dog run, preferring to do his business along the Promenade. At the top of the hill, by the gate to the run, we saw a dog—a Boxer mix—wearing a black leather collar studded with silver stars, hooked to a heavy gold chain leash that screamed “ghetto.”

  When we got closer she didn’t look so ferocious, tied to the fence with a crappy blue canvas leash. She was looking up and down the street, but whoever she was looking for wasn’t there. They had gone and left her here. It was clear they didn’t want her anymore. But she didn’t know that.

  This was not the first time something like this had happened. People figure if they leave their dog at the dog run, someone will take care of it.

  We approached her from the other side of the fence. She seemed cautious but not vicious. I tried to give her a treat. She sniffed closely but was too worried to eat it.

  Homer gave me an amazed look, like, “What are you doing? Those are my treats!”

  The chain around her neck was something like Freddy Krueger would wear. You could kill someone with it. Or lock up your motorcycle. Not the kind of chain that belongs on a scared dog.

  Homer was tugging on the leash, and so was an instinct inside me that said, “Just leave.”

  So we continued with our walk. I got my coffee, and Homer had his peanut butter cookie, and it was nearly seven as we headed back for the dog run’s morning crowd. Surely someone else would deal with the matter of the abandoned dog.

  The two-acre dog run is bordered on two sides by buildings of the International Headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They were arriving two by two, hand in hand, neatly dressed out of a J. C. Penney catalogue. They were rushing toward their cafeteria for breakfast and their morning message.

  When we entered the park, she was still there, her ears back, not knowing what to do, looking very pathetic. When she spotted us, she got up and looked at us in a way that seemed hopeful. Then she barked at me, as if she was trying to say something.

  This time I wasn’t so afraid to go up to her. I untied her from the fence but left the leash and heavy chain attached to her collar. She began to run around. I noticed a scar on her leg. The chain was obviously a great hindrance, so eventually I undid that as well.

  Now the other folks and doggies were arriving, and she was having a good old time playing with everyone. We stayed a long while, still hoping that someone else would come along to deal with her. But finally it was time to go. And it was clear there was nothing else to do except take her with us.

  Trying to get a hold of this dog was a truly athletic activity. Finally we lured her into the smaller dog run at the rear triangle of the park, and I was able to put on the leash.

  She looked at me and her eyes said OK.

  At home she proved to be sweet, but with a complete lack of house training. Homer thought this was an unbearable assault to his dignity, to have a dog in the house that didn’t stick with the rules. But he was tolerant. By the third walk of the day, she was coming to me at the gate ready to be leashed and go home.

  My husband pointed out to me that we didn’t need another dog. I agreed with him. All I wanted to do was to keep her through Christmas, two days. After that I would find a home for her or get an adoption agency to take her.”This is just a holiday fostering, ” I told him.

  We both spent so much time looking at the new dog that Homer was a little put off. He couldn’t figure out why she was walking around his house and getting his attention and sharing his treats. But even though he didn’t like the situation, he accepted it.

  Nick and I were trying to figure out what to call her. What do you call a ghetto dog in a spike collar? A Boxer abandoned in a pile of trash? A dog that looked tough and ferocious, but really l
iked being petted and fussed over?

  She immediately started testing the boundaries. I was sitting on the sofa, spending Christmas Eve watching television and eating cheese doodles. She lay next to me. She had decided it was safe to close her eyes and take a nap. Homer came over, politely, to help me eat the cheese doodles, and suddenly this exhausted, sleeping dog was on full alert, baring her teeth and snapping at him.

  I put her in her place for that. She had to know right from the start that she was not the dominant bitch in the house. She was a guest. These things were Homer’s.

  Then she peed on the floor. What a mess. I kept walking to and from the park that first day, giving her plenty of opportunity to do things right. But she kept pushing it. She tried to eat out of Homer’s dish instead of her own. Homer stood back and watched, but I stopped her. When we got Homer, his basic issue was that he was not neutered. She was unsocialized; she didn’t know how to behave around us. Luckily, I have friends who are dog walkers and dog trainers who kept stopping over that first day and giving advice.