The Dog That Talked to God

by Jim Kraus

  I have to get better organized. I mean it this time.

  The cage—rather, the crate—fit snugly in the kneehole of the desk. I added two sleeping pads, the top one a leopard print, to ensure a soft rest. I took a picture of it. I would show the breeder all my preparations.

  No one prints pictures anymore. All they do is show others the back of their camera or cell phones. I miss passing actual snapshots around, but I didn’t think I needed a permanent record of a dog crate and food bowls and the like, so I carried my camera with me.

  I’ll probably never delete them from the memory stick, though.

  I wasn’t sure about the crate situation. I never had a crated dog before. The family dog had the run of the house. Looking back, I don’t remember where the dog slept. Did we have a dog bed somewhere? My mother, the sole surviving parent, resided in a nursing home, and while she had only begun to wade into the shallow, yet troubled waters of dementia, for now she would resent being asked inconsequential questions like “Where did the dog sleep?”

  She would become agitated a little, and wave the question off as if it were a pesky mosquito. “How I am expected to remember foolish things like that?” she would snap, prickly as she had ever been. Some things do not change over the decades.

  I would want to say that I did not expect her to recall the details, but that we were simply making conversation. Instead of asking a follow-up question about how the family had decided on a dog name, I would instead sit back, and watch Wheel of Fortune with my mother. She could not hear worth beans and had no use for gadgets like hearing aids, so the volume would be turned up to a painful level. Virtually every television in the Ligonier Valley Nursing Unit remained turned to the same level. I don’t understand how the nurses and aides tolerated it. It would be like working in a tavern that featured heavy metal music. Or working in a steel mill. Here, all televisions, except the one in the main visiting lounge, had to be turned off by eight in the evening. Then silence rolled down the halls like a tsunami.

  The breeder said that the prehistoric dogs lived in dens, so a crate, which she was careful to call a crate, fulfills their ancestral urges of being covered, protected, and easily defended. I draped a thin blanket over the top and sides. I planned to swap the thin one out for a heavier one in colder weather. The door latched easily. The crate provided plenty of turnaround area. The padding looked, and felt, pretty comfortable as well.

  I had not purchased the Kuranda Dog Bed—patented, orthopedic, and chew proof. It certainly looked comfortable in the pet store, nearly as expensive as the new mattress I had purchased for myself eighteen months earlier. That was a necessary purchase; a deluxe dog bed could not be considered in the same category.

  I had an assortment of puppy food, puppy chews, puppy toys, and assorted puppy diversions.

  Even before I handed the breeder a check, this dog purchase had become expensive.

  Do friends ever give puppy showers? My initial reaction was a strong no, with a wishful yes right behind.

  I was ready. I was prepared.

  Yet nothing could prepare me, really and truly, for what was to happen in a few short months.

  The breeder actually looked at every picture I took of my purchases, my preparations, my supplies, my complete photo essay of my backyard. She even checked the photocopy of the medical license of my intended veterinarian.

  “I’ve never heard of him,” she said, “but he went to Cornell. Best vet school in the country.”

  “She. She went. The B. T. stands for Barbara something or other,” I answered.

  The breeder brightened.

  “Good. I’ve always found female vets to be more compassionate—and intuitive. Good choice.”

  I felt proud of what I had accomplished. It was a feeling I had missed in recent months.

  She presented me with the puppy’s papers and AKC registration—a thick packet of documents that displayed his lineage back to the Mayflower, apparently. I had assured her that I had no interest in showing the puppy, or dog, as it grew. I promised to have him neutered; perhaps breeders do not want more competition from unskilled amateurs like me. “Neutered makes for better pets,” she declared. I knew, for certain, that his papers would be filed in my office at home, and then lost in less than six months.

  I’m not going to sell the dog for a profit, like flipping a foreclosed house. He’s not going to procreate. Why would I need to know his great-great-great-grandfather?

  I handed her the check. The dog was now mine.

  “What are you going to name him?” the breeder asked.

  I shrugged, apologetically.

  “I’m not good with names . . . or book titles. I let my publisher pick titles. But with the dog, I thought I might see what sort of name fits him after a day or two.”

  “Don’t wait too long. Puppies get imprinted with whatever you call it—especially if you use it a lot when they’re young.”

  He lay down in the middle of the pet carrier, not frantically trying to escape or cowering in the corner. But in the middle, like that is where he was supposed to be. It did make it easier to carry, since the weight was evenly distributed.

  I had been nervous concerning the ride home, worried about a whining, yelping puppy carrying on so much that I would have to stop. I’d imagined him chewing wildly at the door, scrabbling to escape his new and probably evil owner. But there were no histrionics, no puppy on the edge of puppy craziness. Just a very calm puppy, supine, staring out through the wire mesh door.

  I pulled into the garage, stopped the car, and carefully took the carrier from the car.

  “Show him his bed, his food, and the door you’ll use to take him outside. Take him out on a leash right away and start his bathroom training,” the breeder instructed, touching on the three most important elements in a puppy’s small world.

  I followed her instructions to the letter.

  He dutifully sniffed at his crate, stepped inside, sniffing, looking at the cushion, then up at the top of the crate—like people do on all the HGTV shows when they enter a new room. I have noted that potential homebuyers invariably look at the ceiling, as if to make sure the house has one. Why do people do that? It’s a plain ceiling. Look to see how big the closets are first, and if you have good water pressure. No one checks the water pressure on those shows. I have yet to see a single buyer flush a toilet. There might be a lot fewer home sales if people flushed toilets or ran showers.

  The puppy completed his examination of the crate. I led him to his food dish and water bowl—both filled with fresh supplies.

  He sniffed at both.

  I snapped a leash onto his collar and led him to the . . .

  Wait. What door am I going to use?

  The back door led to a back deck, a second-story affair. A puppy this small would not yet be able to climb stairs.

  I’ll have to use the front door.

  We stepped outside through the main door, and his sniffing became a bit more earnest. It took him fifteen minutes to sniff his way around the front yard. I was cold by the time he completed his inspection. There were other dogs in the neighborhood, so he took some time getting acquainted with their calling cards.

  I am told that dogs can tell the size and sex and temperament of other dogs by the scent they leave. Seems a crude way of doing it—but if you can’t talk or write, I suspect it is the only way.

  He actually relieved himself out there, by a bush toward the side of the house—a bush I didn’t really like, so if his ministrations killed it, I would not be upset. It was some sort of weedy looking shrub that had been billed as the bearer of fragrant flowers. The flowers lasted all of three days; the rest of the time it simply looked weedy. I praised him, as I had been told to do.

  We walked back into the house. I unclipped his leash.

  “Keep him in the kitchen at first. He’ll be overwhelmed if he has too much space to explore.”

  Two doorways led into the kitchen: one a pocket door to the dining room, easily
closed off; the other archway could be cut off by opening the basement door, leaving a gap of only an inch or two. The bigger problem was the wide arch between the kitchen and the family room.

  The puppy seemed to be a cautious type, so my initial solution employed two lengths of white clothesline rope, strung at two inches off the floor, and the other at six inches, and affixed to the molding with adhesive-backed Velcro. If the puppy ran into them at full force, which he gave no indication of doing, the ropes would give way. More important, if I ran into them, stumbling toward the sunroom with the first coffee of the day and with my typical morning slit-eyes, then I would dislodge them as easily, without tumbling down and scalding myself with hot coffee.

  The puppy sniffed the ropes, and made no attempt to cross the barrier.

  It appeared effective. Maybe I could market this idea.

  The puppy stared up at me.

  No. How hard would it be to duplicate this? Not very.

  I sat on the floor, my back to the wall, and invited the puppy to play. He slithered over with a wiggle. I imagined that he looked happy. I couldn’t tell. This was the start of a long process, learning how to read the moods of this small animal.

  He crawled into my hands and began a gentle nibbling on my fingers. His breath smelled healthy, like milk.

  “Don’t let him bite you,” the breeder had scolded me. “Bad habit for a dog to have—biting.”

  But chewing is what a puppy does. As long as he did not bite in anger, I would tolerate a dog-to-owner chew every now and again.

  After thirty minutes, the puppy crawled down from my leg and sat on his haunches, looking as tired as a . . . well, a puppy.

  “Go into your crate,” I directed and pointed at the open door to his den.

  The puppy stared at my finger for a moment, as if my finger was the object he should focus on. “No,” I said, as I pushed my finger forward into the air, gesturing toward the door. The puppy appeared to scowl, or furrow his brow as if in thought, then turned his head toward the crate. He lifted himself off the floor and walked with a surprising deliberateness toward his den, his crate, climbed over the two-inch frame, walked in, circled three times, then laid down, his head on his paws, his eyes facing me.

  “Tired?”

  He blinked, and let his head fall farther onto his paws.

  “Can I get some coffee? Will I keep you awake?”

  He did not answer. I am not sure, in the retelling of this episode, if he understood me at that young age, and simply waited to speak until the right time, or if he was in the process of trying to understand my speech. I think the latter, though I have not asked him. It doesn’t seem to be that pertinent a question, in retrospect.

  I sat in the upholstered chair in the bay window in the kitchen, sat with my coffee, watching The Weather Channel with the sound muted, sipping as quietly as I could manage, watching the puppy fall into a deep, untroubled sleep.

  2

  I named the puppy Rufus. I wish I had an interesting story behind the name. I don’t. There was a King Rufus of England, I think, and a Rufus King, an American politician back in the 1800s (that fact I looked up), a minor biblical character, and Rufus Wainwright, a singer—but none of them had any bearing on my selection. Like with a new baby, I opened the Baby Names book to find an appropriate moniker. I had done this only once before, and I had, in the years between then and now, never, ever imagined that I would be doing it again. When I found the Baby Names book on a bookcase in the basement, it took me three days to open it.

  I scanned the pages, eyes avoiding certain letters, then settled into the “R” chapter. The name Rufus appeared halfway down on a left-hand page. The name means “red.” The dog wasn’t red, nor would he ever be red, but the roundness of the name sort of fit perfectly. I knew no one named Rufus. I don’t think I had ever been introduced to anyone with the name Rufus. There were no Rufuses in the neighborhood, so if I were to stand on my back deck and call the dog’s name, there would be no confusion. Nor would I feel foolish—like shouting “Mr. Wiggles.”

  The puppy sat a few feet away, still in the kitchen, gnawing politely on a very small chew toy. The long rays of an autumn sun streamed through the bay window and the puppy sat in a warming pool of sunlight.

  “Do you like the name Rufus?”

  The puppy stopped chewing, and looked up at me. I had no idea what was in his eyes, save that it was a wide-eyed look up.

  “Rufus. Should I name you Rufus? It sounds sort of doglike, doesn’t it? I don’t like when people give dogs a real people name—like Mike or Paulie or something like that. Confusing to everyone, I think.”

  The puppy waited, the chew toy gripped between its forepaws.

  “Rufus,” I said with some authority. The puppy’s ears perked up, as if he had heard the word and was now trying to remember it.

  “Rufus,” I said again a little louder.

  This time, the puppy laid the chew toy down, stood up, and scampered toward me.

  “Rufus,” I said again, and by this time he stood at my feet, then on his hind legs, front paws on my legs. That meant he wanted to be picked up. Or to go outside. Or his stomach was empty. This time I interpreted it as wanting to be picked up. I cradled him my arms, not like a baby; that gets weird when an almost middle-aged woman starts treating a dog like a real human baby. No. I resisted that urge and held him like a dog should be held as I sat in the easy chair in the kitchen. Then he sort of stood on my stomach and made a beeline for my face. He did not try to nip at my nose. It had become a favorite game of his. Instead, he stopped mid-chest, and stared up.

  “Rufus,” I said, more softly this time, with as much quiet solemnity as I could muster.

  He sat back and stared. I knew he had to be internalizing the sound of the name. I hoped that was what he was doing. No one could have told me with assurance that he wasn’t doing exactly that. “Rufus. That’s your name. It fits your face. You look just like a Rufus is supposed to look. A little beard. White eyebrows. A perfect Rufus.”

  He waited another moment, and then leaped at my nose. I caught him mid-jump. His teeth were sharp enough to draw blood and I did not want to spoil this sort-of-almost-hallowed moment of bestowing a name. I held him in both hands, while he squirmed happily.

  “Rufus. From this day forward, noble dog, you will be known as Rufus.”

  Then I held him close to my chest and tried not to cry, remembering too much from the only other naming ceremony I had been party to.

  This one was much different. Happy. But so had been the time before.

  And as had happened in my only previous naming ceremony, moments later the newly named fell asleep in my arms, the sun bathing his perfect features, outlining every color and fold, every centimeter of a dog’s personal topography in immaculate clarity.

  I would remember this day forever, too, feeling a tiny heart beat close to mine once again.

  I know I should tell something of my past. I have been avoiding that story every time I’ve felt the slightest nudge to let it unfold. Sometimes, that dark night seems as if it stands decades in the past; other times, it lies within a hand’s reach.

  I will tell you what I can, what you need to know at the moment.

  I am forty-three, nearly forty-four years old. I am a widow. My name was . . . is . . . Mrs. Jacob Fassler. I think that was the proper terminology. Now I sign my name “Mary Fassler.”

  Obviously, this means that I had once been married. Until three years ago.

  I am now living alone. Well, now with Rufus here, sitting in the office chair, staring out the window, watching me from the corner of his eye, I am not quite totally alone.

  My house is much too large for one person and a small, well-mannered dog. The house was much too big for my husband and me. It was much too big for my husband and son and me.

  I will soon get myself organized. I will clean the clutter out of this office. I will go through their clothes. I will donate them to the church’s resale shop. I will
find the golf clubs, the very old lacrosse equipment, and the electronic games and give them all away.

  My heart is beating faster. I do not want to tell more of this story. I do not think I can.

  I am alone. I don’t like being alone. I wish things were different. I wish they had never headed east and had never crossed into Ohio.

  I have stopped typing. I cannot stop weeping—softly, silently, without tears really—just a heaving of the chest and a near strangling tightness in my throat. I have never before—in the space of the last few years—put any of my story to paper or computer screen. Now that I have, it comes back in a flood and I am forced to stop.

  That’s when I see Rufus standing at the edge of the chair. He is too small to jump down by himself, but that is clearly what he wants to do. I had to help him up into the chair earlier. I take him down from the chair and he runs at me and attempts to scale my leg, thankfully clad in denim this afternoon. He makes it up my shin before he falls back into a heap. I stop wallowing in self-pity and pick him up. He burrows and climbs and attempts to get to my neck, and once there, in the crook of my neck, he nuzzles against it, pushing his damp, cold nose against my skin. It is almost a shocking feeling, and my tears leave me, my throat unsticks.

  And that’s when Rufus settles down as well. I sniff once more, and my stifled tears stop, and the puppy is obviously happy that I am no longer so unhappy.

  Rufus lived in the kitchen for two weeks. He hid toys under the pair of upholstered chairs in the bay window and circled the bottom skirt, pretending the toys were rabbits in hiding, then lunged under the flap of fabric, pulling a plush animal out into the open. He did not attempt to dismember any of his toys. He nibbled at them ever so gently. He would circle his domain every so often. He would stop at the rope barricade, look out into the family room and the sunroom beyond, never once trying to break through the flimsy and mostly symbolic gating. He slept in his crate at night, with the door closed.