Saturday, March 6, 2010

Jim's first dog




Gigi is sitting at the moment with Nancy on our living room sofa, as a fire burns in our fireplace.

Jim is working on completing a book about the dogs I have known and what I have learned from them, which I had put aside for several years. Inspired by Gigi and the love of dog demonstrated by the many people who helped us in our search for her, I've decided to make final revisions to the manuscript and see if I can get it published. Here is the story of my first dog: Salty. It is brief, since Salty died when I was young. One photo is of my older brother and sister, Ed and Judy, Salty, and me (the youngest--on the right). The other is, need I say it, of Salty.

Salty was the first of ten dogs who I have shared my life with. Gigi is the tenth.

My first dog was Salty, a black and white female English Bull Dog. My parents got her when I was a baby. I have no memories of life before her. She gave me my first slobbery, sloppy French kiss, with her huge tongue lapping out of that smashed face with the immense mouth which always seemed to be a in a perpetual grin. Certain stories about Salty have become favorites in my family.

For those unsmitten by and uninitiated to English Bull Dogs, they can (I don’t really understand how) appear scary and mean. We had a corner lot and my brother, two sisters, and I were always outside, along with dozens of kids from the neighborhood. Of course, Salty was always there with us. Adults would walk down the sidewalk, see that massive head with the pronounced under-bite and lower canines jutting out and cross the street, avoiding the perceived canine menace. Children were children. They ran into our yard and literally jumped on Salty, rolling around with her in the grass, gleefully and unconvincingly protesting as she licked them smack in the face. We are saw her real beauty—the beauty of a creature that is completely authentic. And when Salty ran through a crowd of us, like a speeding, furry bowling ball on short, bowed legs, knocking down everyone before her like bowling pins, we laughed and hooted and got up and hoped she would do it once again. She did.

Salty’s forbearance and patience were legendary in our clan. My younger sister thought it was really fun to try to lift this sixty-pound dog by her ears. She’d grab those floppy appendages with the vice-like grip of a toddler and do her darndest to hoist her up, Though there was little chance of that since Patti was only thirty pounds at the time. Salty never, ever objected. Not a snarl nor a growl nor even a twitch. Of course, if you’ve ever had a massage or facial when the therapist pulled on your ears, you may understand why Salty didn’t object. She was on to something.

Salty also provided me with my first experience of loss. Since she was my own age, it was like losing a better part of me, a loving, fuzzy non-identical twin. My parents had her euthanized because of a chronic, incurable illness. She was only six and half years old. And since I was the same age, the circumstances, the how and why of their decision, remain forever shrouded in mystery and lack of remembrance. But the pain, if I invite it in, remains sharp and vivid many decades later, though balanced and brightened by all the joy Salty gave my entire family.

Copyright 2010