It is a compliment to have a dog look up to you, and it is a gift, especially when you volunteer on a public board and the administrator quits and fires off an unpleasant letter to the editor on the way out. Then, it is nice to be in the (mostly) silent company of a dog, or four.
There really are four dogs, either touching me, or within about two feet of my desk. Forte, the big black flat Coated retriever is using my foot as a pillow. Merry, the Lab husky mix, who at 15 has a completely gray muzzle, is so soundly asleep that I touch her chest to be sure she is alive. Madi, the youngest, and mostly a bloodhound, is sitting at my elbow, whining. She belongs to my daughter and her husband, but they are off on the ferry with the high school girls' basketball team that they coach, steaming through another blizzard for games in Wrangell this weekend. (They left Monday and return Sunday.)
When I assure Madi that everything is fine, she licks my hand and won't stop until I tell her to quit. I'm not sure if I hurt her feelings, since her hound-dog face always looks that way. Forte snores, Merry silently farts, and Phoebe, the testy terrier, begins furiously digging a hole on the dog bed. "Cut it out" I shout, and she freezes, looks me in the eye, and resumes scratching at the cushion.
My husband walks in and says, "This looks like one of those Booth cartoons in the New Yorker," the ones where the nutty lady is typing in a roomful of shedding mutts. He is even carrying a rifle, just like the old men in those funny drawings do. He has been re-conditioning a 30.06. He says I should write about dogs more, because everyone likes dog stories. I know that. It is just my dogs aren't as bad as the one in "Marley and Me" or as inspiring as English veterinarian James Herriot's.
Speaking of vets, last Friday Juneau's Dr. Wolf was in Haines. She comes up about eight times a year and sees every pet in need for 40 miles. Forte has a broken toe -- or had a broken toe. He was limping so badly we couldn't wait for her to visit here, and instead flew him down to Juneau two weeks ago. It turned out that he had cracked a bone inside his toe (he is energetic and enthusiastic) and it got infected, and the toe had to be amputated. He came home with a bandage up to his ankle, a sack of antibiotics, and instructions not to get his foot wet.
How? Baggies, rubber bands, and a lot of bad words.
Dr. Wolf's Haines office is in a gas station. You can't park by the pumps because they still work. It's self-serve with a credit card ($3.18 a gallon for regular.) The pet surgery and waiting room share the same small area. When I took Forte in to have his bandage removed, a blue heeler was getting her toenails clipped and teeth cleaned. Her owner was assisting. Dr. Wolf joked that a facial was next. I watched them work, while Forte waited in the truck with my husband. My friend Linnus came in, looked at the dog on the floor with the vet, and said that her cat Trout had been chewing his tail again and needed an appointment.
After the blue heeler left, we brought Forte in. He was very excited to be invited into a place other than his own home, since it rarely, if ever, happens. Dr. Wolf, who had recently seen pets in Skagway, said she had heard an earful about Forte. He lived there before we adopted him. I assured her that his libido has declined and he doesn't steal food like he used to.
My husband held Forte's leg, and I sort of hugged his torso, while Dr. Wolf did her best to cut the bandage off. We slowly slid across the vinyl floor until I was right up against the door by the time Forte's stitches were pulled.
When we were done, Dr. Wolf said to let Forte play in the snow; the clean cold was good for him.
When my mother died, she was survived by her two dogs. She never said last words, but going into her final surgery wrote, "take good care of the dogs" on a pad.
My husband has always said that he will never be one of those people that spends a fortune on a sick or injured dog. But when Forte's foot was so sore, he made arrangements to fly him to Juneau, and paid about $1,500 to heal him. I never really believed his bluster. He's like my mother that way, he understands that the measure of a person is not determined by how well your dog loves you, but by how well you love your dog.
Heather Lende lives and writes in Haines and is the author of "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name." She can be reached at hlende@adnmail.com
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