Dirtwater Dogs

The first dogs I remember belonged to our next-door neighbors, George and Maria Pflug, immigrants from Germany who spoke accented English and who kept pigeons and rabbits in coops and hutches in their lush, green backyard.  “Hansie unt Gretchen” were their dachshunds — one black and the other was red — and I remember the feel of their short, oily coats and the sound of all those dachshund toenails clicking on the pavement as they walked past me and my tricycle.  They were friendly and all, but as Hansie unt Gretchen aged they began to smell weird and develop fatty tumors and I never quite imagined them as pets – any more than I imagined Mr. Pflug’s pigeons or rabbits as pets.

At the other end of the block, on the corner of Cross Bay Boulevard and 12^th Road lived an old woman who carried an old Chihuahua in her purse – a dog with cloudy cataracts and an under bite who didn’t see you – or start barking — until you were inches away.  That nasty little dog soured me on Chihuahuas for life – a prejudice that didn’t lift until I got acquainted with Oliver and Dot – Chihuahua mixes belonging to friends of mine who are crossed, respectively, with a Rat Terrier and a Boston Terrier (the dogs, not the friends).  Ollie and Dot are friendly and funny and full of energy; they run and jump and wrestle and tumble, and they swim in the Hudson River wearing tiny life jackets.  They are circus dogs without a circus.

During my Broad Channel childhood, the few stray dogs I lured home with a slice of bologna were quickly shown the door by my mother, who always said, “I’ve got enough animals around here!”  That also meant no kittens or any other warm-blooded creatures that didn’t already share my surname.  But then, in the back pages of my comic books, past the small display ads for “whoopee cushions,” “X-ray specs” and “red pepper chewing gum” were full-page color illustrations of smiling Sea Monkeys, those strangely human-looking underwater creatures who the ads promised were “eager to please” and could even be “trained.”   In exchange for the dollar I mailed away I received a package of freeze-dried brine shrimp.  Of course they weren’t pets and of course they couldn’t be trained.  And though I still think it’s a miracle that tap water was all it took to bring them back to life, watching a cloud of tiny brine shrimp swim around a goldfish bowl was completely boring.

Fast forward through the aquarium years – the gravel, the goldfish, and the guppies, the cedar chips, the gerbils, and the hamsters.  Pause for a moment at off-campus housing in my senior year of college where I adopted my first “real” pet – a stray, flea-bitten kitten my roommate named “Pookah” who spent most of the winter purring or sleeping through class in the pocket of my down vest.  Shuttle ahead to the damp, cinder block Catskill Mountain rental house I shared with my fiancé and her dog – a whip-smart Golden/Collie mix named Jolene and my first true canine love.  Jolene outlived my marriage and spent her last days with me – and her last heartbreaking moments in my arms as the vet’s syringe sent her to the sweet hereafter.

Years passed, life changed, and my partner Richard and I shared the responsibility for raising an Airedale terrier puppy named Molly – a sweet but incredibly hyper animal something like a sixty pound coiled spring.  Molly shared the stage for a time with a pair of sickly kittens we adopted from the animal shelter and whom we fed coddled eggs and liquid medicine though an eyedropper.   Those kittens – Earl Gray and his sister, Irma moved with us three times and outlived Molly by a decade.  All of them have now gone to their respective rewards, their final resting place in the garden, in the shade of the river birch beneath a bed of tulips and daffodils.

It’s been years since Richard and I have had a pet — years since we’ve shopped for pet food or washed out smelly cans for recycling.  It’s been years since we’ve sifted a litter box or gone on a leash walk in the rain, years since we’ve arranged pet sitters or paid those breath-taking kennel bills after a long business trip.  It’s also been years since we’ve enjoyed the love and loyalty and companionship of an animal, years since a furry friend ran for a ball or snoozed beside us or made us laugh out loud.

It’s time.