When I had grown up in Nova Scotia we never owned a dog. We lived in the city and there simply wasn't the room. I cannot even say that I had always wanted a dog. We had dogs when I lived on the farm in the summers and I enjoyed their company but it was not a pressing thing. When I joined the HBC my boss owned a golden retriever and he was a marvelous dog. He and I went everywhere together, hunting, fishing anything. When I moved away I never gave owning a dog a second thought. Then one day my phone rang. It was Nigel, my former boss. He wanted to know if I would take Seiko. He was moving to the city (my former hometown) and was getting an apartment so he couldn't take the dog. I hadn't thought about it but found myself saying yes and staring at the phone afterwards wondering what I had gotten myself into.
Eight years later there was no question of what I had gotten myself into. A deep enduring bond of friendship and love. There is something about coming home at night to an animal who is always glad to see you and who returns every bit of affection without question. We were inseparable and when he died at age 11 of natural causes I was devastated. I thought I was putting up a good front, fooling everyone. I thought I was good, you know, I was on my way home a week after Seiko (Yeah, Seiko he was a watch dog, get it? More people would have if Nigel had called him Timex) died. When I ran into a friend of mine who also owned a dog. We sometimes walked our dogs together. She asked me where Seiko was. I looked at her and my eyes welled and I tried to speak but no words came out. I blubbered like a total idiot. She knew instantly, as an owner of an older dog it was something we both lived in fear of. She said "Oh I am so sorry!" and she put her arms around me. I was ashamed that I was so emotional over an animal. Why? Our children , our parents our siblings are all animals. Why be ashamed of loving an animal, nearly as much as we love our own kind. If not why have them? Why else have such strong bonds developed over the years between animals and humans.
After losing Seiko I planned to get another dog. Planned to do it but never did. I was scared. Scared of the commitment, scared of putting my heart on the line again. Then one cold day the fall following the loss of Seiko I heard a scratching noise at my door. I looked out the peephole and saw a medium sized dog that I recognized sitting there. She was frozen into a lump, someone had thrown a bucket of water on her. It was well below minus thirty and the water had frozen solid. I threw open the door and brought the poor shivering animal in to curl up by the fire. "Just don't feed it." I reasoned. "Just don't feed it and she will not stick around. I let her out in the morning and walked the kilometer or so to work. When I got out twelve hours later there she was curled up outside the store door. She followed me home and curled up outside my door. I kept checking the peephole and she was still there. I left her outside and didn't feed her.
The next morning she followed me to work again and home at night. I am a softee so it was tearing me apart mot to feed her. "Alright, she not eating a thing. "I thought. "I have to feed her!" I did. That Saturday I tracked down the guy I thought owned the dog at the gas station where he worked. "Is this your dog?" I asked. "Well, the kids don't want her anymore, so it looks like she is yours now." My reaction surprised even me. "Right! That's it then." I said and went to the store to get a collar and some food. She was a wonderful dog. A weird mix of husky and German Sheppard. She had one blue eye and one brown eye. Her fur on her head was soft and silky. Her hair on her back was course and wiry. She had this way of putting her paw in your hand when she wanted attention, she would look at you with her ears back and would vocalize. Not a bark but a weird little low yowl that was almost like words. I always wondered what she was saying, but she never failed to melt my heart. The problem was that her neck was big and her head was small and she could slip out of her collar and go running.
One day I was doing jury duty and she slipped out of my latest invention. I had taken two collars and put the shackle through both. This made the two bind up and kept the collar in place, usually. This time it didn't. I came home to find two empty collars at the end or her chain. I searched the streets calling her. "Brandy, Brandy!" a neighbor saw me and put on his coat and followed me. I saw him and stopped he caught up and looked at the ground. "The dog catcher shot your dog." He said. I was stunned. No warning, no second chance, just gone. I went home and cried. I vowed not to get another dog, not to care again. That summer I met Lina and fell in love By that fall we were living together. By the next spring I had fallen into a comfortable routine. I had been accepted by her extended family and was about to meet a newcomer to our little family.
It all started with a simple question. Lina's cousin Raymond, nicknamed "Skinny Man" called to ask if we could take care of Lina's nephew Craig's new puppy. The puppy was from a litter of a dog owned by Lina's Aunt Mary Jane. Mary Jane was the matriarch of her family and was a much loved part of our family. She had wanted to get the puppies away from their mom, Brownie. How could I refuse? It was a favor for both Lina's Auntie and her Nephew. After all it was only a week or maybe two. Skinny brought over the puppy. A tiny blond terrier cross that fit in my huge hand from wrist to finger tip. Simple enough, right? No strings. Just a brief baby sitting job.
A week went by then two. No sign of Lina's sister coming to pick up the puppy. Soon a month had come and gone. "Lina," I said "You had better call PouPonne and ask when they are picking up this dog." PouPonne was a family nick name for Lina's sister Margaret, I think it means a baby chick. I had a reason for forcing the issue. I knew I was growing attached to this little fellow and Ii didn't want my heart broken again. She made the call. When she came into the living room she gave me that look, a look I already knew well. The first time she had given me that look she had asked me "What is your favorite T-Shirt?" That's an odd question, I thought. "I suppose the one I got in the Dr Jim Smith Golf Tournament." I replied. It was a white T-Shirt with Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale logo on it. "I was afraid so..." She said holding the T-Shirt aloft, she had been hiding it behind her back. It was now a shade of pink. She looked scared and embarrassed at the same time. I dropped to the sofa and began to howl with laughter. Soon I was on the floor my sides aching. "I thought you would be mad?" She said. "How can I be mad?" I asked. "this is hilarious. I'll still wear it! I'm not that insecure in my sexuality!" In time the shirt faded back to nearly white.
I saw the same look on her face when she returned. "So?" I asked. "What's up with the dog?" Lina screwed up her pretty face and said "I don't think that they want it anymore, the boy's Dad got them a purebred Scottie." She looked like she was about to cry. I jumped into the air. She flinched and stepped back. "WHOOOOO HOOOO!" I exclaimed. The dog scampered around the corner, excited by the noise. I scooped him up and looked into his little brown eyes. "You need a name little man. I think I'll call you Bear!" Lina was smiling now. "You're not mad?" "Of course not. I couldn't give him up now. I just needed to know." "You can keep him, but you can't call him Bear he's not going to look like a Bear when he grows up." "What then?" I asked. "I don't know but I will tell you when I do." I got down on all fours and began to play a game with the dog that we would play many times over the years. I rolled him on his back and pinned him to the floor and ruffled his belly. He nipped playfully at my fingers. I quickly took to spoiling him rotten. I bought him a Stuffed ladybug. Which he promptly emptied of all its' stuffing. I had to pick it up from all over our yard. He carried the empty carcass everywhere. Prancing proudly along like he had slain a lion.
"Buttons!" Lina said one day. "What's that?" I asked. "Buttons, that's what we'll call him. He is cute as a Button!" And he was. "Yes. It suits him." "Better than Bear!" She said mockingly. "Yes, better than Bear.Right Buttons?" He jumped and barked his approval. He was part of the family. Around two years after we had met and a year after getting Buttons we got married. We became a family, Mom and Dad and Buttons. The happiest moments of my entire life were the simple moments. Lying there watching TV on a cold winter night. The wind howling outside. The three of us together in our warm living room. Safe under a sturdy roof. Just the three of us. Lina 's head on my shoulder my hand dangling over the side of the sofa ruffling Button's soft fur. I had never known such total bliss. You can have fancy cars, foreign beaches, and mansions. I was never happier than on a winter's night snug in our humble little abode with the ones I love most.
The years passed. We moved to the Yukon and Buttons, Lina and I walked the banks of the Porcupine River. Buttons loved to plunge into the water, no matter how cold it was. Even when the ice had just broken he would plunge in among the ice and stand their with his little pink tongue hanging out. We moved to Tulita in the NWT on the MacKenzie river and he did the same thing there, wading in the icy water and loving every minute of it. He turned ten this April, just as I turned 50 today. He was showing his age a bit but still had a lot of life left. Small dogs, especially hybrids live longer. How much longer he would have lived we will never know. His little life was cut short this Sunday when two loose dogs came into our yard and attacked him. They were much bigger dogs, more than twice Buttons size. I was asleep when I heard Lina's terrified voice. She was telling me that he had been mauled. I couldn't believe it. I ran into the yard to find his motionless body on his back, his feet in the air. With the help of my Assistant and neighbor Cesar I carried him into the house. I nursed him as best I could but as game as he was he didn't make it. He lasted about five hours. I was on the phone with the nurse when he took his last breath. There was never any chance really, but I felt guilty. That I had failed him somehow.
The next day one of the dogs was caught and destroyed. My friend Paul the Bylaw officer told me the news. I took no comfort from the news. I had no desire for revenge, only a huge hollow spot. Now two dogs were dead. Then today my friend Urban the Fire Chief told me that the second dog had been destroyed after it had threatened to attack some kids. "It was foaming at the mouth." He said "Rabies I think." "Good thing you got it then." I said solemnly. I was relieved that the public was safe but it changed nothing for me. I couldn't turn time back and get my little buddy back. Cesar and I buried him on Blueberry hill beside the old HBC store which now serves as a warehouse. It overlooks the MacKenzie where he loved to swim and whee he had been swimming the night before he died. It is a nice spot. Some small comfort. I felt very empty as I lay in bed last night. I held Lina to me. "Our family has shrunk." I said sadly, a huge lump in my throat. "I miss him too." She said. "We'll get another." I said matter of factly. Another dog, not another Buttons. There was only one of him. A lovable little rascal who snuck into my life by the merest of chances. Circumstance. Fate. Kismet. Call it what you will. But for ten years he enriched our lives and blessed us every day with his presence. I pray that it was mutual, I never doubted it when he licked my face and used his little nose to lift my hand and get me to pat him. I read somewhere that a pet takes up so little space in your home when they're alive and leaves so big a hole in your life when they're gone . Truer words were never spoken. He was tiny but he left me so empty. Empty now, but someday I will be able to remember the way he lived, not the way he died. Someday...
Buttons Beaulieu-Sayine-Turnbull
April 1999-August 9, 2009
Much Loved, Much missed
1 comment:
Thanks for the comment. I just write what moves me. It is nice to know that someone is reading.
Greg
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