Max Eyes The Gate

Max ran away.

It was a lazy day for me and it seemed the less I did the less I wanted to do. I looked at Max as I sat back on the overstuffed lazy boy with my feet up in the air. He was sitting right beside it and I was patting his head. 

I pulled back his bangs from the top of his rag mop head and looked into his huge teddy bear eyes. Before I knew it he leaped off the floor and was on my lap. 

“Take it easy Max, there’s not room for both of us in this chair” I said to him as his toenails dug into my thighs. But for him, there was more then enough room as he sat with his head totally blocking my line of vision. 

I brushed him off of me and got up out of the chair and headed out the door. “Come on Max I’ll comb your hair.” I didn’t want a repeat of the snarls and tangles that had overtaken his fur the week I had not been home. 

I sat on the chair outside and began to slowly comb his head, ears, back and down his legs as he twisted, flipped on his back and turned away from which ever side I was trying to comb. I looked at him and ordered him to sit. 

“Max, your just too much dog for me” I told him as I thought about having to walk him that evening. I sure wish someone else would help me out with you. I knew he was getting antsy  and needed to be walked that night but I just did not want to do it. 

That afternoon I had left the gate to the yard open to bring in a shelf. Max stood back and was very good about not going out as the large garden shelves were brought in. 

When 4:00 PM arrived Max was doing his velcro thing. He followed me everywhere around the house. “Oh, it’s your dinner time.” I put his food out in the patio and he began to crunch.

Ten minutes later I listened for his whine to come in. He was not at the door. I looked out into the yard and thought, “Good. He is doing his business.”

Then all of the sudden I remembered. “I left the gate open!” I ran to the front door to look calling out to my son in law, Alika, “Max is loose, I forgot to close the gate!”

 Alika ran out the front door and I passed him Max’s leash as he headed down the street.

Alika ran to the park down the block, I started calling up towards the end of the culdesac thinking maybe he had chased the neighbors cat. Then I jumped in the car. The whole time Max’s big brown eyes stared  at me through my minds eye. ‘Please, please, please, Max. Don’t run out in the road.’ 

He was such a willy, nilly never paying any attention to what was going on around him. I looked to my left and to my right as I started to drive down the street. My son in law was just coming home with an empty leash. He said he could not see him anywhere.

It had only been ten minutes. Could he have run straight down to the main road? As I headed out to the main drag I called out the car window to a boy, standing in his bare feet, staring down the road.

“Have you seen a black shaggy dog?” He answered in the negative and asked me if I had seen a gray spotted dog running loose. I remembered the dog as he always got loose in the early dawn when I would walk Max. He would always run after us trying to get Max to play. I would always have to cut our walk short to take him back home.

“No I haven’t seen him but I know where to bring him if I do.” In my mind I could see Max and his wayward pal running down the busy street jumping and playing. I was afraid to drive to the big park. I was so afraid I would see Max, dead, his black fury body, motionless in the street. 

Of course all the things I shoulda, coulda, would have done for Max went through my mind. Was this going to be the last time I ever see him again? 

I drove everywhere, asked everyone. I even thought maybe he’s still in the house. I thought about the time I tore out of the house looking for Zoe, crying because I could not find her only to realize that I had accidently locked her in my closet and there she was crying to get out when I got home. 

No, I knew Max was outside and I knew he was gone. So I slowly drove home. I could hear the boys dog barking to get back into his yard as I drove by, but no Max. I gave it one last call as I passed our house. I yelled as loud as I could and looked in the front screen of the house from the car. I thought I heard click, click, click on our wooden floors. I started to turn the car around to head out again when Alika called out to me that Max was back. 

He had been where I thought he was in the first place. At the neighbors, chasing their cats and eating all the cats food. I was so relieved and happy to see my little guy. The water bowl that I had filled up with clean water just before Max had run away was now full of red dirt. Max was panting and I think he was smiling too. 

I took him out in back once again, this time the gate was closed. I started to re-brush all of the weeds that were stuck to this Brillo pad dog. Lifting his bangs, I looked into his eyes and said to him. 

“Well, I guess I won’t have to take you for a walk tonight.”

 It turned out to be a great day for both of us. 

A sugar day

The sky is gray, hanging low and keeping the heat and humidity floating throughout the house. I'm hoping for a storm. Thunder claps that rattle the house and ring in your ears. I'd love to see flashes of lightning that would light up a dark closet and splits the sky. Then after that show is over let it rain, pour, soak the whole island. 

Of course there is Max. That would mean that someone would have to walk him in the rain. Well it aint me babe. They bought the doggy in the window and I'm not going to feel guilty anymore. I don't care how much he loves me and follows me through the house and settles at my feet. 

I wanted the little fox terrier my sister in law wanted to give me. I would not have to worry about walking it for miles to get him to do his business. I could even use a little piddle pad. It would then sit on my lap like a peacocks feather so soft and light.

Instead Max lands on me and sinks me into the chair unable to move, licking me with his sloppy tongue, and breathing his fish breath all over me. 

The little terrier would sleep on my bed hardly taking up an inch. Instead Max jumps up on the bed trying to sleep on it with his head on my pillow and his back smashed up against me daring me to move. He then bounces off like Tigger bouncing from a tree leaving a hair shirt behind. 

Oh, so what's with the sugar day? I'm still in a mood so the sugar? Ah, it's coffee Haagen-Dazs. While the stew cooks I will stew with my ice cream and watch the debates. And when Nico finely finishes his sandwich I will let Max in and it will start all over again. 

What I've learned from a dog

My daughter said that I had a nightmare the night before last and that she had to wake me up in the middle of the night. There getting to be so frequent that now I don’t even remember when she comes into my room. I must have been sleeping on my left side. If I want a freightless nights sleep I have to sleep on my right. Life is so funny, I sleep on the right but when I’m awake I lean to the left.

Last night I did not sleep half the night for some reason or another. Walking in the morning was on my mind as I tossed around. I needed to sleep so that I could get up early enough to walk and be home before my daughter left for work. I finely fell asleep around 4 am and woke with the birds at exactly 5:20.

The first problem was, none of the clothes were assembled like they usually were. All my walking shorts were still in the dryer. I ran down stairs, piled them into the basket, lugged them up the stairs, hastily dressed, unleashed Max and was out the door 10 minutes later then normal.

The second problem was someone had switched off Max’s collar. Alika had left Max’s choker on him the day before and I thought he still had it on so I quickly snapped on his leash and was down the street before I realized he was just wearing his fancy one.

No time, I had to keep moving while all the while I envisioned Max doing his twisting and pulling as we passed other dogs. Angrily, I doubled the leash around him and just kept going.

Four blocks out now and it is the spot where Max drops his load. Only now he has decided that he wants to play Ferdinand and just smell the flowers. Tick, tick, tick. I did not have enough control without his choke chain. I could not pull his collar up high nor could I do the fancy snap that always got his attention.

“Your not the pack leader, your not the pack leader.’ I was taunted by those words from the kids. Max was now pulling me over every other minute and we were getting no where. My peaceful walk, my chance to mull things over in my head never happened. In fact it has never happened since I started walking him. My frustration and stress got the best of me. I pulled him to me and dragged him back home never finishing or for that matter hardly starting my walk.

This anger gets the best of me at times and it is at these times I just want to run away. Like when I was a kid. Only then I would just hide in the closet to see if anyone would miss me. Now if I hid in the closet it would only cause problems for my daughter who would have to deal with it and she has enough stress.

Getting home, I fed Max and walked back to the front to cool off. I hoped that by watering the plants I could calm down but I was greeted by a big green, snarled hose that had beenå thrown off to the side. My granddaughter had washed her car! Now I was really mad and I was spitting nickels. After I untangled, flipped all the kinks, and stretched the hose to its destination I started to water.

My dog George came to mind. I could see me walking to kindergarten and George doing his serpentine walk in front of me sniffing all of the bugs and plants as he went. I’ve never felt that he had a grand, or even good life as my pet. He didn’t sleep in the house, he never went anywhere with the family and he ate mostly table scraps.

His days were spent dodging the dogcatcher. And that is what I thought about while I drenched the roses. George was my Jerry Seinfeld. No matter what went wrong he would come out of hiding and go about his business. His uncanny awareness of the dogcatcher was legendary no matter how they would stalk him they could never catch him.

His life was full of upsets and yet he was always there, sniffing in front of me, showing up after school every single day to walk me back home. And he was always a happy dog.

You know, I never dream about George. He was the best part of the first 15 years of my life. Why do I let little things bother me, why do I invite the terrors of my life into my dreams? Maybe I have to hide behind a bush when the dogcatcher, that is my anger, starts to thread its way into my life. Sit and smell the flowers in those bushes and then come back out when the coast is clear and serpentine, serpentine, my way through the rest of the day.å

In His Masters Secret Service

I’ve had pets all of my life. My first dog was George. He was a medium size mixed terrier. Dad said he was in the K-9 Core and was named after King George of England.

Oh, I was so proud of that. I told everyone on the block and in school. (He always walked me to School and picked me up.) He was a very smart dog to be sure and was my protector for 16 years.

Now that I’m an adult, I think back to the many things my dad told me, I wonder if George was just some dog dad found and tried to glamorize him to me. He fabricated a lot of stories for my entertainment and this could have been one of them.

George would have been 1 year old in 1945 when I was born. This was the year he came into my life. Maybe he had been considered for training just before the war ended. Well that would be what I would like to think anyway.

One thing I do know, when I was around 6 George bit the Mail Man.

One afternoon as I happily arrived home, probably after fighting with someone, I noticed George being put into the back of a truck. I ran up to my father to ask him what was going on. He told me that George was going to my Uncle’s house for a while because the Mailman wanted to have George put to sleep. My dad was going to fight it and George was going to go to court so he had to stay somewhere until the case was decided.

I did not see George Bite the mailman, I don’t remember what kind of truck it was that took him away but I do remember him going.

Time passed and Dad told me that George had had his day in court. He then went on to tell me about the trial. He said the News Paper even covered the trial.

When the mailman accused George of being a vicious dog it seems everyone came out of the woodwork to defend George’s honor. The neighbor down the street (the young married couple who baked me my very own cookies for Christmas) told about how George would come over and dig up all of these holes in his lawn. This caused him quite a bit of consternation until one day when George was digging away and the neighbor was about to chase him away George backed out of the hole with a dead gopher in his mouth. From that day on the neighbor could not do enough for George. He even bought him his own box of Kibbles dog treats.

Another woman, whom we did not know, came to plead for George. It seemed that George was leading a double life. This lady worked until midnight at which time she had to take the bus home. When she arrived at her stop, there was George waiting for her in the middle of the night, ready to walk her home. She did not know what she would do if he were to be put to sleep.

You have to remember that there was no leash law at this time and George slept on the front porch, so who knows what he did with his nights.

Last but not least, someone testified that they had seen the mailman hit George with his mailbag for no reason at all. I guess that was the clincher.

Next thing I knew there was our little 007 sitting on the front porch waiting for me. Mission accomplished.

This is what I do know. George went away in a truck. George did dig up gophers in the neighbors yard and George came back after
many days, to stay, and the mailman didn’t.

But did he stay with my Uncle? My uncle says “No!” Did he go to court? No one remembers but me and since those of my immediate family are dead, I can’t ask them about it.

Could my dad tell stories? Well let’s just say it runs in the family.