Byron Brumbaugh

“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then I want to go where they went.”

-Will Rogers

Waldo and I are in Ghiloni Park. I’m too beat to go on our rail-trail walk today, so I brought us here to run and play. There are trails here too, but I decided we’d just stay on the open grass soccer fields today. We’re a ways from any traffic and there aren’t a lot of people or dogs out, so I put Waldo on his fifty foot leash and let him go. He is free to run at will, but he is dragging the florescent orange leash behind him so it’s easy to grab if need be.   I’ve brought a ball and a toy that amounts to a braided rope at the end of an elastic cord that’s attached to a four-foot rod. These keep him interested and entertained for a while.

It’s a bright, sunny, warm day and it doesn’t take long before Waldo works up a pant. At first, he races after the ball when I throw it, then returns it. He used to drop it when he brought it back, but some time ago, I wanted to play tug-o-war with him, so I taught him to do that. Now he won’t release a retrieved toy without some work. He even ignores treats when I tell him to drop it. It doesn’t take long and instead of bringing it back, he goes some distance from me, lays down, grabs the ball in his front legs, pants and looks at me as if to say, “You run after me, old man. It’s hot out here.” I agree it’s hot, but instead of running after him, take out the other toy and entice him to go after that. I’m not stupid.

The braided rope toy is about 18 inches long and it’s effortless to make the thing hop around in a way that is irresistible to a young border collie. They seem to think that anything that moves fast and erratically needs discipline and they are more than willing to provide the obviously needed guidance. This continues until it’s obvious that Waldo’s interest is waning. I let him rest and sit down next to him for a few pets and pats.

Why do human beings have pets, I wonder. There are probably as many answers to that as there are people that have pets. For some, they are surrogate children or even spousal replacements. For others, they may be trophies or animals for work. For me, Waldo is none of these.   He is just a dog. Another living being who, because of pack instincts, or whatever, is an animal that I can interact with, communicate with, and share life with. He doesn’t replace any people that I wish were in my life, but aren’t – I still have those and I am grateful for them. He’s a welcome addition, something extra. A canine friend.

I’ve had many dogs and I knew very well what having a dog would bring to me before I got Waldo. I got him so that I could have a dog-presence in my life. Someone who would provide something only a dog can provide. Anthropomorphize all you want, but I wasn’t looking for something a human could provide. I wanted a dog. And I got a good one.

It’s getting hotter and I can see that Waldo is uncomfortable, despite the water I give him. It’s time to collect his toys and return to the AC. I open the car door and say simply, “Okay, get in,” and Waldo jumps into the passenger seat and curls up with his tail under him and his chin on the console. Soon, we’re home, me in my chair and Waldo curled up on the floor.

So, what is it that I think a dog can provide? I’ve mentioned a few things that I enjoy with Waldo, but there’s also a lot of stuff that lies in the category of je ne sais quoi. An ineffable quality, like whatever it is that a lover provides, but different. You go for a walk with a dog and you’re not alone. You may still be lonely, but you’re not alone. You can interact with a dog and there is real communication there. Oh, you can’t share the intricacies of relativistic astrophysics, innuendo is lost on them and they can’t text worth a damn. But there is something basic, something essential to life, something subtle, but profound that you can communicate. These are things that you can’t normally communicate with people because with them, you are too busy with that other stuff.

Robert Heinlein had a word for it. Waldo and I, we grok each other.

Waldos rope toy.

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

-Ambrose Bierce

I know I’m prejudiced, but Waldo is one of the best dogs I ever saw. He’s friendly, happy-go-lucky, sweet and loving. He learns quickly and is a joy to share long walks with. Mostly.

During the colder months, I developed a habit of getting up early, taking Waldo out to do his business, then returning to feed and water him and feed and coffee myself. Because I’m wimp enough to want to wait for the day to warm up a bit before spending too much time outside, I then return to bed for an hour or so to take a nap. Waldo’s crate is next to my bed in the bedroom and all I have to do is motion toward the crate and say, “Go to bed,” and he walks right in and lays down. No fuss. It’s gotten to the point where, an hour or so after we return from his morning ablutions, if I’m still in my chair, he’ll get my attention, then go lay in his crate as if to say, “You coming, or what?” When I nap, we nap. No whining, no complaints from Waldo. With the warmer temperatures, the only thing that’s changed is that we nap after our walk instead of before.

And that’s just one example. There are so many others. When we get to a curb on a street, he will (mostly) wait until I tell him it’s okay to cross. When he’s on leash and walks so there is a tree, a sign post or anything between him and me, I’ll say, “This way,” and he’ll back up and go around the obstacle so the leash doesn’t get all wrapped up. He’s really a great dog.

Then there’s the dark side. Waldo knows very well what “sit” means. Yet, when trying to train him to sit and wait until I tell him it’s okay to go through a door, he acts as if he doesn’t know what I want him to do. I take him out for an 8.6 mile walk, we come home and one hour later, he wants to go out. I take him out and one hour after that, he’s jumping at the door again. When on a walk, if I have the leash attached to his collar, he goes to the end, 8 meters away, hunches down and pulls hard. I stop, wait for him to stop pulling, start walking again when he does, and then he’s back at the end of the leash, pulling hard. He finds something rotting on the ground, he puts it in his mouth and tries to eat it. He gets his mind set on something and there’s no connecting with him. I can’t redirect his attention, even by offering him a treat; he just ignores it. I put a dog door in the sliding door (there is a glass panel with a dog door at its bottom you can buy on Amazon that fits into the space provided by the partially opened sliding door) that connects to our balcony. He likes to go out there and just look around. It gets him out of my hair so I can get some writing done. For a few days, I heard him gnawing on something. I thought he was chewing on his bone and ignored it, happy he was keeping himself entertained. Then I checked. He’d been chewing on a wooden part of the outside wall and damaged it as high as he could reach. That one, I’m still working on how to repair. For now, Waldo is locked off the balcony unless I’m there with him. All this drives me crazy and, sometimes, it really pisses me off!

I lose my composure, especially when I’m tired or distracted, and yell at him. I swat him on the butt (not hard) and push it down until he sits. Sometimes I tug back on the leash harder than I should. I yell at him to wait and don’t let him out for a while (but usually give in before too long). I lock the dog door so he can’t get onto the balcony. None of this is good training practice, it’s because I’m angry. I’m feeling, Goddamn it, dog! Just do what you’re supposed to do! None of it is abusive, but I’ve lost it and Waldo knows it. He can hear it in my voice and see it in my face. Damned dog gives me a “What did I do?” look and I melt. It’s then that I realize that being mad at him is inappropriate and ineffectual.

The thing is, he’s not making me angry. It’s all coming from me. He’s just being Waldo, just being a dog. My anger is due to me failing to adjust to Waldo in a positive manner, not him failing to toe the line.

I am so damned lucky because, you know what? Waldo forgives me and goes on being the happy, loving puppy he always is. I take a deep breath, count to ten in Chinese, even though I don’t know how to count in Chinese, and reset my mood.

We love each other despite ourselves.

I really like my chair.

All is flux, nothing stays still.

-Heraclitus

Tempus mutantur, nos et mutamur in ilis [Times change and we change with them].

-Anonymous Latin phrase

The forecast is for temps in the high eighties. I’m still working on being able to do a three hour walk every day, but I’m not there yet. Every other day is the best I can do, still, with shorter walks on the in-between days. Today is a long walk day.

I watch Waldo closely when we walk. He gets plenty of water to drink, but when it’s more than about seventy, he looks to be uncomfortable after more than a couple of miles. No wonder, I would be too if I wore a sable coat in those temperatures. Being human, I can sweat – unlike Waldo, whose only temperature regulation is panting. There are those who believe we survived as a species because we can sweat. Before the development of tools, like spears, our ancestors must have been able to hunt meat somehow. A high protein diet was essential to developing a bigger brain. The theory is that our predecessors couldn’t outrun game, but they could outlast them because they could sweat and their prey couldn’t. True as that may be, it doesn’t mean that it’s comfortable to be so hot, you drench your clothing. We’re going to leave at 6 AM, or so, before it gets too hot.

When we arrive at the trailhead, it’s in the mid-fifties. Nice temperature until a breeze comes up. Still, it’s no more than a little chilly and quite comfortable in just a shirt – and it’s going to get a lot warmer quickly. Sunrise is about a quarter after five, so Sol is well up when we start out. The early morning light casts long verdant shadows as it shines through the bushes and trees. Not only have the grass, trees and bushes greened out, the weeds have infoliated and grown to a height of three or four feet. The effect, in places, is to create a backlit light emerald tunnel and we are walking down its center.

I was a little reluctant to get out of bed, wanted to sleep in a bit more. But now that we’re out here, I feel refreshed and enlivened. A nice walk is really a great way to start the day. I can’t tell that Waldo has noticed any difference at all. I let him out of his crate and he rushes to the door, does a yogic stretch and is raring to go. On the trail, he’s wide awake and on a mission to search and explore just like he always is. There is a constancy about Waldo amongst the changes of his becoming an adult. When I first met him, he was about three months old and very fearful. He moved in with me when he was five months old and still very skittish. He is now nine months old and much less nervous, though he still has his moments when around loud fast-moving things like car-sheep. He learned how to sit, lay down, stay and many other things. He went from being a problem on a leash to being, mostly, a pleasure to walk with.   Yet, amongst all this change is a personality that doesn’t change. He is loving and affectionate, he is curious and adventurous, he is friendly and always looking for attention. He is just becoming more of himself.

It’s been three months since I retired. I don’t miss the times before that and don’t think about them. I have gone from high-pressure interactions with people to watching the stuttering ebb and flow of seasonal changes. From dealing with life and death emergencies to watching Waldo grow and develop with a little direction from me. The temperature outdoors has changed from eighteen below, with windchill, ten inches of snow and skeletons for trees, to nearly ninety degrees and a blossoming of life. My circumstances have changed very dramatically, yet there is, I sense, a sameness about my inner experience. Part of it is a yearning to explore, a drive to search for the summum bonum, the greatest good, an urge to be in touch with the essence of the human condition. It feels to me like I put that on the back burner for so many years while I dealt with the exigencies of everyday life.

Now, like Waldo, I am free to become more of myself.

Waldo and my grandson.

“What a piece of work is a man: how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties; in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel; in apprehension how like a god – the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”

-Hamlet 2.2.267-272

I awoke this morning, feeling refreshed and more rested than I have in a while. Waldo and I hit the rail-trail, still a bit leery about braving the muddy paths in the woods after so much rain, in the early afternoon. It’s warm, but not hot, and I’m quite comfortable in a light shirt and jeans – plus my hat, which protects my scalp from the sun, and a backpack, that holds two bottles of water for Waldo. It’s promising to be a nice walk – of course, it’s always a nice walk for Waldo.

Waldo assumes his usual duties of exploring every hint of an odor as we start out. I watch him as he prances along from one side of the trail to the other. He is such a happy puppy! I call him to me and he runs up and says hello with a sparkle in his eye. I tell him to sit, give him a treat, which he accepts readily, then release him with a “that’ll do” command and he dashes on to continue his duties. He isn’t always so responsive to direction. Sometimes, he’s so distracted, he isn’t interested at all in a treat and it’s hard to get his attention. He is only a puppy.

I wonder about just how much of the response that I ascribe to Waldo is real and how much of it is projection, anthropomorphization. Many studies, including fMRI and behavioral experiments, suggest strongly that many animals, dogs in particular, understand us much better than we think. We can also communicate in quite a lot of detail to animals whose ancestors diverged from those of homo sapiens hundreds of millions of years ago. Parrots, for example, are representative of a group of animals, birds, that are the closest living progeny of dinosaurs. We haven’t had a common evolutionary ancestor with birds for a very, very long time. And yet, we can not only form a loving mutual bond with a parrot, we can actually communicate quite well with them. Is that possible without having a significant overlap of a common understanding? Can you communicate with someone or something else without a mutual understanding born of common experience? To communicate requires that there is this common ground or one can’t understand what the other is alluding to. Are we really so different from other animals, or is that thought just hubris? Is man really so noble, so admirable, or is he just one example of a broader group of very similar beings – animals? I’m different from Waldo, but I’m also different from a severely autistic child who can’t communicate with the same skill as a parrot.

The ancients believed that there were five elements that permeate all of nature – fire, earth, water, air and quintessence. Quintessence was the essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form. What then, is the quintessence of man? Does it differ so much from that of a dog? Am I really so different from Waldo, or are we merely brothers of different mothers? Am I not happy watching Waldo being happy because we share the experience of happiness and it is therefore mutually understood? How much deeper does that understanding go? I suspect very much so.

Waldo and I reach the caboose, our usual turn-around point. I’ve looked at maps and know that the end of the trail is only about another mile or so away and I’m still feeling quite fresh. I give Waldo a long drink of water from one of his bottles. He seems physically perfectly able to continue on, so I decide we will go the full distance, from one end of the rail-trail to the other. I take a deep breath. That’s 10.8 miles round trip, not that much further than our usual 8.7, I tell myself. I look Waldo in the eye and know he’s good to go.

Waldo’s quintessence speaks to my quintessence, I feel it in my bones.

The other end of the trail.

“…there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

-Hamlet 2.2.250-51

One day, it’s warm enough that I work up a sweat in shirtsleeves, walking with Waldo. The next day, I’m bound up in a jacket in low fifties, windy weather as we rush to finish our walk before rain starts. Spring in New England is so inconsistent.

My grandson, Matty (9 years old), is a Cub Scout and has an overnight spring campout scheduled at nearby Nobscot Scout Reservation. His pack reserved a large cabin (it can sleep some fifty people in bunk beds) about a half mile hike into the woods from a parking lot. Scouts and their families can stay in tents if they wish, but in the worse-case scenario, there is still the nice dry cabin to sleep in if needed. It has a woodburning potbellied stove that keeps the place warm(ish), even in the winter. If it rains, though, the camp will be a muddy mess. I plan on taking Waldo, so I’m watching the weather carefully as the day approaches. The four of us – Matty, his father, Waldo and I – have decided to stay in the cabin regardless of the weather, but the thought of dealing with a wet, mud-caked dog in cold, rainy weather is not very appealing, so I may need to reconsider taking the fur-face if the forecast is bad enough. I’m also a little worried if the kids and parents will accept Waldo being with us. Waldo, hell, if he had to make the decision, would be happy just being out in the woods in any weather and is always eager to meet new friends. So far, the prediction is for rain the day before the camp and in the morning we’re scheduled to come home, but dry the day and night of the camp. I pack up a portable dog crate, Waldo’s dishes, a day’s worth of dog food and his accoutrements. It looks like it’s a go. If things don’t pan out, we’re not so far from home it would be a big deal to just go home.

At ten AM, Matty, Waldo and I meet some of the other scouts and their parents in the parking lot. Matty’s dad had something he had to do and will meet us later after the scheduled day hike in the early afternoon. Waldo is the only dog with the pack, but not the only dog on the reserve. The kids and parents meet him and immediately fall in love. The feeling is mutual as Waldo wag-waddles over to meet and lick each and every one. As we start off on the trail to the cabin, Waldo establishes the need to be out in front and no one can (or is particularly interested to) contest it. I thought he might try to herd us, but no, he’s on point. He’s very excited and dashes from one side of the trail to the other, out amongst the poison ivy and ticks, sniffing everything. It’s as if he’s thinking, so much to smell, so little time to smell it. There must be a whole ocean of new sights, sounds and odors for him amongst the trees, bushes, dead leaves and weeds. He seems besides himself with glee. I watch, relax and enjoy a nice day in the woods myself.

We dump our stuff off in the cabin and are soon on our hike. The trail we take goes to a dam the locals call Ford’s Folly. Apparently, years ago, Henry Ford meant to put up an assembly plant nearby and directed that a dam be built to form a mill pond. It was built, but it was constructed over porous ground and the water leaked underneath it, so no pond could form. The thing is still there, useless, alone in the middle of nowhere and a nice destination for a short hike. It’s about a mile and a half from the cabin, through the woods, up and down some gentle hills – a good walk for Boy Scouts of any age. Dogs too.

On our return to the cabin, we meet up with Matty’s dad and spend the rest of the day doing Boy Scout stuff. The night was uneventful. Waldo slept soundlessly in his portable crate, and in the morning, we got up and back to the cars an hour before the rain started. Scouting is all about being in the outdoors and learning how to take whatever comes comfortably and safely, so there is no such thing as canceling on account of weather. It made me think. Rain or shine, muddy or dusty, hot or cold, it’s ludicrous to call the weather good or bad. That’s just a state of mind that you can change. The weather is just the weather. Waldo should have come with us, no matter what Zeus might have thrown our way. In any case, he would be ecstatic just spending the entire day outside.

You know, in so many ways, Waldo is pushing me out of my comfort zone, and that is a good thing.

Waldo is loved.

“Spring’s greatest joy beyond a doubt is when it brings the children out.”

-Edgar Guest

The air is chill with temperatures in the low fifties and strong winds bite through my light jacket, but we’re walking on the rail-trail fast enough that I stay warm. The wind blows in Waldo’s long hair and whips it up into some strange upswept dos. I don’t think he even notices. The energy that he somehow kept under wraps for the past few days is exploding out all over his immediate surroundings. He gallops from one end of the leash to the other, nose less than an inch above the ground. Stopping at one extreme, momentarily, he turns and glances at me with an “at last!” look, then puts his nose back down and gives a piece of detritus an intense snorf (something between a sniff and a snort), then dashes on. He even gives a few flowers some passing interest, but seems to be more intent on things a bit more stinky. It occurs to me – Waldo was born on August 25, 2019, so this is his first spring and the child is out to play. I do love to watch him having so much fun.

I’ve lived in places near the equator where the seasonal changes were a bit more subtle: big rains, dry season, little rains and dry season again. I missed the rhythm of the temperate zone. Summer was a time of freedom, unattached to school. Fall was the time of new beginnings with the return to classes and friends. Winter was a time of Christmas, New Year’s and playing in the snow, followed by warm fires and hot chocolate. Spring has always been a time of promise of things to come – release from school, vacations and relative independence. I wonder how Waldo will come to view the seasons – he certainly loved winter and snow.

The grass is green, starting to get long in places, the trees have leafed-out. Some, like the white flowered crabapple, have blossomed. Flowers and weeds, including dandelions, have bloomed and all this despite temperatures and winds that make me shiver. I’ve never had a sensitive nose, which in my previous profession was, at times, an asset, but even so, on occasion, I get a whiff of lilac or evergreen or wet, muddy earth. There is a clear difference between the smell of winter and spring. I really doubt, if it wasn’t for Waldo, that I would be outside so much, watching the ebb and flow of the weather and seasons. It is one of the many collateral advantages, along with weight loss and better physical condition. I am more aware of and in touch with the natural rhythms of the world we live in and that feels refreshing and enlivening. There is a thrill in having your attention in the world around you, being outside of yourself and experiencing what is happening, while it is happening.

I doubt Waldo can live any other way. He’s certainly never lost to the world in thoughts of philosophy or even wondering if the world could be some other way than it is. He just trots along, gleefully chasing after whatever strikes his fancy, one thing following the next as it presents itself. And he’s so happy about it! Whatever happened to my innate ability to play, play, play? How did I lose that? Did I sublimate it to the depths of my being somewhere it can never be recovered? Was it the price I paid in order to keep my nose to the grindstone?

I don’t think it is gone for good because some part of me sings in accompaniment to watching Waldo have a good time. He runs and romps, sniffs and snorfs, chases whatever he can find to chase, without the need to catch it, with such elan that it stirs in me echoes of pleasures long past. God knows I can no longer jump and run with the vigor he effortlessly exerts moment after moment. But watching him touches something in me that, to a limited extent, allows me to share in his joy. And Waldo does it so naturally, it just fits in with the rest of the natural world like a hand in a glove.

Waldo is blossoming in a spring efflorescence with a beauty that is all Waldo and I’m right there with him.

All wrapped up right now.

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.

-Robert Collier

I pick up Waldo from the vet in the afternoon, cone and all. He obviously has a real problem with the clear(ish) piece of plastic that keeps getting in the way whenever he does anything, but otherwise, Waldo is the same old Waldo. We go home and the dog rams the cone into everything. The walls, the door frames, my legs, everything. Sometimes, he does it, I think, to try to get it off. Sometimes, I wonder if he forgets that it’s there. Other times, it’s as if he jams it around as entertainment. I put away the toys, like balls and pull ropes, that might excite him into too much activity. I give him some edible “bones” to eat, but have to put his antlers and other tougher chew toys away because he can’t hold them and chew on them at the same time, due to the cone.

I take him outside every two hours. The cone of shame comes off, and we go, for us, on very short walks – twice around the building. We come in and the cone goes back on. This becomes a pattern and as the appointed time approaches, Waldo comes over to my chair, puts his forepaws on my legs and plops the cone on my lap. I don’t need a watch.

I’m amazed. Waldo seems to accept the relative inactivity and takes it in stride.

Still, ten whole days…

Ten days and nights of living with the cone-of-shame. Ten long nights of loud noises coming from the crate in the wee hours as Waldo wrestles with the piece of plastic and tries to get comfortable in bed. Ten days of getting shin bruises, of having things knocked off of tables, of water bowl spills and dog food all over the floor. Ten days and nights of constantly hearing that damned collar slam into everything within range. And yet, Waldo takes it all as a necessary evil he just has to deal with as best as he can.

I expected a lot worse than I got. With all of his pent-up puppy energy, I thought he would be constantly whining and jumping at the door to go outside. He didn’t whine at all and only rarely jumped at the door. He did regularly plant his front end on my chair arm or lap and we worked around the cone to have many more bonding moments, with pets, pats and shoulder rubs from me and long pink-tongued licks and love-nibbles from him, than we usually have. Before surgery, a leap into my lap produced play time – fetch, tug-of-war, keep away or going outside. After surgery, it was more cuddle time. I liked it.

Finally, the ten days were up and we walked into the vet’s office with bated breath. Waldo got his stitches removed, was pronounced adequately healed and earned a clean bill of health with a full pardon from all restrictions. Once home, the first thing I did was to fold up the onerous cone-of-shame and throw it in the trash. I feel as jubilant at being freed from the damn thing as he must. Next, we go for a prolonged walk, in the rain, about the property where we live – not a long walk by our standards, but a big improvement over what we’ve been constrained to. Waldo rushed to the end of the leash and happily sniffed about and stalked whatever rabbits he could find. We both slept well that night.

Next day, we’re back on the rail-trail and our usual trek. All the rain we had recently caused a greening of the environs with tree skeletons now decked out in young succulent leaves, flowering plants on the trailside, including some trees showing off white puffy blossoms, and sprouting weeds. Grass is starting to grow long and yellow dandelions are in bloom. The rain did this. Have you ever noticed how your lawn grows faster after a storm? Even more so than when you prodigiously water it from the city water supply? The reason is simple. The raindrops pick up nutrients from the air as they fall, including hard to come by nitrates, and feed the plant life as well as provide it with the juice of life. That produces a sudden explosion of floral growth and development. The rail-trail provides us an inflorescence worthy of a Monet. It feels really good to be back.

And Waldo? Ten days of imprisonment have passed, the chains are off and the puppy energy-bomb is on the loose.

“Sex: a temporary solution to a permanent problem.”

-Anonymous

I decided to have Waldo neutered, have his dew claws removed and a microchip implanted. The microchip was pretty much a no-brainer, but the neutering and dew claws were not easy decisions.

I have mixed feelings about neutering. Waldo is a registered purebred American Border Collie, but I have no intention to breed him, so that isn’t a consideration. Neutering at an early age robs an animal of an experience that many people find beautiful and important. Of course, sex also adds a level of complexity that is a burden for a lifetime. Now, that may not be as big a problem for dogs as it can be for people, but who knows. Waldo lives in an apartment, is not completely free to roam and search for opportunities to explore his desires, and his instincts can lead to confrontational problems with other dogs when out and about. If he did get away, he could produce unwanted offspring and there are way too many stray dogs in the world as it is. I am told that, once castrated, his energy will be less frenetic as well (that I can understand). Anything that can put a damper on that is welcome. Still…

Nope. He’s losing his nuts.

I am told that dew claws are removed by some for aesthetic reasons. I don’t really understand that, but other people’s tastes are often beyond my ability to comprehend. The claws are vestigial, serve no function and sometimes get in a dog’s way. One of Waldo’s dew claws isn’t even attached to bone. They ride high on the hind feet and don’t come into contact with the ground, so the claw doesn’t get worn down like the others. They often get caught on stuff and, for an active puppy like Waldo, this puts them at risk for injury. He already injured one this winter (fortunately a minor injury). He was going to surgery to be castrated anyway, so I decided the dew claws would go.

Because he was having surgery, he would have to wear the dreaded “cone of shame” for ten to fourteen days. Dogs hate the damn thing (I don’t blame them in the least), and it can be a bother putting it on and keeping it on. The vet told me to keep him inside and quiet except for short trips outside so he can relieve himself. No long or medium walks, no playing ball, no tug-of-war, no running or jumping – make sure he stays calm. Calm. Right.

“How?” I asked, feeling a bit bewildered. “I mean, how am I supposed to do that, he’s a very active puppy! And for ten to fourteen days… Can you give me some help as to how to do that?”

“Just keep him quiet. If you don’t, he can pop his stitches, his wounds can open up and get infected. There can be serious complications. If it becomes a problem, we can give him some Trazadone, but some dogs have a paradoxical reaction to Trazadone and become even more agitated.”

Well, that doesn’t sound like such a good option… I’m hoping we can get by, somehow, without resorting to meds.

I mull everything over and come to a final decision. I look down at Waldo who looks back at me with a fur-faced grin that seems to say, “Are we going for a walk soon?” Taking a deep breath, I schedule an appointment for the surgery and one for ten days later to have the stitches removed. I hope.

The day of the surgery comes and Waldo and I go back to the vet clinic. At first, he seems quite happy and says hello in his usual wag-waddle way to the techs behind the counter. They take him into one of the rooms in the back and as he leaves me, he gives me a heart-rending, fur-faced look that seems to say, “You’re leaving me? That’s not right!” It’s the eyes that get to you, you know?

All the pros and cons, benefits, complications and burdens circulate in my head like a maelstrom. This is my last chance. I take a deep breath and swallow my heart. I somehow turn my back and walk out the door.

Thank God I don’t have to explain this to him…

If only I could let sleeping dogs lie.

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!”

-words engraved on the pedestal of an ancient statue, destroyed long ago,

amidst an empty sandy expanse.

Incoming! A puppy-grenade of fur, tooth and claw streaks across the room and explodes in my lap. Paws scratch desperately across my legs and chest as the throes of boredom are loosed over me in a tsunami of pent-up doggy-energy. A long, pink, slimy tongue slurps over my cheek and forearms – raised in defense of my face. Waldo doesn’t whine, except in dire emergencies, and isn’t a barker, but, boy, can he make his needs known! And he’s right. It is time for a walk.

Today, we go on the nature trails of nearby Ghiloni Park. Ghiloni is next to the Marlborough Country Club and has some large grassy fields where you’ll find soccer and baseball games and a lot of kids. There is a playground for the younger ones and short paved paths. Beyond these are “unimproved” nature trails (not sure just how one can “improve” on them), a couple of miles long, that wind their way through the woods bordering the park. That’s where we’re headed – a ways from the madding crowd.

The day is warm, in the low seventies, partly cloudy, with only a tendril of a breeze – just enough to lick at and cool the sweat-sheen on my brow and forearms. Deciduous leaves of various species, including maple, oak and maybe some sumac, ground-up by previous hikers, cover the path, softening my footfalls. Birdsong of several species lilt the woods with “sooweet, sooweet,” “cree-cree, cree-cree,” and “weeoo, weeoo.” I look, but can’t see the serenading sources. It’s still too early in the season for the buzzing, chattering of insects, for which I’m thankful. The air carries the hint of a lingering scent of dust and decay intermingled with a messy mix of odors my poor schnoz can’t distinguish into constituent parts, but which remind me of spring. Waldo and I meet no one and other than the trail beneath my feet, there’s nothing else that can be seen telling that man is near – the thick skeletal foliage of budding trees and bushes block the vision of what I know is not very far away.

Waldo is in his element. He doesn’t wander far (which I really appreciate because if he did, his leash would get impossibly entangled in the undergrowth) as he trots along, head low, nose just above the ground, in a frenetic search for the ultimate snort, first on one side, then the other, of the path. Every once in a while, he’ll stop dead and give something (that doesn’t seem remarkable at all to me) a microscopic olfactory perusal that suggests that he’s found something so subtle and so nuanced that it takes minutes to smell out. And then he steps away and continues with his nose-scan as if he didn’t come across anything interesting at all. It makes me wonder what it is he’s smelling. I close my eyes and focus on the sensations passing through my nose as I take a deep draught of air. I shrug. Smells like spring air in the woods to me. I could bend down and put my nose less than an inch from the ground and try again, but, nah, I’m not that curious.

It occurs to me that I spent decades building a career, more decades going to school and getting trained, put out an inhuman amount of effort and used up a hell-of-a-lot of time and money to get to where I was, professionally, when I retired. I’m proud of the fact that I made a huge positive difference in others’ lives, saved some and cured others. But now, all that’s behind me and it’s as if it was just a dream, a story inscribed on a plaque beneath a broken statue in the middle of a desert. And, you know, during all that time, now forever gone, I didn’t make enough effort to stop and smell the roses and I sense there’s a meaty part of life that I haven’t yet adequately explored, something valuable and meaningful. What that is, I’m not exactly sure.

Walking with Waldo in the woods is helping me search for it.

“Look Waldo, an outdoor doggy bathroom!”