#70 - A Day in a Dog's Life

A Day in a Dog's Life

9/27/05 (#70)

I once heard an interpretation of the events in the bible that noted the fact that the gospels (the portions of the bible written by the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) had been written many years after the actual events, and were scribed by fanatical followers of the New Testament's main character. The treatise imagined the apostles sitting around together for years, telling Jesus stories, and over time, the historic deeds of their fondly remembered friend grew more fantastic and less accurate. Maybe at the wedding in Cana, Jesus had a couple of bottles of wine stashed in his tunic, and when they ran out of wine, Jesus said, "Hold on, we're not done yet" and pulled the bottles from below his clothing. Perhaps he poured the wine into a pitcher that previously held water, and someone who had worked hard to deplete the previous wine stash saw the pitcher and insisted the water had been turned to wine. Of perhaps it's not even as complicated as that: over time, standard rules of embellishment were applied: two bottles became three, then five, and a few years later, Jesus was performing the kind of alchemy dreamed of by college students nation wide.

The point is this: There are events, and there are the stories that surround those events. Did Jesus walk on water, or was he walking in the desert and, from afar, he appeared to be in the middle of a mirage? Did he raise Lazarus from the dead, or had Lazarus suffered from a then-undiagnosed case of narcolepsy and was merely assumed dead before JC's arrival? Take the stories on faith, or dismiss them out of hand, but we will never know how much the events have been compromised by the story.

That is why I am documenting the infamous Flying Boo Dog incident of 2002. As I get older, my affinity for Boo continues to grow, and I fear that if I don't commit it to digital bits now, I will one day have trouble recalling if Boo turned the kibble into t-bone or bacon.

Boo Radley, our 80-pound Chow Chow/Retriever mutt, has a heart as big as a Buick---and a brain as big as a Matchbox. (I love him, but he couldn't hunt down his shadow on a sunny afternoon.) When rescued from the pound in 2000, Boo was a ruffian, apt to tussle with any of the male dogs we saw walking in the park, and couldn't stand to be on a soft surface (couch or bed) for more than a minute at a time. Over the last 5 years, he has mellowed considerably---in fact, these days, we joke that the softest thing in the house now is Boo Radley himself. He still likes to think of himself as a badass, but he's rarely the dog he thinks he is.

Though once in 2002, on a day much like this one, Boo was exactly the dog he thinks himself to be---while a canine Clark Kent hopped into the back seat of our 1984 Volvo, what emerged later was Super Pooch: able to leap across tall imports in a single bound, almost as powerful as a speeding Subaru.

We were driving North on NE Grand Ave, heading toward the Wielder/Broadway intersections. Stephanie was 9 months pregnant with Sage, so contrary to our normal seating arrangements, I was driving. At the intersections in question, NE Grand is 4 lanes wide to accommodate the numerous left and right turns that distribute traffic to various pockets of the Northeast, and we found ourselves in the 3rd lane, one in from the right. Boo sat in the back seat, on the passenger side (see exhibit A) watching for any squirrels or cats who might be driving any of the assorted sedans and compacts that surrounded us.

Exhibit A

We were a few cars back in our queue, and saw the light turn green just as a car pulled up next to us on the left. That lane wasn't as crowded, so the car slowed beside us just enough to have our back seats be parallel. Unfortunately for us, the car in question had a German Shepherd sitting in the back seat, passenger side, head out the window and, for a brief moment, seemingly inside our partially open left rear window. (See exhibit B) Unfortunately, Boo glanced out the driver's side window just as the shepherd was arriving.

Exhibit B

Considering the circumstance, I think the appropriate canine response to the inexplicable appearance of the shepherd would have been a brief fact-finding mission: The dog is a surprise, but is it a legitimate threat at this time? The window is partially closed---can the dog actually get into my car? Is it actually a Sheltie standing on a box, and will a lunge make me look like a belligerent fool? These are crucial questions that require answers.

Boo asked none of these questions. In fact, if Boo asked any question at all, it likely involved the physical logistics of fitting a Shepherd's head into a Chow's mouth. There was no delay in Boo's reaction----he witnessed the dog and released a guttural woof that coincided with a quick, powerful lunge across the car. So powerful, in fact, that the window glass which had up to this time been a sufficient barrier between Boo and the world shattered in an explosion of sparkling shards and 80 pounds of crazed brown dog. (See Exhibit C.)

Exhibit C

(When recalling this story, I always note my disappointment that I wasn't in one of the cars behind our car. The folks in those cars must have had thoughts of Cujo, or maybe even Cerberus. I doubt anyone's mind went to Lassie.)

Once Boo hit the ground, he took off after the shepherd, who was barking wildly from the confines of his car. I have an image of the driver of the Shepherd's car wondering what all of the commotion was about, glancing into his rear view mirror and seeing a Far-Side-esque "things in mirror are closer than they appear" image of Boo's snarling teeth bearing down on the side mirror. Whatever it was he saw, he recognized that it was suddenly the ideal opportunity to check the action on the accelerator pedal, and since his lane had been empty, he was able to leave frothing Super Pooch behind.

The three lanes of traffic were all at a dead stop now---they had all seen the window-smashing feat, and either wanted to give me a chance to catch the dog, or just wanted to stay as far away from Boo as they could. Whatever the case, I was able to pull across those lanes and park the car beside Wendy's Hamburgers while my pregnant wife chanted the mantra, "Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god."

Once the shepherd was gone, Boo seemed to take stock of his situation for the first time since sitting in the back seat. I wish I knew if he felt exhilaration or regret (or perhaps both), but he was suddenly wandering three lanes of traffic, wagging his tail enthusiastically. I was out of the car calling him in a voice that I did not know I possessed (concerned-pet-owner-meets-prison-goliath), still humming my wife's mantra in the back of my mind. As I took steps toward Boo (he moved) then toward Boo again (he moved again), I felt like I was starring in a video of a drunk man trying to catch a sheep. Empowered by his actions, Boo planned to live a little before being forced back into the car.

The problem was, the 4th lane of traffic had been blocked from seeing anything, thus that lane had resumed its normal 35 MPH traveling speed, unaware that a cocky, courageous (and not too bright) dog was about to step into their path. I was suddenly faced with the reality that Boo's foolish super-hero antics might be a decidedly not-funny intro to the story of how Boo was flattened by a Ford Explorer. Fortunately, Boo chose to make his break across traffic during a slightly larger gap between cars and reached the opposite sidewalk with only one brush with death---the driver of that car giving me a sneer that seemed to say, "Leash your dog, you jerk." His self-righteous response to this scene he had no means of understanding reminded me of a man cursing the kids who ran through his flower beds as they raced to escape a tsunami. One lane of traffic was the least of my worries, pal. I was now calling Boo with a voice that even the prison goliath would have obeyed

I finally grabbed Boo's collar on the sidewalk, emphatically expressing my disappointment with his car-hopping behavior with a curse-ridden string of "bad dog! bad dog! BAD DOG!" Seeing that Boo had been apprehended, some of the traffic finally began to pull away. Boo and I walked up to the traffic light and stood waiting for the walk signal and the walk of shame back to the car. Boo was properly reserved, but if he had been given a voice to explain, I bet his apology would have been something like this: "I'm really sorry I smashed through the glass like a movie star! I'm really sorry I chased that bastard dog off this street! I'm really sorry that this was such a blast!"

Of course, the next problem was the gaping hole in the side of the car---not a safe situation with any dog, especially not one who recently came to understand that he was capable of leaping through gaping holes in the side of a car. (Capable of creating them, no less.) We ran the seat belt underneath his collar, clicked it in place, and gave Boo the most uncomfortable car ride home that he has ever known.

The next day, we made arrangements with Expert Auto to have the window replaced. When we arrived after the repair, Mike informed us that he had developed a system that would ensure there would be no repeat performance with the new window. He led us to the back of the car and pointed out his preventative measures: There on the window, written in grease pencil, the words read:

Boo! Stay!

3 years later, Boo continues to obey the message.

I'm glad to have recorded these facts today. If Boo could talk, I'd have let him tell the story himself, but he can't. And a good thing, too: if he could, every time we drove north on NE Grand, I'd hear that familiar preamble from the back seat: "Did I ever tell you about the time that I broke through the window?" I'm sure it would only be a matter of time before the story involved him running on water to catch that Subaru.

©2005 wpreagan