Stationed one summer in Blue River, mid-central B.C., I spent the days planting trees; the nights, perched on the front steps of my hotel, surveying the odd little town’s main street, empty, but for a dozen stray dogs jaywalking earnestly in all directions, though without purpose.
In a manner of minutes this motley mix of mutts, like those depicted in any Dr. Seuss book – short ones, tall ones, spotted ones, stripes – would gather around me for some cool, collective chill.
How wonderful, these recent recollections of canine encounters, the first stirrings perhaps of a canine quest commencing.
Today, there’s August next door, a wonderfully-mannered black Lab with an amusing bullfrog bark, and across the road, Lucas, rescued recently from China, apparently with two passports, and a head, torso and tail from three others, all pleasantly packaged with a friendly disposition.
Proliferate are the studies, documentaries, and features collectively extolling the species’ myriad merits, foremost among them the companionship and an empathy that’s profoundly intuitive.
The prevailing proclivity in purchases, owing to the angst of a pandemic, has hardly been lost on the sellers of soup, soap, and suds, sodas and sedans, shilled always by pitchmen with pooches.
These investigative forays along with the happening-upons of numerous gnawed items accentuate an ache for our clownish beagle, Arthur, that just won’t abate.
Sure, it’s been two years now, and polite suggestions of “more sensible” breeds, while apt, risk forgoing the frivolity of our lively little chap. Others opine with outright contempt, “Just get another one!” they state. On it. Give me a sec, I’ll add that to the ‘To-Do’ list, just after, “Pick-up new grandfather.”
These wonderful beings, perhaps creation’s finest, are not so readily replaceable.
I still carry the yellowed clipping from the Amherst Daily News, forwarded to me by my Grandmother Minnie, of a poem, The Love of a Dog, by Audrey Cyr. I’ll interject some of this prose the rest of the way.
The love of a dog is sincere and true,
Though your fortune be large or small, …
I’ve experienced ‘pet therapy’ – tension eased, mood boosted, even day-long mirth, from both ends of the leash, even from such an amateur as Arthur. Years back, when my father’s dementia deepened to the point where he hadn’t spoken to me in nearly two years, one day he suddenly began chatting away warmly with Arthur, even calling him by name.
When my mother-in-law convalesced in our home after open-heart surgery, her recovery was hastened when Arthur draped himself for hours over her sternum, cold nose on her chin.
I recall as well, a gentle-giant, bull mastiff, hanging around well beyond his breed’s lifespan, providing crucial companionship for a friend nearly crushed by cancer.
… He cares very little for worldly acclaim,
That the friends you have may be few …
In the sporting vernacular of amateur drafts, we joked that ‘Arf’ went first-overall in his six-pup draft of 2004. That he was the runt of the litter was indiscernible then, but, how effortlessly he reversed the gravitational pull on teens to separate spaces, drawing them instead to our home’s common places.
He had the happiest little gait, with an odd hitch and a scoot. His fur coat was trademark beagle tri-coloured – black, white, and brown, warm and silky smooth, smelling like leather and smoke. The popcorn aroma from his paws filled his tiny alcove in our back hall.
There were visits to, and cards from, his sister, Emma of York. She was clearly taller and slimmer and elegant. She was immensely more mannered, such a stark contrast to her squat, buffoon-of-a-brother, Arthur, the little pig from Orillia.
Beagle owners always do a double-take when encountering one of the same. Hands go to brows, heads are shaken, laughs are quick. This is followed by a rapid-fire exchange of tales of the tricks – stealing steaks off the barbecue! – and the misdeeds from this most comical breed.
Masters of petty theft, though the heist of one’s heart is the beagle’s coup de grace.
I sensed Arthur’s time was drawing near, when his 20-minute walks took 30, though covered only half the distance. I mused sadly on his silliness as a pup … sneaking up on, then circling, and finally barking at an orange pylon, and later, a decoy duck.
How unfathomable, thoughts of life without this this wonderful little dog.
One denies the blatant signs of decline, the physical facts and the passage of time, measured in photographs that are numbered by the thousands. We arranged makeshift steps for his muscular little legs that failed him, assisting him up to the furniture he wasn’t allowed on.
Early one morning he was a physical wreck, the hip that he’d scoot with seemingly dislocated; his appointment confirmed. Sensing the sadness that engulfed us, how stalwart he was through his last night, watching over us, watching over him.
One last ride in the truck, head out the window, nose in the air, quiet conversation with his vet. Morose as I was, I withheld my grief so not to trouble him any further; Arthur had played his last caring card through the night.
With a warm fixated gaze and a long smile between us, our parting was peaceful … separated for a spell.
… His only claim to fortune and fame
Is the love in his heart for you.
John Epstein is a former, 25-year Orillia business owner who left southern Ontario for the north years ago, and has never been back. He is now a freelance writer, whose column will appear monthly in OrilliaMatters.
