Dream of the Dog with Nine Lives

By Edana Lir

When a woman makes good on a childhood promise to give a rescue pet a forever home, mayhem erupts as she gets more than she bargained for in the arrival of a dachshund.

 

Follow this abbreviated log of their life together as she shares tales of learning, love, loss, and hope.

 

"…this touching story is an enjoyable and loving tribute to a devoted best friend."
—Kirkus Reviews 

 

"Lir is a funny and sharp narrator who tells stories that allow her and Darwin's personalities to come across."
—Foreword Reviews 

Edana Lir is an occasional author who typically writes fiction. Dream of the Dog with Nine Lives is her third book and first non-fiction effort. Originally from the Midwest, she lives and works in New England.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edana Lir
• Release date: May 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9780972522182

Edana Lir

Edana Lir typically writes fiction. Dream of the Dog with Nine Lives is her third book and first non-fiction effort. Originally from the Midwest, she lives and works in New England.

Book preview

Dream

of the

Dog

with

Nine Lives

A Canine-Centric Memoir

by Edana Lir

Copyright © 2020 by Edana Lir

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All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce or use any part of this book in any manner or form without written permission of the copyright owner {author}. Thank you.

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Cover design by Edana Lir. Darwin image is from the author’s personal collection of digital objects.

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Notice: This is a work of nonfiction, but some creative license has been taken, in particular, anthropomorphizing or putting words in the dog’s mouth by means of bold unquoted italics, though this is done sparingly. The names of most of the people (dog and human) have been changed too, including the writer’s. Finally, the author notes where memories of specifics fail. But other than that, all events happened.

ISBN   

978-0-9725221-9-9 (Paperback)

978-0-9725221-8-2 (eBook)

978-0-9725221-7-5 (Large Print)

Acknowledgments

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My deepest thanks to the town of Seaberry for giving us a clean, safe, vibrant home in which to live our life together.

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I also extend thanks to the town of Monson, Maine (real name). Its beautiful landscapes and kind, welcoming residents gifted me a sacred space to write the hardest chapter.

Dedicated to my mother, who set the example to be strong yet respectful of living beings, regardless of your own personal lot in life.

Contents

The Why

The How

The Beginning

The Outdoors

The Negotiations

The Hero

The Good Times

The End

I Don’t Miss Having a Dog

There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.

–Shakespeare, Henry V

The Why

H old the cheese right ...right there. Yeah, that’s it.

We were in my friend’s apartment, we being me, my friend, and the new disruption in my life. Disruption meaning that the never-ending days of going to work, coming home, eating by myself, going to bed, and then waking up to repeat that cycle had abruptly changed, the cause of which my friend was now snapping photos of with his high-powered Nikon.

Goodness, look at his expression, I gushed. He’s too cute.

The little disruption with the precious expression was named Darwin. As a rescue without deep history, I had declared the little brown dog, a Dachshund, to be four years old since all his recent paperwork listed him as three, and his date of birth was always the timestamp of the document. He was scrawny but toned and muscular. Though small, his stature commanded respect, when you could see it from the right angle, anyway; almost enviably admirable in how he carried himself, even as his new collar hung around his neck like a bandanna. I don’t know how amenable he normally would have been to having his picture taken but cheese made for a good distraction. My friend took a lot of great pics of my new roommate. Unfortunately, I had to cut the photo session short.

We need to go, I said.

Oh?

Yeah. I gotta get to the store before it closes. I have nothing in the house for him. Nothing! This morning I fed him a can of roast beef I had in the cabinet for almost a year.

Nice. Expired?

Nope. Still within the date.

My friend shrugged. Then it’s all good.

When Darwin and I arrived at PetSmart, I decided since I had this wonderful collar around his neck with a new leash, I would take him inside with me. Things went well as we shopped. I had to watch to make sure he didn’t pee on the store’s shelves or displays but after picking up a few containers of food, some treats, and a couple of toys, we headed for the check-out register.

The woman who had rung up my purchase of the leash and collar the night before when I chirped about just adopting a dog was there again. With the previous purchase, it had just been her and me, and at the time she’d seemed genuinely friendly and interested. This time, there was more activity, and I had managed to beat a couple of customers to the register. So now there was a line.

This is my dog! I said as she forced a grin and rang up items, perhaps as the trained personnel that she was. I pulled out a credit card to pay and was trying to figure out how to handle the logistics of hanging on to Darwin’s leash while holding the receipt in place to endorse it.

Darwin provided a solution. After I signed for my purchase, I realized the leash didn’t have the same tug that I had felt just a second before. I looked down expecting to see a featherweight dog, but instead I found no dog. I looked up to catch the back end of the Dachshund as he trotted straight into the nearby aquarium aisle.

I briskly turned to the cashier, my buddy, hoping to get some new dog mom advice. Fast. Cue cricket sounds. What I thought had been one and a half nights of camaraderie through recent retail transactions swiftly changed to pure and utter annoyance from her. I got more warmth and visual sympathy from the folks who were waiting behind me who actually had someplace else to be. Quickly realizing I wasn’t going to get any advice, much less any words of encouragement, I put Darwin’s empty collar and leash on the bag stand, mentioned something to her about please watching that for me, and darted off to catch up to the little canine.

With ears pulled back, Darwin continued his sly strut through the aquarium section, rounding the end display of fish food to scout out the next aisle. He went that way, came confirmation from a woman holding a tank filter. Oddly, he wasn’t going at breakneck velocity. Just a walk in double-time. Out of fear that I might trip over him or overshoot him and send him darting in an unpredictable direction, I couldn’t chase after him at top speed. The best I could do was keep pace. When I tried getting closer, however, the little snot had enough awareness to level up. He didn’t break into a medium hippity-hop or full-on bolt, as I would come to call his next two levels of speed, respectively. He simply turned his head a bit to check my distance, decided I was a little too close, and moved his trot into third gear.

He made a right turn out of that aisle and headed up the middle of the store toward the rear. Being easily entertained, a part of me really wished even while it was happening that I could have stopped to bend over and laugh. You know, give in to a sense of humor, unlike the clerk at the front of the store. But I had a real worry that he would keep going and find a loading dock that would have a loading dock door, and that loading dock door would be wide open. My concern doubled as he made his way through an open service entry that led to the back of the facility.

All the color and brightness of the front of the store turned into this dimly lit, wide realm of brown and gray as it became apparent we were now in a small warehouse in the back. By this time, Darwin had managed to put it into fourth gear, though I can’t remember, or care, whether he was still just trotting or now into hippity-hop mode. In any event, he was managing to gain some real distance from me as he could better maneuver around the dismantled metal shelving piled to various heights in this vast, dark area. Looking ahead, I could see he was headed for another door that was open. A bright light could be seen coming from this entry. My best logical guess was that this was an office, although I couldn’t see anyone or any office furniture. My panicky guess was that this was a hallway that led to an exit, thus affirming my worst fears.

I couldn’t risk it being the latter. Somehow, Darwin was smart enough to know not to turn and go down one of the dead-end spaces between the shelving stockpiles that presented unintentional but useful corrals, because that would have made my life easier. He instead continued his escapade along the outside. Hoping I could rely on his keeping this trajectory, I sped up big time, jumping over two piles of the unused steel components to leap in front of him and grabbed him as he turned a corner to head towards the open door leading to the unknown. I imagine at his height, not being able to see over the piles of shelving, it must have seemed like I dropped out of nowhere.

I picked him up without issue and carried him to the front of the store. My hope for any congratulatory recognition from the clerk went unfulfilled. She had more customers she was checking out and didn’t even bother to make eye contact when I came back to grab my new purchases and his day-old items. Good thing I’m sometimes impervious to unsaid thoughts of being called a dumbass, otherwise my feelings might have been hurt.

I carried Darwin and all our things out to the car, dumped everybody and everything in, and then spent the next five minutes making adjustments to the loose collar. Given his overall reputation and seeing that coming near him with the damn thing normally frightened him, I was quite proud of how he seemed to help me with this, instead of leaving me bloody from protest. It may have helped that I wasn’t mad or embarrassed over the incident. I was just relieved to get him back. In return, he cooperated as I would put the collar at a setting, fasten it onto his neck, and then see how easily I could slip it over his head. For about three or four tries, after which I sat there holding a dogless collar in my hand, his demeanor was almost Zen-like as he patiently stared at me, almost coaxing me to not give up. OK, try again? When I finally found a gentle setting in which I couldn’t easily pull it over his head and ears, I started the car and we headed home.

This, dear reader, is what I refer to as the PetSmart Incident. In twenty minutes, I had managed to make an enemy of a sales clerk, entertain a bunch of strangers, scare some fish, run an obstacle course, and buy some dog food. Disruption was my new life, outlined by a sixteen-pound canine.

This was only day two.

FAST FORWARD EIGHT years. I was at a friend’s yard party the summer after Darwin died. It included a number of mutual friends, all of us from the same workplace. Because I had run into some of them in passing, I had let them know, bit by bit over the months, what had happened. As many of us sat at a picnic table, one in our work circle turned to me and asked, How’s your dog? I hadn’t caught up with her to tell her the news. Last we spoke, I was deep in a medical and philosophical battle to keep him alive as long as he wasn’t too miserable. The excruciating part was defining what, exactly, miserable meant for him.

I lost him in January, I answered.

Oh no!! I’m so sorry, she exclaimed. She, along with many at the gathering, had heard my stories of him. That’s what our group did: we shared stories of our kids or, for those of you who absolutely hate nonhuman animals being promoted to child status, stories of those things in our house we fed, cared for, and talked to like they were babies.  She continued.

He had so much personality. And the two of you were so bonded. I’m very sorry.

Those two points and the fact that I sometimes slip into being an author started my great internal debate. There are millions of stories of loss, tragic and oh so devastating. Devastating in how they happened and devastatingly unfair. This account isn’t even centered on a human, though in the great timeline of this world, now is probably the era in which we humans are regaining the courage to believe that at least we (again, we humans) are all created equal and should be treated accordingly. Yet this narrative is about a dog. For every record of a human life, there’s probably some story, television show, or Instagram account of the life of one or several of their pets.

Why add to all that? Sure I write, but I don't write because I gain a high from the act of writing. Sometimes just the opposite: I find writing quite draining. I usually write because I have all these characters and incubating plots, and words are the best medium for them. Considering this context, again, why should I bother? Bother to find the focus? Bother to muster not only the energy (outside my day job) to sit at a keyboard for days or weeks but, most of all, the dauntlessness to dig deep down into my raw, private, bitter guilt-ridden sphere of loss? Beyond myself, why write about another past-tense life to push off into the world?

This was my intimate self-discussion for a while. Then one day while driving to work, as it tends to happen with me, I had a loud, scolding epiphany. You need to write this down because everyone’s got their stories out there these days. It needs to get written because whether anyone ever reads it or not, Darwin deserves it. There’s room for it. Most important, your and Darwin’s relationship was a very happy, interesting story. Someone somewhere may need to read a story like this one right at the time you stick it out there. For that one person who needs it, it’ll be worth it.

OK. Then here we go.

Please allow me to introduce you to this story by first laying the foundation of Darwin’s existence. Imagine you were born with certain urges. Strong, almost undefeatable urges. The urge to consume a pile of your favorite dessert or a gallon of soda or wine. Or to run or bike for miles every day. To smoke. The urge to protect your loved ones or your property. Whatever compels you to do something. Take that concept and multiply it. Think stronger. This emotional force is more than a feeling. It defines a large part of you. It’s your identity.

Take this sensation and apply it to a job you have to do. Remember, this is your identity. You were bred for this occupation. This job, your instinct, your urge, what you were born to do is to go into narrow, pitch-black holes cradled in the earth and chase out and/or kill one of the nastiest of land creatures: the badger.

You have to be independently smart enough—meaning you can’t rely on someone telling you where or when to grab or bite or tear—to outmaneuver this toothy, claw-riddled critter whose home in the deep dark soil you’ve invaded. To up the stakes, they are more angry than afraid. Though they are trespassing on your land, you are currently trespassing in their shelter. This scenario is almost guaranteed to be a duel to the death.

Now that you know what you were created to do, imagine the life you’re handed is one in which an alpha species called humans coo at and coddle you, stick you in baby clothes or maybe even paint your nails because you’re so damn cute. They expect you to mindlessly follow insipid, useless commands at their leisure. They often seem as annoyed with you as you are with them, though you’d give your life over and over and over again to protect their dumb, shortsighted asses.

Seem like a potentially frustrating and degrading existence? Welcome, dear reader, to the nature of the Dachshund. There are many varieties of Dachshunds but most of us instantly equate the short, brownish-red Dachshunds as ground zero for this temperament. A friend of a friend, who identified as a Dachshund person, cautioned me that they were dour. From my limited experience, I can’t disagree. I’ve witnessed them having ghastly nightmares, sometimes, unable to stop fending off something even in their sleep. Considering the purpose bred into their DNA, they are born with the weight of the world on their small shoulders.

Darwin was one of these Dachshunds. He was my ward for almost eight years, the longest I'd ever lived with anyone aside from my mother. Self-aware and extremely sensitive, his modus operandi was taken from the blueprint described above. He had more personality than a third of the people I've met in my life and was smarter than half of them—me included, depending on the situation. To me, Darwin often felt like he was out of a movie or a cartoon. This wasn’t from me or anyone issuing orders. Had he been expected to do all of this on command, millions of Hollywood dollars would have been wasted. But in letting him be him it was just Darwin being Darwin. He managed to amaze me almost every day.

While this has turned into my memoir, it started out as his biography, a couple of these stories logged years before he died. As I thought about extending his story, I realized that it began long before he was born. For if not for certain experiences in my life with dogs in and outside of my family, I wouldn't have gotten Darwin because I wouldn't have been looking for specific criteria for a dog. Which is why his biography doesn't start with him...

This dog has too much sense.

–My mother

The How

The first dog I ever had I got at age ten. This wasn’t a glib win. I had been lobbying my mother for years, picking up the pace around age eight. My lobbying was uncomplicated. No sales pitches or marketing. No crying or dramatics. I would simply ask, and she would reply with a negative and a case study to back it up, usually, though not limited to, that she would end up being the one to take care of it. I would reply with the standard naïve kid answer: No you wouldn’t! You wouldn’t have to take care of it! I would help! But not really knowing what it took to care for a dog, my rebuttals were hollow and she knew that.

The fact that I, as a girl child growing up in a poor urban metropolis in the ’70s, could ask my Southern-raised divorced mother for a dog with a slim possibility that it could happen struck me as extraordinary as I got older and gained a better idea of time and cultural context. Not to overgeneralize, but growing up I found few black females who liked dogs. That’s not so much the case these days, as dogs have an almost godlike stature in some places, but back then, yeah. Most women, even a lot of my closest friends and college roommates, were outright afraid of dogs. One exception was my high school boyfriend’s family, which, at the time was headed by his divorced mother. They had a big, German Shepherd-like beast having indignantly been named something like Fluffy. Other than that and our household, I found such occurrences to be rare.

Besides having a fondness for dogs, my mother was like a patron saint in her attitude toward them. The last dog my family had before my parents divorced was a little black dog named Tiny. My mother had rescued him from a group of bullies who had tied something to his tail. As someone who was barely over five feet tall and had spent her youth suffering what I would call a Color Purple upbringing, she could relate to being small and seemingly helpless.

She brought the dog home, and he stayed in the house. He was not kept outside, again unusual for this time period and a long time after. He was hers and she was his. As far as Tiny was concerned, there was Mama and then those other folks in the house he had to tolerate. As verified at some point by each older brother and my father, Tiny only liked my mother. Then I came along, and that didn’t change the dynamic one little bit. While his dislike for the male members of my family may have simply been emotional baggage from his past, he would have good reason not to like me. Unfortunately for Tiny, the same family creed that removed all fear of dogs from my psyche didn’t leave enough of it to build a healthy respect. I was dying to be friends with Tiny! But I was explicitly taught to leave the dog alone.

One day, I must have thought some headway had been made in our relationship or that we even had the start of one. My mother was doing what she tended to do in the kitchen, and somehow the dog and I managed to sit near each other on the steps leading to the door on the side of our house. This was the closest we had ever been to each other and seemingly alone—alone meaning people not paying direct attention to us. I reached over to pet Tiny and was met with a stern warning snap. No barking. No succession of snaps coming toward me. Just Keep your hands to yourself, person who is not the lady I like. I was very, very young but times like this when I was made to stop running on instinct and be present in the moment tend to stick in my