I want to take a moment away from feeling sorry for myself to thank all of you, real-life friends and net pals and total strangers, who have commented here or emailed your lovely, compassionate thoughts about what Zeke is going through. I can’t tell you how much it has meant to me. We all suffer such losses alone, but you have made the solitude seem a bit less stark.
I wish I had some way of telling him how many people are thinking of him around the world. I wish you all could meet him. I wish you all could have met him ten years ago, seen him tuck his head down between his shoulders with a giant grin and run full-tilt.
Here is a happy memory, complete with Zeke being the best dog ever and Chris being a jerk without really meaning to:
Ten years or so ago the three of us were hiking in Redwood Park in Oakland, a gigantic near-wild park half-covered in third-growth coast redwoods. Zeke’s favorite place in the world was there in a broad spot on Redwood Creek, a spot now off-limits to dogs, the type locality for rainbow trout. Back then we didn’t know better, and Zeke the grownup puppy would get there and run in insane circles down into the creek and up the muddy banks, getting mud and redwood duff all over himself. And then we would hike up a side canyon and into the forest.
One such day we were up that side canyon and we encountered a woman walking a tiny toy dog. I forget the precise breed: just imagine overly delicate, coiffed, prissy, fragile, and seeming utterly out of place in this steep, forested canyon. Her dog was much the same, though it at least looked happy to be there, and strained on its leash wanting to get off-trail, explore, be a dog rather than an accessory to a pair of shoes. “How’d this woman make it up the trail in those shoes without getting her nice sweater all muddy?” I wondered. Later I learned Becky was wondering the same thing.
Zeke bounded up to a respectful distance from the two, stopped ten feet away smiling and wagging his tail. A nice thing about my dog: he often seemed to sense strangers’ need for personal space. But the woman flinched. I ran down to Zeke to leash him, as I did in such situations back then, and apologized and promised that Zeke was friendly, which seemed to me to be obvious. Her dog got it too: it fairly vibrated with desire to go play with the big doggie.
“That may well be,” the woman sniffed. “But I wish you’d keep him on his leash just the same.”
Redwood Park is an off-leash park, for the most part. Aside from a few developed areas and the now-protected creek, most of its more than 1,800 acres are open to dogs under voice control. And a lot of people and dogs take advantage of this fact. There was no way this woman could have gotten to this steep, muddy section of single-track without passing at least half a dozen big unleashed dogs. Nervousness around big loose dogs is completely understandable, as Zeke’s friend Nanette illustrates here in a recent comment. But going for a hike in a big off-leash park and then being offended when you run into a friendly, off-leash dog, and giving the dog’s owner — who immediately leashes his dog without being asked— a hard time for having an off-leash dog in an off-leash dog park? Bah. Bah!
I kept about a foot of leash between my hand and Zeke’s collar. Zeke stared at the little dog, smiling and wagging. Ms. Priss stiff-necked past us, her dog still straining behind her to go back and romp with the big doggie. Becky stood just off-trail, politely suppressing a chuckle.
I patted my dog. “Well, Zeke,” I said in that voice I use when I am saying silly things to my dog and forgetting that other people in the vicinity can, in fact, hear me, “I guess we found out where your stick got to.”
You could almost hear the woman flinch.
Ah, memories.
Wonderful! And much deserved.
Oh Chris, that story is fantastic. Although I am terribly sad for you and Becky, and feel awful about what you and Zeke are going through, I just couldn’t help laughing out loud. Now stop updating us here on teh internets, and get out there and enjoy the rest of the weekend with that fabulous dog of yours!
I forget the precise breed: just imagine overly delicate, coiffed, prissy, fragile, and seeming utterly out of place in this steep, forested canyon. Her dog was much the same
snerk heh heh
fabulous story!
our annie would have loved your zekie—they are the same kind of dog. or were. annie was a rescued dog—we rescued her when she showed up in the neighbor’s driveway, scared out of her mind and injured and abused. i am not really a dog person, but i was the one who coaxed her into the yard with cat food and water, and later the kids and i built a dog house for her.
[it was pretty much a dog castle, huge and well decorated and outfitted with rugs, with braces on the interior and actual roofing material on the roof, designed to withstand hurricane katrina. it seemed like 80 kids were in on the project over a month or so, but probably it was more like 10.]
poor sweet annie died 3-4 years ago. she was in pain, and i still haven’t forgiven myself for that. she forgave me, damn her. she forgave everything.
For the record: You are rad.
I remember the precise moment when I realized dogs had feelings that were AT LEAST as real to them as mine are to me.
The sad part of this story is the juxtaposition of this ... person ... who obviously never connected with her dog, never saw it as anything other than a fashion accessory, and Zeke’s family.
While Zeke romped through the heart of the world, this poor little guy got dragged off to a decade more of mere existence.
“I remember the precise moment when I realized dogs had feelings that were AT LEAST as real to them as mine are to me.”
You have me remembering when that moment came for me too. My empathy for dogs was increased immensely as a result, and thinking about that experience always leaves me amazed in a way… I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone the story and I’d like to, but this isn’t really the time or place.
It’s from long before Zeke, and it doesn’t have a happy ending.
“I remember the precise moment when I realized dogs had feelings that were AT LEAST as real to them as mine are to me.”
Having been around dogs my whole life is probably responsible for this question arising; just because humans developed certain cognitive skills, why do most of us assume that we developed emotionally as well, beyond our ancestors? Does having a word for “love” mean we love more deeply, or better? In the immortal words of Arthur C. Clarke when wondering whether the Loch Ness monster was a giant sea otter - I think not.
Hey Chris, I’ve been behind on commenting on blogs lately, but I wanted to say thanks for the lovely Zeke story and also that my heart and good thoughts are with Zeke and his human family these days..