The Dog Outdoors

I spent more time and energy preparing to adopt a dog than I have on almost any decision I have made in all my years, except maybe for planning my own freedom as a kid.

My brother told me several years ago that he just didn’t understand why anyone would choose enslave a creature by keeping it as a pet. He had been an allergic child, and still reacts fiercely to dander and pollen, and I had already cared for two cats by then. I explained that it was a reciprocal relationship, but we both grew up surrounded by secular humanism of all sorts in a small family pack, and I understood him. I did not change his mind.

In William S. Burroughs’ allegory, The Cat Inside, the high hermit contrasts the carrion-rolling, shit-eating habits of the Dog, with the fastidious inscrutability of the Cat. The reader is left to ponder what totalitarian and craven instincts might draw one to the Dog. And what a peaceful hedonist must a cat-lover be, accepting the soft brush of a cats fur, or her purr, when it is given, in the spirit of sensuous independence.

That’s the problem with reading - it doesn’t actually change anything, by itself.
I did a lot of reading to prepare for the Dog.

After Georgia the Dog came home with Vivid and me, we experienced many things anew with Georgia in our company. I expected that a dog would change things. Georgia has changed me: I spend more time outside, and I haven’t blogged since her arrival. That too will change. 

The cats in my life maimed and killed mice like they breathed, systematically. I expected it, they knew it. They were vocal and demanding of food. They told me and showed me things, but in retrospect, they were mostly inside. When they were outside, there were ugly fights and frequent disappearances. Several times, these forays resulted in injury, and one horrible time, in death. I was changed by them but it was mostly (and sadly) after they were gone.

As it turns out, I have spoken to more people, and explored more of my surroundings in all weather, in my six months with Georgia outdoors than in ten years of living in this city. She is mostly silent, but the way she smells things is like someone who is constantly verbalizing. 

She comes alive outside, especially in fields, and on rocky shores, where she loves to stalk and hunt. She is very interested in gopher holes, and I have seen her tag team with another dog around them. Georgia has demonstrated other mad skills, like digging holes for shelter, while we put up the tent. She destroys bones with single-minded purposefulness, then enters a bone coma. She seeks out cat turds like a truffle pig. She communicates well and often with most other dogs, peeing high for some that have passed before, and sniffing out every trace she can with her remarkable nose. She is a voracious reader of dog “bulletin boards.”

She wrestles with mastiffs and chases retrievers. She is not interested much in fetch herself. She tries to pick up puppies by their hind legs, regardless of their size. Once, she watched with rapt attention as Alice, a border collie, climbed seven feet up a tree, and out onto a branch. Georgia understands and respects the dogs who have toys that they will not share. She likes to be with the pack. She greets most dog and humans very politely. She is selectively interested in cats, but she loses her mind over any and all squirrels. She doesn’t like to get her feet wet in puddles, and is not much for the rain, period. She played hard in snow two weeks ago, and I’m looking forward to experiencing more of the white stuff with her.

I had to think long and hard about what it was that caused her to attack the dogs of two of my closest friends. When it happened, it was traumatic, and disappointing. Each friend is very close with their dog, and I know each of the dogs to be gentle and good-natured. There was talk that Georgia is typical of her breed (unpredictable and potentially vicious) but who really knows what her breed is? I did so much reading about huskies and all kinds of other breeds, and I still have questions. But mostly, I have a whole new perspective on the human project of control.

When we adopted Georgia, it was after several years of negotiation, and it cemented Vivid and me in our relationship in a way few things have done. We became a pack. Georgia the Dog was selected by us and for us via the Humane Society, and after we met her we could not come up with a name that suited her better. We walked together for several weeks before I named her silently: Smells the Universe. However, “Georgia” rolls off the tongue much better using the outside voice, especially when we pretend that she has to return to me from a distance. Happily she does, even though I am still slightly anxious when she takes her time about it.

Georgia is a rescue dog - I wasn’t familiar with the expression before she arrived, and then other dog folk often referred to it, when we started chatting about how old the dogs were, where they came from and so on. To me, she was never a dog that we rescued, per se, she was the dog that we chose to adopt. But that has changed.

One summer evening, while visiting family, Georgia and I were speed-walking down a newly created path. It was located in an expansive suburban housing development, near a wide, deep ditch overgrown with enormous grasses and bullrushes which were hiding stagnant water. The mosquitoes were fierce - they were even bothering Georgia on her ears and nose. We were trotting along and I pulled her away from a critter burrow, when a few paces later she a began straining and snuffling anew in the tall weeds, and I followed her a few steps in to see what there was. She began a low whine, and we parted the grass and found a tall, fairly robust guy looking like he might have been in his fifties passed out and snoring on his back. His glasses were off to the side. I picked them up. She was sniffing his head and body, while I tried to rouse him. No response. I put his glasses on his stomach and saw an empty pint of rye, a few feet away. Okay, I thought, he smells sweaty and faintly boozy, his face is reddish, but he’ll be fine, and we can come back. After dinner, Georgia and I traveled back to the path, and found him still there. He had rolled deeper into the ditch and his head was near the water. Worse yet, the mosquitoes had really feasted on him. Long story short, the police told me he was a hard of hearing diabetic that had been reported missing that afternoon. After the paramedics came, I resolved never to leave someone passed out like that ever again, without getting help immediately. And so Georgia became a rescue dog after all.

The basic training sessions we went to for seven weeks that summer also changed me - I learned how to be more patient and I observe things differently. She is responsive on a level which demands close attention, she is willful, and has to be convinced of things. Georgia has a mind of her own, and is as independent as me. We enjoy one another's company. When we are apart, she is on my mind.

Now, I have spent three hours in her company indoors assembling these experiences for reading, a qualifiedly human project. Georgia and I are happy that Vivid has come home from work, the pack is together, and Georgia gets to go outdoors again.