Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Would you please stop doing that

It's a rare bird dog that doesn't have at least one annoying habit.  Mine collect them like cockleburs or beggar's lice, oblivious to efforts at breaking them and at times reveling in my irritation.  One liked to ride in the front seat, no, loved to ride in the front seat.  Remember the guy in school who always called shotgun at the first mention of going anywhere?  The guy who was simply too good to ride in the back?  Cover him with fur, make him walk on four legs and juice him with an overdose of persistence and you'll know what I suffered.  Over, under, around, and he never stopped trying.  Grab him by the collar and drag him over the console into the rear and he'd beat my arm back to the front.  He pounded me into submission every single time.

One snatched food off of the kitchen counter, a standard feature in about half of all canine models.  He'd let enough time pass between episodes to make me think I'd cured him and then, without any fanfare, he'd do it again.  No shame, no apologies, not even a hint of disguise.  He was the unrepentant prisoner telling the parole board, "Yep, I did it.  Nope, I don't regret it.  Yep, I'll do it again if I get the chance."

My latest edition is really excited when I get home in the evening.  This is a habit I never want to take out of a dog, so pleasing is it to know that regardless of what's happened over the last eight or ten hours I'm still the greatest thing in the world to at least one being. There are limits, however.  He used to jump up and plant both paws squarely on my shirt and even on the driest of days managed to stow dirt in them just long enough to transfer it. A trainer showed me a trick to get him off my chest which, unfortunately, didn't kill his desire get his paws on me somewhere, somehow.  Now he gets within a few feet and, bouncing up and down like the front end of Julio's low rider, stretches his paws toward me.  One of them always finds its way to my pants, and always has mud or dirt on it when it does.

No matter what, you can't seem to break them of these habits.  It's what makes them individuals.  Otherwise they'd be perfect, and perfect dogs only exist in legend.  Strangely, so many of the things that in the beginning annoy - knocking over the water bowl while I put food in the dish, climbing on the couch only when soaking wet, that look over the shoulder just before taking off in the other direction, completely removing the flowers and potting soil my wife just painstakingly put in the flower pot - become of part of the package that you can't separate from the rest and you just kinda come to accept.  And then one day the package is gone and you miss all of it.

8 comments:

  1. "juice him with an overdose of persistence", that's awesome and so incredibly true!

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  2. Mark, you really are a damn good writer, and although the market for thoughtful, literary outdoors prose is about as close to non-existent as you can get without actually being non-existent, I'd encourage you to try to shop some of yours around.

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  3. Thanks guys. Chad, I probably suffer from the same disorder that afflicts many who create from scratch: I'd only submit something I thought was really, really good and it's just hard to feel that way about anything that I'm overly familiar with. The carpenter always knows where the scratches are. Back in 2001 I felt pretty good about a piece I wrote and sent it to Gray's. It ran in the Nov/Dec 2002 issue and when I read it now I think "meh...it's okay".

    Blogs are a great outlet for someone who wants to play around with words and ideas. You can put it out there and see what the world thinks of it without having to get it past a gatekeeper first. I'll eventually piece together something I feel really good about again and probably shop it and see what happens. In the meantime I honestly appreciate the vote of confidence. It means a lot coming from someone whose work I enjoy immensely.

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  4. Mark, Old men bury many dogs. Your last line hit home. My dog of a lifetime died in August. Every day the old Aussie would come up behind me and bonk me on the leg with his wet nose, leaving a mark on my suit pants as I walked out the door to work. Now it's just a memory and hole in my heart. Well done, Mark. Gil

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    1. The dogs never quite last long enough but the memories stay around pretty much forever. Thank goodness.

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  5. I don't have dogs yet, but of course all the same things are true of our cats, including how happy they are to see us when we get home.

    And I know what you mean about blogs - they are perfectly personal, and fixable, and the delightful start to many good conversations. Magazines have a distance and a permanence that, while infused with prestige, also feels somehow disappointing compared with blogs. Plus it's just nice that you NEVER have to yield to anyone else's vision.

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    1. Holly, a good retriever would take your hunting to the next level. Not so much in terms of shooting or birds in the bag (although it could reduce cripple loss on some occasions) but more in terms of enjoyment. If your living and working arrangements allow, I'd highly recommend at least looking into it.

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