The Lap Dog

Our elder dog, Snooks, died this morning. Already planning to get up early so Archie and I could go retrieve her from the Indianapolis emergency vet, I awoke at 4:48a to the phone call.

It was disguised in a cheerful ringtone, but I knew what it was about. There was a moment, though, when I considered other possibilities.

Me: Hello?
Vet: Kevin Makice? We’re calling about your dog.
Me: Is she …
Vet: Completely fine. Yeah, yeah. It’s a miracle. Could you come get her now? Her barking is driving us crazy.

Completely plausible, even at a more reasonable time of the day. Snooks had the bark of an elephant.

Amy already captured the life of Snooks quite well, but I wanted to share one more memory.

We drove up to Indy last night, the third pet visit to that clinic for us and second trip for Snooks. On the ride up, she lay on some blankets in my lap. All 58 pounds of her. She panted non-stop, at a rate of what we would discover a few hours later to be 287 beats per minute—more than twice the metabolism of a normal dog. Her coat, despite a recent bath, seemed perpetually flaky. I spent the hour-long drive stroking the black hair off her body and onto my white shirt.

Thirteen years ago, we took a different car ride with her.

We went to a local animal shelter in New Orleans back in late 1995. Amy was about to graduate from Tulane with her second degree, and we were longing for a dog to take back to the midwest with us. We were looking for an “authentic” bayou pooch known as a Catahoula. Instead we found a small room with about a dozen kennels separating the various stray or abandoned dogs on death row. We were going to save one, and proceeded to scan for candidates.

Amy was very attracted to a little yip-yip dog. It was a lot like her childhood pet, Ruffles, and it also fit my preference for small. Unfortunately, we were told it was in the pen because of a failure to get along with the previous owner’s cats. We had two of those. Thus, no Ruffles II. All of the dogs were equally appealing, equally flawed. Too big. Too old. Too drooly. Our choice was to be our first “couples” dog, so were were hoping for a perfect match.

In the first kennel by the door sat a small black and white dog. She just sat, wagging her tail and waiting patiently for us to make our inevitable decision. She didn’t bark or throw herself at the kennel door, like the others. She just watched us make the rounds.

The person on duty told us that the little dog had been found wandering the neutral ground on a local highway. She was a terrier, she told us, and probably nearly fully grown. They were off by several breeds and about 35 pounds, but we didn’t know that at the time. Probably wouldn’t have made a difference—we had found our friend.

We filled out the papers and left to make a pit stop at Pet Smart for some supplies. A bed. A bowl. A couple squeaky chewy things. Amy drove, and I held our little “terrier” in my lap. The dog had fleas. For the first few minutes, the excitement of a car ride kept her up against the window, looking at the crazy world go by at a much faster pace than when she had been hoofin’ it down the highway. Then, our little dog fell asleep in my lap, the kind of sleep that says one adventure just ended.

That’s the same dog that sat in my lap on the road to Indy. Heavier, now drooling. Still not barking, although it was probably the first time I longed to hear that distinctive, booming woof that could shake windows a neighborhood away. We named her after a local blues musician, Snooks Eaglin, to keep her connected with her Louisiana roots. She panted too much to fall asleep, but Snooks was in my lap.

Thanks, everyone, for the comments and tweets. This Web 2.0 thing worked out well for us this week. You’ve given us all some strength.