Dog days

I dropped by my parents' house to see my dog today. She had surgery two weeks ago --
she tore two of the ligaments on her right leg -- and she's supposed to be taking it easy.
She's confined to one room, and the doctor even suggested putting her in a crate to
keep her from putting stress on her leg while it heals.

That's the way it was in the beginning, when Tootsie came into our lives almost 12 years
ago, as the result of a long process of negotiations between the pro-dog faction (my
father and brother) and the anti-dog faction (my mom). I kept out of it. I'd wanted a dog my
whole life -- what kid hasn't? -- but I thought we'd never get one, and I used to be the kind
of person who never bothered to try anything he thought would end in failure.

It wasn't as though my mom didn't want a dog, either, but she suffers from severe allergies,
and that meant nothing with fur was ever going to come into our house. My dad kept up
his research, though, and finally found a breed -- the German Shorthaired Pointer -- that
doesn't produce any dander. He was convinced my mom would be fine with a pointer
around. My mom wasn't so sure. Any dog we bought would have to be confined to the
basement, she said, where it could live in a cage left there by the previous owners of the
house. We all agreed.

That lasted maybe two weeks, tops.

By that time, Tootsie had the run of the house. A few weeks later and Tootsie was
running the house. It wasn't just that she was cute, which she was, or intelligent -- and
her schemes for wrangling treats out of each of us are legendary. She brought things out
of each of us that were probably there all along, but manifested themselves around her.
She taught me compassion, patience, the beauty of a walk on the beach at four in the
morning, the need, sometimes, to drop whatever you're doing and take a run through the
snow, the relief at having someone to hold on to.

It was cute, at first, when Tootsie began to show signs of aging -- we all said the flecks of
grey around her brown muzzle made her look distinguished. It wasn't so cute when she
began curtailing her walks, when stairs began giving her a problem, when she needed
help getting into and out of the car. Twelve years seems the blink of an eye to me; I
wasn't ready -- I'm still not -- to think of them as a lifetime to someone else.

Tootsie met me at the door today with her "puppy" -- a small, stuffed dog -- clutched in her
jaws, an offering she hasn't made in months. As soon as I took it from her, she handed me
her empty food bowl -- something else she hasn't done in a long time. When I took her
for a walk -- slipping a canvas sling around her belly, and helping her walk across the
deck, down the ramp my father made for her and down the driveway -- she wanted to go
further than I'd let her. She'd been bored, cramped up in that one room all day. I couldn't
blame her.

And she sat with me, and we stared at each other, and she let me blow zorbits on her fur,
and I let her lick the sea-salt from my arm. I don't know how many more afternoons like
this we'll have together. I'm greedy for all of them.