Ever by My Side (14 page)

To her credit, even when off leash, Bess was a dog who preferred to stay close. She might meander a little, succumb to an olfactory distraction, but on the whole she preferred to maintain an even pace,
slightly ahead, wanting to be companionable, to make every walk a walk shared. Whiskey, however, liked to roam, a golden ghost disappearing into the wall of darkness, trotting back into formation when he felt like it. Only on this particular occasion, he didn’t feel like it.

Given the early hour and the close proximity to a housing development, my father dared no more than name-calling through clenched teeth, a worthless theatrical whisper. A couple of extra turns around the field were also unsuccessful in retrieving his retriever.

“Bess, go get your brother. Go get Whiskey. Go on. Go get him.”

Bess did not move, did not reply, but with her eyes and the slight cant of her head I like to imagine she said, “Now you wish you’d got him neutered, don’t you!”

“Bark, Bess. Bark for your brother.”

Again, Bess did not reply. She had been cursed with an exceptionally shrill bark and was probably confused by the mixed signal of actually being encouraged to let it rip. Like I said, Bess was a quick study.

And so, with only one dog in hand, my father walked the three miles back home, wondering how on earth he was going to break the news to his wife.

“Morning, dear.”

“What time is it? Why are you waking me up so early?”

“Here you go, here’s a nice cup of tea for you.”

“It’s five-thirty in the morning. It’s still dark outside. What’s going on?”

“Glad you asked, dear. Glad you asked. See, here’s the thing. Oh, don’t let your tea go cold.”

“Duncan! What in God’s name have you done?”

Knowing my parents, I’ll bet this is how things played out before my father finally fessed up to “misplacing” my mother’s beloved
golden retriever. I’ll leave the choice rejoinders to your imagination as Mum grabbed some clothes and together they set off in the car to retrace the walk.

Two and a half hours later there was still no sign of him. Dawn had come and gone, commuters hitting the streets on foot and in cars. Mum and Dad had split up, accosted and interviewed every passerby, hollered Whiskey’s name with abandon and all without success.

“We have to go to the police,” said Mum, “and report him missing. See if anyone has found him. Tell me he was wearing his collar with the name tag.”

Remember, this was long before microchips or collars with GPS. Whiskey was a pure-bred golden retriever, ridiculously friendly, irresistibly attractive. Name tag or not, the possibility of “finders keepers” had already crossed my mother’s mind.

“Description?” said the police constable manning the front desk, just a kid but surprisingly tuned in, sensing the seriousness of my parents’ loss. “Male, you said. And has he been fixed?”

My father dropped his eyes and shook his head. How could this have happened? It was so unnecessary, so stupid. What if Whiskey was hit by a car? How could the dog have survived a bout of parvovirus only to be lost on his watch, after, of all things, going for a walk? Mum was still sensitive about the whys and wherefores of the acquisition of Patch. He couldn’t imagine the fallout for his negligence over the loss of Whiskey.

“Very good, sir. I think we have everything we need. I’ll be sure to call if anything comes up.”

Dad heard the
if
and thanked the officer, and he and Mum headed home.

“Where are you going?”

Dad had veered off the direct route back to the house and was
once more headed to the playing field where Whiskey had vanished.

“Duncan, we’ve done this three times already. Let’s face it, he’s gone.”

“But what if we missed something?”

“What sort of something? A trail of paw prints? A discarded dog collar?”

Dad said nothing but he thought about a different type of clue, a far more sinister indication of what might have happened—a trail of blood.

Once more they pulled into the parking lot, got out of the car, and set off in opposite directions around the field. On the far side of the field, clockwise met counterclockwise, Dad saying nothing, Mum offering a futile shake of her head. They both called Whiskey’s name, but by the time they were back at the car, the desperation in their voices had given way to resignation.

“Okay,” said Dad, turning the key in the ignition. “Let’s go home.”

He found reverse and checked the rearview mirror, and then something bright caught his eye.

At first my father thought nothing of it, a glint of sunlight perhaps, until the golden streak drifted in from the periphery, shape-shifting in the reflected image and finally bounding toward them as a golden retriever.

“If a dog can smile,” said Dad when he relayed the story, “and I believe they can, then Whiskey had a huge smile on his face.”

Watching their reunion, great big golden bear paws forgiven for trying to jump into Mother’s lap, tail thumping back and forth, Whiskey whinnying in delight like a horse, you might have been forgiven for thinking the three of them had been apart for a decade, not the last four hours.

“Of course you know why he wandered?” I said to my father.

Dad dropped down on one knee to give Whiskey a hug around his neck followed by a conspiratorial wink.

“Now then, son, boys will be boys. It’s quite possible a ‘lady friend’ was involved but then again he’s never done anything like this before, have you, fella?”

And with this Dad roughed up Whiskey’s head, loose skin falling over his eyes, just the way he liked it.

My attempt to challenge this antiquated, irrational absolution was waved away, and sadly, at the time, I lacked the academic tools to argue my point, to caution about the increased incidence of intact male dogs who get hit by cars and who sustain and deliver bite wounds interacting with other like-minded Casanovas as they desperately sniff out a receptive conquest.

“I still think it would be best to get him neutered,” I said, and hurried off before he could even utter the word
lion-hearted
.

Though Whiskey would never succumb to castration, when another elective but necessary surgical procedure became unavoidable, the dark side of his personality began to emerge.

Where Bess was prone to embarrassing and immodest disorders of her anal sacs, Whiskey was a victim of tenacious and pesky ear infections. While Bess would scoot, Whiskey would shake, scratch, and rub, and this led us to a rendezvous with Ryan James.

Unfortunately, my father had made the mistake of reveling in the improved social propriety of his new dogs with office manager Arthur Stone. After all, both dogs had become quite well mannered in the public domain. However, after only a few visits for nothing more than the occasional shot and general health examination, Whiskey began to object to any interaction in which he sensed the possibility of a veterinarian’s touch.

“I’m sorry, Mr. James. I don’t know what’s come over him.”

Ryan James looked down at where he hoped his hand would still be.

“No harm done,” said James. “I think Whiskey might be starting to associate a visit to his veterinarian with unpleasant memories from his past.”

To be honest, I’m not sure I bought into this excuse. I think Whiskey was used to being the top dog, to getting his way, and he disliked any situation in which he had to relinquish his power. Whatever the reason, my father had once again lost face, another dog in the Trout file about to be given the damning label of “difficult.”

So, veterinary visits began to take on a format surprisingly similar to that followed in the days of Patch. The car was preferable to the waiting room. Arthur Stone would wave to Duncan from afar when the time was right and the dogs would be seen separately. Bess, bless her heart, was nervous (according to my father, tuned in to Whiskey’s fears), but quietly accepted her fate. Whiskey, however, quickly advanced from anxious to deranged, inconsolable, and unmanageable to an extent that made Patch look as if he graduated top of his class from obedience school.

“Give him one of these and we’ll see how he’s doing in twenty minutes.”

Dad recognized the little orange pills, the ones he had occasionally used to sedate Patch, worked one into the back of Whiskey’s throat, and returned to the car, waiting for the drug to kick in.

“How’re we doing?” said James, walking over to Dad’s car.

Dad came round to the passenger door, and Whiskey bounded out of the backseat. He didn’t appear to be the least bit sleepy.

“Might need one more of those tablets, Duncan. Let’s see if that does the trick in another half hour.”

In the end Whiskey required three little orange tablets to send
him to a place where his struggle to avoid veterinary contact was damped down enough for Ryan James to define the problem.

“No wonder the poor dog’s upset to be touched. His ears are infected, rubbed raw, and he’s got an aural hematoma in his right one.”

Ryan read the puzzled expression on Dad’s face.

“It’s like a big blood blister between the layers of cartilage in the pinna, the floppy part of his ear. He’s been shaking his head hard enough to burst some of the blood vessels in there. I’m afraid he’s going to need a quick anesthesia to drain it. And I know what you’re thinking, Duncan, worrying about the risk of putting him under general anesthesia, but I don’t think we have much choice. He needs some relief from the pain and I promise you, I’ll be quick.”

When Whiskey came home, he was wiped, lying flat out on the living room floor like a trophy from some Kenyan safari. He looked as though those sedative pills he had been fighting had finally kicked in. I noticed that his eyes appeared to be completely red, as if he were wearing opaque pink contacts, making him look eerie, even demonic.

“What’s with his eyes?” asked Fiona.

“It’s his third eyelids,” said Dad.

Fiona’s wrinkled nose told him he needed to explain.

“Apparently dogs and cats have this pink, skinlike thing that can flick across the surface of the eye and help keep it clean. Mr. James warned me that anesthetic drugs can make the third eyelid more prominent but they should be back to normal in the morning.”

“Ah …” said Fiona, getting down on her hands and knees, about to plant a kiss on Whiskey’s nose. “… I still think you’re …”

And that was as far as she got before Whiskey snapped at her face, canines and incisors missing her cheek by millimeters, the
sound of enamel on enamel lingering in the shocked silence before Fiona’s scream.

The combination of Fiona’s hasty desire to attend to her sick retriever and my father’s tardiness in mentioning that Ryan James had insisted nobody get too close to Whiskey’s face could have proved disastrous. Protruding third eyelids can seriously impede a dog’s ability to focus on an object, especially an object rushing into his personal space. Fight or flight kicks in and when your legs feel unresponsive, there’s not much left but to stand your ground and offer up your teeth.

In time, Fiona would come to understand this explanation, but I sensed her fragile appreciation for dogs had been crushed. Her face may have been spared a permanent and disfiguring scar but deep down a different kind of mark had been made.

It was years before I discovered the real reason why my father was avoiding the convenience of our magnificent nearby countryside and choosing instead to take the dogs on tortuous treks around town. It all came down to the one set of circumstances in which trusty Bess came undone while Whiskey maintained a sense of decorum.

The open fields, hedgerows, and copses that defined my childhood memories of walking Patch were largely the property of one farmer, a Mr. Jack Shepherd, and most of his land was given up to grazing for about eighty head of cattle. The edges of the fields were well trodden, indicative of plenty of traffic taking advantage of the public right-of-way. The route was clearly labeled and posted, and it was our legal right to “pass and repass,” to have a picnic, to take a rest and cherish the view, but, and this is important, you had to “stay on the path.”

By and large, my father obeyed the rambling rules, keeping both dogs on a leash, but one day Bess decided to slip her restraint, toss aside her goody-two-shoes image, and look for some premium mischief.