Peabody

Peabody, the smart one.

Naturalist, hunter, ponderer, gourmand, suspected
father of one, master of our pond.

His criminal record had only one entry:
The day he came running home, sporting a wet lipped dog grin,
with somebody's pet door and frame stuck over his head and one shoulder.
The case remains unsolved, as he took that story, and that grin, to his grave in the raspberry thicket..

Good boy!

PEABODY
by
Rich Levy

This morning, my wife, Terry, went to work, and I left for a survey job, having given Peabody his pain meds, and a larger part of my breakfast BLT than I'd offer Terry.

After returning this afternoon, we waited for Terry's early return, too. The gloomy, near drizzle had finally yielded to sunlight and the slightest warm breeze. At the suggestion of a walk, even the recently lethargic Peabody arose, with Spark and Kona, and we went walking with our three chums, down the side of the road, through sun dappled shade and open field, not too far.
The dogs surged at their leashes, even Peabody, seeming oblivious to his occult limp. Another stroll through the sights and smells by which the guyzos are so fascinated. Back to the house, and Peabody lurched quickly up the steps behind his loping brother and his wide body wagging step- sister.
As the clock foreshadowed the appointed hour, I went next door to tell Mom we'd be leaving with Peabody soon, and she asked if he'd come over to see her. Of course he did, and the saddened little old lady brought one tortilla chip after another in her acutely angled, translucent fingers to Peab's eager chops, his final snack. We lowered her bed so she could give a last wistful pat to the quiet, clever, wheatstraw retriever who had worn down her lifelong indifference to dogs since the day seven years ago when I found her feeding him sweet potato from a teaspoon.

Peabody then followed us out, at a rolling limping trot to the car that Terry had just cleaned out, in which she had blanketed the cargo space. We were a bit early at the vet's, sitting in the parking lot on our tailgate, as he reveled in the caresses and cheerful call of his name. Sitting in the darkness garnished by the lights of a nearby convenience store, he rolled to his back, welcoming our attentions to his soft belly, velvet ears, the ruff at his neck. The fates often don't appear as we imagine, and Peab's harbinger came as a teenaged veterinary tech, telling us how sorry she was, and beckoning us inside.

Once I lifted him down, he was off at his irregular trot, because he was at the vet's place, an outing he always enjoyed. He signed out at the shrubbery, and we all went in. He was to be weighed, and the digital readout said 73 pounds - four pounds more than it had said a week ago, the day his osteosarcoma was discovered. His valedictory week had been spent being indulged in every sorrowful treat we could give him. Home made oatmeal cookies. Cinnamon coffee cake. Some of my BLT every morning. Sliced corned beef introduced one meal, and was his dessert, too. Sliced pears drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Swiss, cheddar, and asiago cheeses. I sat this afternoon, waiting for Terry, delivering dozens upon dozens of sunflower kernels to his gently appreciative tongue. He had eaten more crab cakes this week than many Americans eat in their lifetime. His blissful unawareness of reality surely made his good fortune all the more magical. This was more like it.

Joanna, his vet, came in with the stricken look that is guaranteed part of the veterinarian's life sometimes. It's odd to realize that she has lost more good dogs than we could imagine in a lifetime. She spoke with us for a moment, stroking Peabody, and administered an opiate injection. Peabody relaxed, and drifted off on a cloud, to the murmured sounds of his name and nicknames, to the assurance he had heard for twelve years, that he was a good fellow, was our Peab, a good boy, whispered into soft ears. After about ten minutes, Joanna returned, as Peabody was in his deepest drowse ever, the gentlest sack of rocks imaginable, in the hands of his human pals. Now she looked even sadder, quieter, tying off his paw amidst our gentle embrace, and slowly administered the oddly festive blue syringe. His breathing, already barely perceptible, slowed. Slowed. He sighed, and sighed like we'd heard him sigh before a hundred warm woodstoves. Gone.

Joanna and two techs wrapped him in a colorful cotton sheet, and the techs carried him out, past the startled exclamation of two little girls, who had seen him walk in with us. I pulled Joanna to me in a one armed hug, and gave her Peabody's last word: "Thank you". The viscous sadness of his approaching demise now vanished, we drove home in the dark. In the backyard, Kona and Sparky sniffed the familiar but still bundle. We slipped Peabody into the ground by a wild berry thicket. Sparky stood watch, but Kona looked resolutely away at the night sky the breeze the treetops - was it denial, or did only he really know where to find his lifelong littermate now? Sparky gave the brief, hoarse eulogy in her eleven year old bark, her bark, her staccato old retriever bark. Terry placed the last two shovels full and we went back towards the glow of our house, Sparky at a waddle, Kona at the trot.

It was, after all, suppertime.

LEWIS
by
Merrill Markoe

I finally sprung for one of those animal communicators because I was curious to hear what my dogs had to say. The woman who showed up told me that my dog Winky was "a healer." I said

"Really? That's weird because pretty much all he does all day long is walk slowly through my house, licking the floor."

That was how I finally figured it out: He's not looking for food, he's healing the floor.

My dog Lewis had what I used to refer to as a "greeting disorder". When you walked in the front door of my house, he didn't feel you'd been properly welcomed until you were lying face down, floating in a pool of his saliva. If he had been a musician, his hit song would have been called "I'll Never Stop Saying Hello".
And then after he greeted you to within an inch of your life, he was still so happy to see you that he would go in to the living room and have sex with the couch for the whole rest of the time you were visiting. Many people found it horrifying but I found it funny. It was just part of the weirdness of loving a member of another species. I used to think "What if he had been my husband Lewis?" Then when you came over, I would have to say

"Look, I just want to warn you, when you come in the door my husband Lewis is going to knock you down, and stand on you. Then he is going to go in to the living room and masterbate. But don't be alarmed. He doesn't mean any harm. It's just his way of saying "Welcome! Welcome to my home!!" 

NEVER GONE
By
Elayne Boosler
 

After I put my dog Petey to sleep, I became a total wreck. I could not do anything. I had been a daily swimmer in the backyard, with Petey running around the pool for the whole hour, dropping his ball in the deep end on every lap for me to throw. It became my rhythm; swim, throw, swim, throw. I didn't even know how to swim without the loving toss at the deep end of each lap. As I swam, he was everywhere, running with joy, coming in close to get totally splashed and soaked, biting at the water and having the time of his life. I always thought the privilege of watching that was being face to face with pure joy. I felt that I would never again step into my backyard. There was his favorite spot on the grass, in the shade under the umbrella, his cave down the hill where once a month we'd go and bring all his toys back up, his trees, and his ivy, where he jumped like a rabbit, chasing balls, birds, squirrels, and whatever else he imagined was on his turf. I couldn't imagine stepping into my backyard, and I didn't.

After a decade of swimming almost every day I was home, I just stopped. I didn't walk out back for four months. On the day I tentatively ventured outside, I approached the area as if it were strewn with landmines. Kind of like coming out of a bomb shelter after the strafing; is it safe? Are they gone? Will I find any of my world still standing? It was empty. Just empty. Despite new flowers blooming and new ivy peeking out and a eucalyptus tree full of the first singing birds of warmth; despite new buds and the tender young renewed green on the birch trees, it was empty. I called for him. Was he there, just beyond the palms, the eucalyptus, the bottlebrush? Did I catch a flash of white, a glimpse of a little fawn playfully running behind the loquat tree, with his big smiley jowls and his two front legs, clad in their white knee socks, straight out as he ran with the abandon that comes with pure happiness? I thought maybe I did, maybe I did see him.

The next day, I went outside to swim. Wiley, my black lab (and Petey's little brother), who was as much in mourning as I was, came out too. Wiley is as much a lab as Petey was a boxer; he's calm, easy, even. Wiley would join me across the pool every few laps or so, then get out, shake off, and lie down. Not today. Today, he barreled out, and began his chase (he has particular boundary issues with birds and things that rustle). I saw no birds, I heard no critters. What was he chasing? I looked at him from the water. He was dancing through the air! He was leaping, barking, running, as if a golden Frisbee were flying over his head, only there was nothing there that I could see. He would stop, stare into mid-air, bark, run over to Petey's favorite spot in the grass, and begin his chase again. Finally I asked him,

“Is it Petey, Wiley? Is it Petey?”

He barked and barked and twirled in the air, smiling and playing, chasing Petey exactly as he did when I could see them both. I knew he was there, and every time I asked Wiley, he answered yes with a barrage of joyous barks and leaps that filled me with tears and joy.

Wiley now has all of Petey's toys, two baskets full (you know boxers). This dog had a bigger dowry than the Empress of Japan. After swimming, I went into the jacuzzi at the end of the yard, and we did our old routine. Wiley got a toy, a yellow squeaky bat, and kept dropping it in the soapy bubbles. I'd throw it across the yard for him. This time, I accidentally threw it all the way across the top of the house. It skidded across the high point of the roof to the front of the house, nowhere near us, and I knew that toy was gone. I would need a ladder if I ever decided to get it down.

Daydreaming, not wanting the spell to break, I stayed in the hot water for about a half hour. My husband came home to find me there. I could see the relief on his face. He sat on the edge and said, “I'm so happy to see you out here. I've been so worried about you”. I said,

“Petey was here today”.

I could see the concern, the frustration return to his face.

“You don't believe me?”

He thought carefully and decided on the truth,

“No.”

With that, the little yellow bat came flying, impossibly, unbelievably, out of nowhere and landed smack on top of my husband's head.

Without missing a beat I said,

“Do you believe me now?”

And without missing a beat either he answered,

"Yes.”

Wiley barked.

Macrocephalus
by
Rick Bursky


After my dog was killed by a car
my parents gave me a baby sperm whale.
In a small wooden boat,
father on one oar, mother on the other,
we rowed past the swells.
The only sound was the oars' monotonous
work followed by the sigh
of the ocean pushed behind.

When it passed beneath
mother shouted "there, there"
and pointed at the large dark shape.
Father took photos with an old Instamatic.
On the way back to shore,
the only thing spoken
was by mother who asked
if I named it and I had.