Karen

In my case, at least, I didn't become a dogman on my own. I had a co-conspirator who collected dogs and cats with me, my wife, Karen who passed away from breast cancer in January, 2002. She remains alive, not only in my memory, but in a number of the stories that come out of the den. In order to tell you enough about Karen, I would need to write a book, which I may ultimately do. For now, though, allow me a slight diversion from dogs and cats to tell you just a little bit about her.



Karen and I met in college in 1979, when she was still Karen Frerichs. She was memorable in that she was the only blind student at the university. You never would have known she was blind from a distance, and, except for one eye that was sort of misdirected, you wouldn't have known up-close. She was a psychology major, beautiful with long, chestnut, hair, and dating my friend, Jeff. We were nothing but friends for the first year and a half we knew each other.

Then Karen and Jeff broke up. I read her The Catcher in the Rye one January. According to international law governing the behavior of hot blind girls, once a guy reads Catcher in the Rye to one, they are obligated to fall in love with him, or, at very least, sleep with him. Don't complain to me about this. I didn't  draft the law, I just benefited from it.

Once Karen and I were together, we were spiritually married. The real marriage would take place sometime later, in a dog park, of all places. As soon as we got our first apartment we got our first dog, who we named Holden, appropriately enough. Then Karen got her first Seeing Eye dog, Lyric, and it was a whole lot of dogs and cats ever after.

Karen went to the University of Illinois College of Law. Though I read her curriculum to her, and her dog, Lyric, got her around campus, the accomplishment of graduating, and then passing the bar exam in New Mexico, belong entirely to Karen. Law school's hard, and the bar exam is harder, for those who can see. A blind person could get through law school on charm and pity, but there's no way to influence the bar exam. It's a two-day test from hell, and having to take it with someone reading it out loud to you seems incomprehensible.

Karen was also frighteningly funny and easy going. She was a hard drinking and smoking gal, and she loved to swear.  Making prank phone calls was a kind of specialty. Once, I was working at a personal injury firm, where I met my good friend, Rick. We did intakes about injuries sustained by people who had seen our firm's commercials on T.V. It wasn't much of a firm, and we didn't get many calls.


One day, Rick got a call from a lady downstate. She spoke in a thick accent, that sounded like that of black people from southeast New Mexico and southwest Texas. She talked to Rick for over an hour about her injury, supposedly sustained at the pet store she worked at, when a crazed chimp (who wasn't even supposed to be there) bit her on the face. Now she was worried that the chimp's owner, the caller's boss, was going to maliciously sic the chimp on her, and Lord help her if that happened!


Of course the caller was Karen, and the three of us laughed for months over it. I just got an e-mail from Rick about the call that brought the whole thing back and had me laughing, hard, again. I have no doubt that Rick was laughing as he wrote it. I could give a million examples, but, suffice to say, she was a very funny woman.

She played piano, and sang in cocktail bars, and could do "Me and Bobby McGee" in a way that would do Janis Joplin proud.


She originally got a job as a prosecutor at the D.A.'s office, but had to leave over ethical issues. She learned that the D.A. encouraged, no insisted, that his lawyers be dishonest with the court on occasion. After she was ordered by her supervisor to tell a judge she has witnesses ready for trial, when in fact she did not, Karen chose to do the ethical thing and resign from the D.A.'s office. 

She became a criminal defense attorney, and she never lost a single case she took to trial against the state, and continued to find it a very rare occasion when the state prosecuted their cases in an honest and ethical manner. I went to work with her as her assistant, and she and I both believed that only with strong, ethical, defense attorneys, would prosecutor's office's operate within the bounds of the law and fundamental fairness.

She always used guide dogs and loved the independence and safety they afforded her. She loved all dogs, and if there was a stray dog or cat within a five mile radius, it would find her. We had a chicken coop in the back of our old Albuquerque house, and Karen insisted we fill it with chickens, and a rooster, named Buff.

Karen had a host of medical problems, the main one being, of course, her blindness, which had a mysterious cause, with an onset just prior to puberty, and no cure. She also had early, pre-cancerous, incidents, where, in every case, the pathologist would eventually shake his head, and say, "These cells aren't cancerous, but I'll be damned if I know what they are!" 

She had migraines, and she got banged around a lot. I'd yell at her, urging her not to move around like an idiot like she could see, but Karen figured the occasional egg-sized knot on her forehead was a small price to pay for normalcy.

I'd been with Karen just under 20 years when she died, after fighting breast cancer like she'd fought everything else throughout her life. She had to fight society to be allowed to be a blind girl in a public high school in the 1970s. Not only did she attend, she was a cheerleader.

She had to fight the Department of Rehabilitation to get any help through college and law school. She had to fight discrimination, first for being a woman, and then for being a blind woman. She had to fight for her clients, and fight for the truth. 

She would have just as soon not have fought so often and so hard, but she wasn't going to back away from any fight that was just and necessary, and she would fight to the death, if that was required. What really sucks is that she died fighting cancer, which isn't just and only questionably necessary. Karen always wanted to live, but if she had to die, I wish she could have died fighting an adversary, not a stupid, random, epidemic disease which, if malignant enough, can't be beat.



I never knew Karen not to love a dog or cat (or horse, chicken, etc.), and I never knew a dog or cat not to love her back. She was a true dogwoman. 

There's a lot more to say about Karen, of course, but the main thing for now is Erica, Levi and I miss her a lot, and you need to know who she was to fully appreciate some of my recounting of things that happened to us.

© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
ScottsdaleDogMan.com
ScottsdaleDogMan.blogspot.com

Levi's Issues, Part 2

Part 1


One bright November day, Levi and Esmé went out to swim and hunt. Levi came home alone, obviously traumatized. We looked for a week, but never found her body. Given where we lived, we knew she hadn't been hit by a car, or stolen. The coyotes of the area, though, could be dangerous. 

Together, Levi and Esmé were big enough to deter an out and out coyote ambush. But if a group of coyotes, in the guise of playing, attracted one of them far enough away from the other, that puppy would have been easy prey. I'm fairly certain that's what happened to Esmé, and I'm also pretty sure Levi saw it.


Levi fell into a serious depression. Arthur was heartbroken, and in order to cope with his loss, took to punishing Levi more frequently and randomly.

Ordinarily, I would have been more on top of the situation, protecting Levi from his bully of a brother, but Karen was getting increasingly sick during this time, and my attention was more on her than it was on caring for Levi. I have no doubt that's as it should have been, but the result was Levi remained in what could only be described as an abusive home environment. Arthur never hurt him to an extent where vet care was needed, but he did what he could to see that Levi's natural high spirits were repressed.

Levi recovered from losing his sister and began to be a happy puppy again. There was an old woman who lived across the way from us named Ethel, who Levi would visit every day. She'd give him cookies, and talk to him, and let him graze cherry tomatoes off her plants. Ethel was Levi's grandma, and she helped him get over the terrible loss of Esmé. Since Arthur wouldn't leave the yard, Levi could visit Ethel by himself, and have an opportunity to feel confident and good about himself.


Ethel died suddenly and unexpectedly in December. Levi went to her house day after day, but grandma never came out to play with him again. His depression returned, and despite Levi's obviously damaged state, Arthur never let up on him for a second. Nevertheless, Levi carried on. He loved Arthur, I suppose in much the same way battered wives love their abusive husbands. Erica was a great comfort to him, and he adored his mom and dad. 

Then, in January, his mom died.

Within a few months, Levi, Arthur, Erica and I began a kind of vagabond existence. We moved from the only house he ever knew into a small trailer with a friend in Taos. I worked as a waiter, and Levi and Arthur would spend the day together. When I would come home from work, Arthur was usually protecting his Frisbee, while Levi was running to the car to greet me. I can only imagine what their days alone together were like.


Then the pack moved from wild New Mexico to super civilized Scottsdale. Despite all the upheaval, Levi was becoming happy again. He'd become an adult, and there was much less corporal punishment delivered by Arthur, who Levi still seemed to worship. We started going to the dog park, where Arthur would, of course, obsess over his Frisbee, and where Levi finally had the opportunity to behave as a quasi-independent adult dog.


For about nine months, things at the park were fine. We spent so much time there that Levi began to see it as his territory. Once he determined that he was in charge of the park, he naturally assumed that keeping puppies in line was one of his responsibilities. I'm not saying Levi didn't enjoy the small cruelties he inflicted on the puppies (click for a short film of such abuse), and I'm not saying it was right. I'm just saying I understood.

Eventually, Levi started to be too bad to bring to the park anymore. This was hard on him, because he loved his large group of park friends, but I couldn't stop him from being a bully, so we stopped going. Arthur didn't care; he could fetishize the Frisbee in the back yard as well as anywhere else, but Levi's social circle was again reduced to insane Arthur. At least now he had Rocky and Chi-Chi as friends, as well as Erica, but his primary companion remained Arthur, who that good boy, Levi, still loved like crazy, despite everything. Then Arthur got bone cancer and died.

Soon after that, my father, who Levi had of course loved, had to be moved out of the house due to advanced Alzheimer's. Levi's grandpa died about a year later, though Levi had many opportunities to visit with him in the assisted living facility. When my dad couldn't remember what relationship he had with my mother or me, he never forgot how much he loved his dogs, Chi-Chi, Rocky, and now, Levi. Then grandpa was gone.


In the first year of life, Levi was abandoned by his original family, lost his sister, his "grandma," and then Karen, his mom. He was bullied by a much older, much bigger dog, who he nonetheless worshiped. He lived in four different homes. Additionally, during all this time, he had a dad who was going through hell, and wasn't in a good mental state himself. 

That Levi has survived, and turned out as well as he did, not only amazes me, but it inspires me, and helps me get through some of my own bad times. He's been my best friend, and my crutch, since Karen died, and I'm content to know that whatever road life leads us down, we'll travel it together.


So, there, Levi is not a perfect dog. I said it. Just be sure you don't say it. Nobody talks about my boy like that.




© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands

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Levi's Issues

As much as I love Levi, it pains me to admit that he's not a perfect dog. Like a lot of us, he has issues. Unhappily, the one issue that's ever come up with Levi that I consider serious is an occasional display of unwarranted aggression aimed at other dogs. Though he lives harmoniously with his pack, in a dog park situation he can be a  bully. Making the problem worse is Levi's ordinary choice of victim. Levi likes to beat up puppies.

He never injured a puppy, but he liked to roll them, and stand over them in a dominant manner, that demanded my immediate intervention. You'll note the use of the past tense, because I sadly can't take him to the park anymore, even though he plays entirely appropriately with almost every other dog. But puppies bring out the worst in Levi, as do German Shepherds, who he tends to react to with fear-based aggression. Being significantly smaller than a German Shepherd, this often didn't work out well for Levi.


Levi is an extremely sensitive dog, and in all other matters, he really is incredibly nice and well mannered. I haven't exactly trained him, but he'll usually obey any commands issued in a conversational tone by me, or anyone else he knows. The primary "trick" he knows is to "be a little gentleman." When he's getting overly excited or rowdy, all I have to say to him is, "Levi, you be a little gentleman now," and he settles down immediately, lying down and crossing his arms in a surprisingly dainty manner.

He's never shown an ounce of aggression towards people, and is unusually gentle with little kids and old people. He good naturedly takes abuse from Rocky, and occasionally Erica and Chi-Chi, treating the smaller members of the pack with patient indulgence.


Coming from the esteemed Abeytas breeding grounds, Levi should be a perfect dog. He has the genes for it, the nature. Like everyone else, though, Levi has been shaped by both his nature and his nurturing. Though the crying puppy at the park doesn't know or care, there is a reason Levi acts like he does. 

As with most delinquents, or psychopaths, for that matter, the problems stem from an extremely difficult childhood. That might sound like a cop-out, but when you hear Levi's story, you'll not only understand why he does the bad things he sometimes does, but you'll marvel at how he turned out to be such an overall splendid dog despite his early adversity.


Karen and I got Levi when he was about three months old. He had been weaned from his mother for a couple of weeks, and in late June of 2001, he and his sister, Esmé, had been taken by my friend Rick's irresponsible daughter and her boyfriend. On July 4, Rick asked me if I would help him clear out the trailer his daughter had abandoned. When we got there, besides a trashed trailer, we found Levi and Esmé curled up, together, scared, hungry, and ditched.


Karen seemed to be recovering from her cancer, and the only animals we had were Arthur, her German Shepherd Seeing Eye dog, and Erica, the cat. It didn't hurt that Levi and Esmé were the two cutest puppies you ever saw, but I had no real choice. They were coming home with me and joining the pack.


Karen was delighted. Levi and his sister were not only adorable, they were smarter, more sensitive and more responsive than any dogs I've ever known before. There was never a housebreaking issue, or, indeed, any issues beyond the most casual of puppy shenanigans. Erica loved them instantly, and they would play with her with the kind of unfettered joy that only puppies really know, and that maybe only cats can really appreciate.

And then there was Arthur.


Arthur was absolutely enchanted by the puppies. He put aside his Frisbee obsession enough to be instrumental in raising them, and in teaching them how to act right. The thing was, though, Arthur was in no way temperamentally qualified for the job of raising puppies. In fact, as I've written earlier, Arthur was half-crazed by this time, after having been involuntarily retired due to Karen's illness.


Initially, Arthur treated the puppies well. He clearly loved them, and just wanted to teach them right from wrong. Unfortunately, "right" and "wrong" were rather fluid concepts in Arthur's head. What might be fine on Monday would merit a harsh correction on Tuesday. Though there was little consistency to his rules, Arthur vigorously enforced them anyway. This led to Levi getting beat up, a lot, for doing things he had no way of knowing Arthur considered wrong.


By mid-August, Arthur was head-over-heels in love with Esmé. She was sweet, and coquettish, and was the first dog Arthur had ever truly loved. Despite his feelings for her, though, Arthur knew he had a duty as her teacher. When she misbehaved, when she broke one of his ever changing rules, punishment still had to be meted out. But Arthur could no longer bring himself to discipline Esmé. So whenever Esmé did something Arthur considered wrong, he would promptly punish poor Levi.

Esmé never acted with intent to get Levi in trouble. They were almost like conjoined twins, connected at the shoulder, and Esmé would no more have done anything to hurt Levi than she would have to hurt herself. They slept wrapped up in each other, and when they were awake they were almost always touching each other. 

We lived in the country, and Levi and Esmé would go out every day to swim in the arroyos and hunt rabbits. Arthur never joined them, because he was too busy guarding and worrying about his Frisbee. I'm not sure how often the hunt was a success, but a number of times, Levi would come home with a juicy rabbit leg, and deliver his tribute to King Arthur. Arthur would take it, happily, though not gratefully, and later that night would punish Levi for some imaginary infraction that Esmé committed anyway.

Imagine your crazy Uncle Arthur beating you up every time your sister did something he didn't like. This injustice began to make Levi, this perfect, joyful, puppy, a little jumpy and submissive. Meanwhile, Esmé, his shadow, enjoyed total immunity. Even Levi knew this wasn't fair. 


He was about to learn how unfair life really could be to a little yellow puppy...


Tomorrow: The Conclusion of Levi's Issues
(I promise to only infrequently write two-part stories. I don't like them, and I don't intend to regularly have cliffhangers, but this particular story was just too important and too involved)




© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands

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Halloween Extravaganza and Special Edition Dog News!!!

Happy Halloween from the Den. Levi, Rocky, Erica and even little Chi-Chi all join me in wishing our readers a safe and happy day (and night).

Because my readers are very busy people doing important things, I've received very few pictures of dogs in costumes. Cindy L. of Manteno, IL, was kind enough to share pictures of her three kids, dressed up for a costume parade. That's Snoopy, at the top of the page. Not only does he genuinely look like a convict, but his expression seems to clearly denote that he's guilty of whatever he was charged with. Chances are he was mostly unhappy to be in a costume, but as was determined a few days ago, sometimes, very infrequently, but sometimes, it's all about us, and if dressing dogs up like truckers or ladybugs (Cindy L's Lucy, the trucker, and Sally, the ladybug. Or is she a dinosaur? An elk? Whatever, you just keep going, Cindy L. of Manteno!) tickles your fancy, than you ought to go right ahead and do it. Just not everyday or anything.

The kitty and dog, above, enchanted Christine M. of the Bay area, but, alas, they are not her creations. The Dogman feels, however, that if Christine just tried, she alone could costume half the dogs and cats in San Francisco! That's the Dogman challenge, accept it, if you dare!

Andrea K. of Southern California, sent me some delightful pictures of dogs with pumpkins carved to look like them. These are some great shots, and if anyone knows to whom credit should be attributed, I would love to do so.

And now, this weeks Dog news:

First, what we all want. More excellent pictures of pets in costumes! This guy has quite a page!

Here's a shocker. Pets are sometimes scared by Halloween. I once put a rubber monster mask on at K-Mart, and Karen's Seeing Eye Dog, Lyric, almost jumped out of her skin!

Web MD now gives pet advice. The Dogman prefers to avoid doctors and vets as much as possible, and here's a resource that can help us do that. Of course, but the Dogman and Levi are among the millions of uninsured Americans, but we remain grateful that we can at least get DYI medical care on the Internet. What a country!

Here's a story about how a service dog helps keep a kid with severe peanut allergies from dying! (The dog to the left is meant to be dressed as a peanut. Thematic continuity is all important in the Den.)

Keeping children with peanut allergies alive not enough for you? Check out this article about how dogs and cats help in the fight against breast cancer. And not just by being emotional support to patients, but by finding the damn stuff! Incredible.

Everyone knows about Snuggies, the infernal blanket with sleeves that's all over TV and Walgreen's and single ladies' shoulders. Somehow the creators of this monstrosity felt they hadn't taken enough money from the American people, so now, as many of you have already seen, they have Snuggies for dogs. Unlike a Halloween costume, this isn't cute. It's just sad.

OK, it's a little cute, but I still disapprove.

Using "America's Funniest Home Videos" as the barometer, it has been scientifically determined that dogs are funnier than cats! The Dogman feels that might be the truth, but he's never known a dog top enjoy subtle verbal humor. Dogs think it's funny when someone falls. Cats, on the other hand, virtually all enjoy Oscar Wilde, Tom Stoppard, and, indeed, any cerebral humor involving word play. But not puns. They'll scratch you up if you try a pun.

Here's a hard working dog who got too into his job. I hope worker's comp is available to this drug sniffing dog who OD'd on Meth. That can't be a pretty scene. I sure hope he's going to be alright. It's a shame he wasn't just sniffing for pot, or he'd be fine!

Finally, for those of us whose pets are getting older, the inevitable might be much farther off than we think. Read here about the world's oldest living dog!

Tomorrow, the Dogman will post his first piece of fiction, a short-short story called "The Dog and el Día de los Inocentes. I think it's some of my best work, and I hope you'll read it.

Let Us Sit Upon the Ground and Tell Sad Stories of the Death of Kings

Arthur was Karen’s third, and final, Seeing Eye dog, coming to us in early 1999. He was a German shepherd and was coming in to replace Vinnie, the black lab, who was retiring due to advancing age and chronic silliness.

If Vinnie was more concerned with comfort and culinary misdeeds than his job, Arthur was, to put it mildly, a reminder of what the other end of the guide dog spectrum was like.

Like Karen’s first dog, Lyric, Arthur was a long-haired shepherd. But while Lyric had been the runt of her litter, Arthur apparently came out of the birth canal an alpha dog, and never looked back.

When Karen was training with Arthur at the Seeing Eye, the reports I got were very different than those I’d received about Lyric and Vinnie during their training periods. Lyric hated Karen, Vinnie loved everyone, and Arthur, well, Arthur was essentially perfect. He accepted Karen instantly as his new mistress, and from the first day of training rarely, if ever, made even the slightest mistake.

There were a few problems unrelated to their work.

Arthur didn’t seem to like the other dogs at the school, and this could be seen in his attitude. He would become visibly impatient when he and Karen had to wait for the rest of the class to catch up with them, as if he were thinking, “What is the matter with those guys? I trained with them. They know how to do it. Why won’t they work right?”

At the Seeing Eye the students and trainers all eat at round tables for five or six, to simulate a restaurant, and the students keep their dogs under the table, out of sight. On several occasions, Arthur started a fight with another guide dog under the table, for reasons unknown to Karen, but seemingly quite clear to Arthur. Since he was the biggest dog in the class, as well as the smartest, the fights were very quick, ending with the other dog, unhurt, but as submissive as a puppy. Naturally this behavior was a little worrisome to Karen, and to the Seeing Eye, but in reality, situations where five large dogs are crammed under one small table are pretty rare, and the school felt Karen was a strong enough guide dog user to control any potential problems he might exhibit.

She was, generally, although when she and Arthur first came into our house, where Vinnie and four other dogs already lived, he immediately set the ground rules according to Arthur. Vinnie was so delighted to see Mom after her three week absence that he ran to her to throw himself into her arms and kiss her. Arthur couldn’t have mistaken Vinnie’s approach for aggression, but he nonetheless brought the ten year old lab down in a flash of fur and teeth. We were horrified and tended to Vinnie, who was completely unhurt but terrified and baffled. What had happened? Arthur watched our solicitousness towards Vinnie without a flicker of regret. He nicely met the other dogs and cats, and, a couple hours later, he approached Vinnie and did what he could to make up. It was as if he was saying, “Hey, nothing personal, man, it’s just that there’s a new alpha in town!” Vinnie, who couldn’t hold a grudge, accepted the apology, and his new role in the pack, with cheerful equanimity.

To watch Arthur and Karen work was to see a miracle. There’s always something magical about watching a good human-guide dog team, but Arthur was like nothing I’d ever seen before. He was fast, and precise. None of her dogs would have let her stumble over a curb; Arthur wouldn’t let Karen hit a crack in the sidewalk. He guided her around overhanging branches without breaking stride. When they crossed the street, Arthur made eye contact with the idling cars at the intersection, both, I suspect, to make sure the drivers saw them, and also to communicate to the drivers exactly what would happen to them if they broke their idle and attempted to move before he and Karen had crossed.

At home, Arthur became a pretty nice guy. No more fight or displays of dominance were necessary. He was King, and it was good to be King. He enjoyed playing with balls or Frisbees, and was a pretty normal, if intense, kind of dog, never displaying the kind of neurosis that tortured Lyric through her life. He was a good dog, a world-class Seeing Eye dog, leader of a pack of six, and at peace with the world.

Within nine months of Arthur arriving, Karen was diagnosed with breast cancer. The first component of her treatment was a modified radical mastectomy of her left breast. Because you work a Seeing Eye dog with your left arm, the surgery crippled Karen from being able to work Arthur. Well before she was healed from that she began chemotherapy, and between the chemo sickness and the surgical pain, she found that she could no longer work a dog. On days she felt well enough to try, she’d put Arthur’s harness on him, and he’d stand there, refusing to move. He could sense her lack of confidence and comfort, and if his teammate couldn’t work, well, then, neither could he. The Seeing Eye sent a trainer out to work with them, but, in Karen’s condition, nothing could be done. If and when she recovered, retraining work would begin.

Around this time, Arthur’s life began to focus on his daily trips to the park and his Frisbee game. He became as dedicated a Frisbee dog as he’d been a Seeing Eye dog. He had no interest in other dogs at the park, unless he thought they might want to steal his Frisbee, and then he’d chase them off and bark at them until he was secure his treasure was indeed his.

The Frisbee became Arthur’s life. He slept with it, carried it around, offered it to you, or teased you with it, on a constant basis. He had unbounded enthusiasm for the Frisbee. Playing catch itself became secondary. Holding the Frisbee, guarding the Frisbee, I suppose, in a sense, working for the Frisbee, became Arthur’s life.

In January, 2002, Karen and I were living in New Mexico with Arthur, Levi, who was just a puppy, and Erica. Karen’s pain from the mastectomy never abated, and she never worked Arthur again. She’d take him when she went out, but she’d hold my arm and Arthur had no decisions to make. His work as a guide dog had come to an end, and he was beginning a second career of his own choosing, that of a deranged, obsessed, Keeper of the Frisbee.

On the morning of January 18, 2002, I was in the living room with Levi, while Karen was in bed, sleeping, with Erica. Arthur was outside somewhere with the Frisbee. At sometime around 10:00 AM, Erica came running out of the bedroom terrified, as if she’d seen a ghost. Maybe she had. Karen had died.
I went into the bedroom with Levi to check on her. She wasn’t breathing and had no pulse, but she wasn’t cold. Levi sniffed her, startled. He jumped on the bed and examined her face, carefully, without licking her. He didn’t howl, and I didn’t see tears, but Levi was crying, his puppy-heart broken.

I called Arthur into the house. He was carrying his Frisbee, and wanted me to please covet it. I took him into the bedroom, where his mistress had just died. He looked at her, sniffed her, and then turned to me. At this terrible moment there was only one thing on his mind. He wanted to go outside and play with his Frisbee.

When the paramedics came to take Karen’s body away, Levi and Erica were hiding. Arthur was making friends, seeing if one of these nice men wanted to play with his flying disc, please. Despite my grief, I was acutely embarrassed that my wife’s Seeing Eye dog was acting so indifferently to her death in front of strangers.

Erica, Levi and I all took a while to process Karen’s death. We clung closer to each other. Levi didn’t eat for days. Erica would never come in the bedroom again. Arthur, happily, had his Frisbee, and that was all he needed.

Arthur was a magnificent dog, handsome, strong, and brilliant. He’d been born to be a Seeing Eye dog, and his entire life was a build-up to that important job. Then, less than a year after he began working, he was laid off, permanently. His incredible energy and concentration were no longer focused, and his deterioration was fast and heartbreaking. He had been born a King, with his future assured, living in the world of humans, leading his mistress, and being a universally beloved and admired dog. Now he was a half-crazed German shepherd with but a single thought in his expansive brain: Look at my Frisbee! It wasn’t just Karen who was dead. The King was dead, too.

Arthur lived five more years faithfully serving his Frisbee. At age eight, he developed metastatic bone cancer. Though he was limping, we played a last game of catch, and I made him a steak. Then, full, tired from our game, and long deposed from his throne, we drove to the vet, with the Frisbee. He lay down, and I lay down next to him, my arms around his chest. When I told him how much I loved him, he looked up from his Frisbee and into my eyes. He gave me a single sweet kiss on my lips. I told the vet we were ready, and the needle slid in. Arthur’s eyes opened wide for a second, he inhaled, and then he put his great head down and went off, to find Karen waiting for him at Rainbow Bridge. I'm sure that when they met in heaven, she had the grace to throw his Frisbee for him, first thing.

© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
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Pictures of Arthur not available. Pictures provided for illustrative purposes only.