Webbing and Nails

Saturday night was the new moon, and, as I often do, I spent much of the late evening outside on the patio, enjoying the refreshing breeze of the desert night. I was smoking at the small table while Erica ingested catnip in the rectangular, carpeted, box that served as the crown to her cat tower. Levi lay next to me on the tile, determinedly cleaning his front paws.

Cats use catnip in a few different ways. Some sniff it and have a reaction reminiscent of Blue Boy on L.S.D. from a particularly memorable episode of Dragnet.

They go wild and move at enormous speed in unpredictable directions. Others, like Erica, eat the dried leaves and enjoy a response more akin to a human on narcotics. If Erica had been a human girl, it would have been as if she had taken three or four Vicoden, 10s, the big ones.

The lack of a moon meant that there wasn’t enough light for me to see her well, but I knew that her eyes were half-closed and that her racing mind was momentarily governed by a narcotic-like calm. Because of the moonless night, I couldn’t see her or Levi’s faces, but there was no doubt that it was her voice calling lazily from the dark tower.

“You’ve been cleaning your feet for half an hour, Levi. I think they’re clean already. Now you use them to wash your face, like this.” Here I could hazily see her demonstrate the face cleaning method she had perfected.

Levi’s tags clinked softly as he looked up at her.

“My paws are clean. My webbings hurt, so I’m licking them,” Levi said in a quiet voice.

“Webbings?” I said, not having a clue as to what he meant.

“You do not have webbings,” Erica said, a touch contemptuously. “You’re a desert dog, and you have feet. You’re not a duck.”

“You’re a duck,” Levi shot back, seemingly satisfied that he’d gotten the last word in.

I heard Erica jump from her tower. For a second her eyes reflected back at me, and I saw she’d come over to Levi’s feet to have a look for herself. She examined them, sniffed them, and gave a tentative lick somewhere on his foot.

“See, I told you! What do you call this?” Levi demanded.

Suddenly Erica leapt on the table in front of me.

"It’s not webbing,” Erica said, more to me than to Levi. “Vinnie was a Labrador, he had webbing. A Newfoundland has webbing, but you’re a shepherd and shepherd’s do not have…”

“I’m just mainly shepherd,” Levi protested. “I’m not inbred like stupid purebreds. I am a finely blended American dog, and I bear the genetic diversity of the continent. In a sense, I represent the melting pot that makes this country great. I might look like a shepherd, but these feet reflect my great water dog heritage.”

“If you’re such a water dog, why don’t I ever see you swim,” Erica asked, cattily, swishing her tail toward the pool.

“In the pond of death?” Levi asked incredulously. “No one goes in the pond of death and comes out alive.”

I was a little irritated now. “Everyone who goes into the pond of death...the pool, I mean, comes out alive. You see Grandma go in there every day. I’ve tried to get you to swim in it.”

“The time you threw me in, you mean?”

“I’d hoped that would make you understand that it’s a place for swimming. I’m sorry that I…”

“That you tried to drown me? I should hope so.” Levi returned to licking his feet.

The pool incident was the main sore spot between Levi and me. It had happened more than six years ago, and since then Levi made sure to give the pool a wide berth, and me, too, if I was anywhere near that pond of death.

Levi continued. “Anyway, cat…”

Erica hissed. “The name’s Erica.”

“Please call her Erica,” I implored. “You know how she gets when you call her cat like that.”

“Anyway, Erica,” he pronounced her name carefully, enunciating each syllable, “Water dogs swim in lakes and rivers and fjords! Not stupid pools!”

“Where did you learn the word fjord?” I asked.

“That movie, My Life as a Dog. Not so much about dogs, but there were fjords, remember?” He continued licking his feet.

“Alright,” I said, getting up and moving to Levi. “Let’s see this webbing.”

He allowed me to examine his foot with no complaint, confident that when I saw his sore webbing, I would put Erica in her place.

“That’s not any sort of webbing,” I told Levi, as Erica, back in her tower, chuckled quietly.

“But it hurts between my toes and tastes all irony,” Levi protested.

“I have skin between my fingers, too, but it's not webbing. Your nails are insanely long. When you have nails like that and run around like you do, it pulls your toes apart, and makes the skin sore. "”

“The web.”

“No, Levi. The skin. And if you’d let me, or the groomer, or the vet, even, just clip your nails, your feet would feel better and not hurt as often,” I explained.

“And if you cut my head off, my nose would never itch,” Levi pronounced.

“It’s not the same thing at all,” I protested. “Nails don’t have nerve endings so they don’t hurt when they’re cut, and they grow back. Look at yours, Levi. They’re starting to curl under. They have to be bothering you.”

“Not as much, or as deeply, as having my bodily integrity invaded with clippers. Anyway, I think I have made it abundantly clear that I will hurt anyone who touches my feet with intent to mutilate. I will bite them and kill them, and they will be sorry they messed with this webbed footed, finely blended, American dog!”

“Alright,” I said, “Forget it. I’m going in.” I didn’t have the heart to remind him of the simple but effective procedure used to clip his nails. A soft muzzle would be strapped on Levi’s face, and he would immediately lose all his will to resist. Not a believer in futile causes, Levi would submit, because without the use of his mouth he was as harmless as a prizefighter with his hands tied behind his back.

As I was walking into the house, I could hear Erica saying, “It isn’t webbing, Levi.” I heard her jump off the tower and presumed she had approached her dog brother. “But I have to say, I do admire your stance on the nail clipping thing. If anyone ever tried to clip my nails, I would certainly scratch and bite and kill them, too!”

“You can't kill anyone, Erica. You're too small, because you are a cat. No offense, I mean, it’s just true. You’re a cat.” Levi sounded like he genuinely felt bad for Erica.

“Stupid dog,” Erica said, just before running off into the night, “I can’t kill them on the spot. But the infection will get them sooner than later. Read up on it. I have a filthy mouth.”

And though I’ve never heard her use profanity, and I share water with her from the same glass daily, I knew she spoke the truth.


For further discussion between Erica and Levi, please see Dreams of Dogs and Cats.

© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
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Levi in Possum Alley

The first omen that I should leave Chicago literally dropped from the sky on New Years Day, 2005. It had snowed heavily the night before, and I was hung over, but nevertheless my ward, and best friend, Levi, a seventy-pound, golden-haired, shepherd hybrid, wanted to rise early to greet the New Year with a brisk walk. Always a little gentleman, Levi is characterized by a marked persistence, so by 7:30 AM on that first day of the year, I was in my boots and coat, and Levi and I were trudging through the snow packed streets of Rogers Park. The neighborhood was uncharacteristically peaceful, its denizens sleeping off the final celebration of 2004, and the thick, white, blanket which nature had lain the night before muffled even the ambient sounds.

Completing our walk, Levi and I turned and walked east down the alley leading to my building. Levi, who had heretofore lived his entire life in the wilds of the American Southwest, was delighting in the sensations afforded him by the thick, virgin, snow, which was as yet unsullied by the inevitable grime the city would soon cause to settle on its otherworldly whiteness. He bounded, porpoise-like, with each step. He opened his mouth and played bulldozer, joyously scooping in great mouthfuls of this strange new form of fluffy water. My head throbbed from the previous night's exertions, yet I couldn't help but smile indulgently at my boy, wishing that I were able to match his enthusiasm, and get down on my hands and knees to innocently taste and feel that which nature had so amply provided us.

My reverie was interrupted by something I initially saw only fleetingly, in my periphery. The accompanying sound was more distinct, a dull thud, as if perhaps someone had thrown a Hefty bag full of meat off their third floor balcony.

I looked in front of me and took several seconds to process what I saw. It was a large possum, lying on its side, glaring malevolently at us with its gleaming, beady, eyes, breathing heavily through its toothy mouth. Levi, whom I would have expected to go into catch-and-kill mode, stopped and merely stared curiously at the strange creature, which had dropped from the sky in front of us.

There aren't many things uglier than a possum, under any circumstances. I think there may be nothing uglier than a possum in the crystal light of a winter morning, on a bed of virgin snow in an empty city alley. It looked like the possum weighed about forty pounds and was probably two and a half feet long, inclusive of its naked, scaly, tail. The possum righted itself painfully, making heaving, hissing, sounds as it moved. Levi and I were about five feet away, standing stone still, looking at the thing. It started towards us, moving about six inches, and then, nonchalantly, turned and waddled away, retreating into the stairwell of the closest building.

I looked upward, trying to determine from whence the possum came. There was a garage roof nearby, but the snow on it was undisturbed. There were some trees as well, but none of them had branches protruding out far enough to have served as a launching point for the possum's descent. In the end it was a mystery. It was a sign from the universe, 2005 beginning with possums dropping from the clear blue sky. I consulted my friends, but none of them could tell me what this incident meant. Whatever its portent, it seems that when a year begins with a near miss from a plummeting marsupial, attention must be paid.

2005 continued for several months with no clear signs from above. Whenever Levi and I walked by the spot of the sighting, a place I came to refer to as "Possum Alley," my pulse and pace quickened. I never saw the possum again. Then, in late May, at about 2:00 in the morning, we passed the spot, and Levi suddenly lunged to the left, lengthening his retractable leash, and diving between two dumpsters. I assumed he was going after some chicken bones or other quasi-edible treat. I pulled him back sharply, and in the alley's dim light saw that he had caught something, an animal, and was holding it by its mid-section. I thought initially it might have been the possum, but it was too small for that. For a brief second I feared he had snared a cat, but, after dropping the creature, I saw, to my horror, that Levi had grabbed hold of an enormous, City of Chicago, rat.

The rat was stunned by its narrow escape from the jaws of death, and, like its predecessor, the possum, it stopped to look at me, lurched forward a few steps, and then turned and limped, slowly, into the same stairwell to which the possum had retreated. An urban gentleman, out enjoying his nightly crack cocaine and malt liquor in Possum Alley, appeared from the darkness, shaking his head. "Dat dog fast," he said, admiringly. "Yes, yes he is," I replied, shaken, as Levi and I returned to our studio apartment.

As humans, and particularly as writers, we struggle to impose meaning on the events of our lives. I don't know exactly what the two encounters I had in Possum Alley might mean. Perhaps the events were random, meaningless. After months of consideration, I've come to believe that the falling possum was totemistic, a visit from my spirit animal. As for the giant rat, well, that was just a horror. These two incidents, along with a number of other factors, conspired to make me decide to leave Chicago and return to the American Southwest, from whence we came.

© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands

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Meet Lyric

Karen had been blind since she was nine, but she didn’t get her first guide dog until after she graduated from college. Karen and I went to Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, IL. It was a small, contained, campus without streets with traffic, and Karen could navigate it by herself, without even a cane, let alone a dog.

After graduation, though, as we were preparing to enter what we thought was the real world, Karen decided to get a guide dog. It was a fairly easy decision. Like me, Karen adored dogs, and if being blind meant she got to have a dog with her at all times, then maybe it was worth it after all.

Karen applied to and was accepted by The Seeing Eye in Morristown, NJ. Getting and training with a Seeing Eye dog is a three or four week process, depending on whether it’s your first or subsequent dog. Karen flew to New Jersey for her month long stay, trembling with anticipation at meeting her first Seeing Eye dog, her new eyes, the dog that would give her independence, mobility and increased dignity.

The first day at the Seeing Eye is an opportunity for the instructors to get to know the students, how fast they walk, and, most importantly, what their personalities are like. The most important aspects of putting together a working team of blind person and guide dog is compatibility. The relationship is perhaps more intimate than a marriage. As a working team, a guide dog and blind person are essentially one creature.

On the second day, Karen was told about her dog. Her dog was going to be a female German shepherd named Lyric. Karen was advised that Lyric was an especially sensitive dog who was extremely bonded to her trainer. Lyric had been through one class already, but the person training with her couldn’t handle Lyric’s high strung nature, and retrained with another dog. She was a small shepherd, long haired, and magically beautiful. Karen called me that night to tell me about this great dog she’d be meeting the next morning, and, in my imagination, at least, I began to know the dog who would be one of the most special beings I would ultimately ever meet.

I envied Karen, not so much for being blind and being able to get a guide dog, but because she was getting to meet Lyric a month before I would pick the two of them up from the airport. I might have been more excited than Karen.

On the third day, Karen was presented with Lyric. At the Seeing Eye, once you are given your dog, you’re with it from then on, until you leave. Not only was this dog going to be her new eyes, but Karen was certain she would be her new best friend.

That night, Karen called me, in tears. Lyric hated her!

If Karen wasn’t holding her leash, or didn’t have it attached to something, Lyric would ditch her at the earliest possible opportunity. Over the next weeks, Karen told me about how she was often wandering the halls of the Seeing Eye dorm in the middle of the night, frantically calling for her lost dog. Eventually, one of the instructors would find Lyric for her, which is fortunate because there was no way Lyric was going to willingly return to this strange lady on her own.

Karen and Lyric’s trainer was named Mr. Frank, and Lyric worshiped him. She could see him during training, which she lived for, but if she was going to participate in the training she was going to have to work with that horrible stranger, Karen. Despite the obvious unpleasantness of this prospect for Lyric, she went ahead and grudgingly trained with Karen, so she could at least be near the man she loved.

Karen called me crying almost every day, and Karen wasn’t a woman who cried often. The reports kept coming in. Lyric hates me. Lyric refuses to eat. Lyric cringes and tries to escape when I touch her. Lyric eloped again in the night. The only thing that was going well was the actual training, but given her obvious disdain for Karen, she assumed Lyric was only going along with it so that one day she would have the opportunity to guide Karen in front of a bus, to get the pleasure of watching her die in a pool of her own blood. After, she probably wouldn’t have been adverse to licking just a little of the blood off the street to give her the necessary sustenance to have the strength to find her way back to the wonderful Mr. Frank.

Karen and Lyric finished their third week of training. Their work together was exemplary, but it was obvious to everyone that Lyric couldn’t stand Karen. She wouldn’t look at her and was on a major hunger strike. Special food was brought to her, like carefully prepared and seasoned chicken breasts, and Lyric would daintily nibble for a moment, and then walk away leaving the majority untouched. She was losing weight and seemed to be the only one at the Seeing Eye more miserable than Karen.

In their final week, the intensive training ended, those who had Seeing Eye dogs in the past went home, and the newbies were left to continue getting practical instruction in grooming, feeding and general care and maintenance of their dog. Lyric had been permitting Karen to brush her gorgeous coat, but still would not allow herself to enjoy it.

Though still bad, the relationship had improved slightly by the last week. Lyric no longer wanted to bolt whenever she was in Karen’s presence, but things were still far from ideal.

There was some concern about graduating Karen and Lyric and releasing them into the world. They’d been at the top of the class in terms of work, but the relationship seemed so bad the Seeing Eye was unsure if they’d be able to work as a team. Since this was Lyric’s second class, this probably would have meant that if things didn’t work with Karen, she’d be dropped from the program and become someone’s pet, and not a guide dog.

They decided to send Karen and Lyric home, but with considerable concern about how things would go, and with an awareness that they might be returning soon, to place Lyric in a private home and match Karen with a dog who could stand her. I’d been hearing all about this in Illinois, and didn’t know what to expect when the two of them walked off the plane. Before she left for the airport, I talked to Karen, who was glumly resigned to working with a dog who just plain didn’t like her.

They were driven to the airport in New Jersey, checked in, and dropped off. For the first time, ever, Karen and Lyric were away from the Seeing Eye campus and alone together. There was no more Mr. Frank and no dozen blind students with new dogs who loved their masters. There was just beautiful, long-haired, high strung, Lyric, and her mom, beautiful, long-haired and high strung Karen.

My buddy Gary and I drove to Chicago to pick them up at the airport, nervous after all the negative field reports I’d received. I expected Karen to walk off the plane with a pissed off shepherd who was miserably going on with the life which fate had decreed for her. Still, Karen and I had talked about all this on the phone, and we were going to work with her, play with her, love her, until by sheer force of will, she eventually returned our feelings, or died.

My heart stopped for a few beats when Karen and Lyric walked off the plane. They moved together like a couple doing the tango, woman and dog separate but connected, two individual beings with a single purpose. Karen moved with a confidence which I had seen before but which had never been reasonably merited, and at her side was the most beautiful dog I had ever seen. I hugged and kissed Karen, and before I could even turn to meet Lyric, I felt the sharp nails of one of her paws on my shoulder. The other was on Karen’s shoulder. She was taking part in the hug and the kiss, joining the family.

I met Lyric properly, and to Karen’s slight chagrin she adored me instantly. We took the two and a half hour drive back to Bloomington, and Karen told me how the minute they’d been left alone at the airport, everything instantly changed between the two of them. In that single moment, Karen stopped being “that lady” to Lyric, and became Mom. She not only allowed, but solicited, petting. She wagged her tail. And though Karen of course couldn’t see, she could feel that Lyric never took her eyes off her.

Karen and Lyric were inseparable ever after. Despite her working dog status, Lyric wasn’t a totally one-person dog. She loved her dad almost as much as she did her mom, and she was entranced by Holden, our beagle mix/cur, who we had obtained in advance of Lyric’s arrival so she’d have a playmate waiting for her.

Lyric was one of the greatest dogs I’ve ever known, as smart and sensitive as any person I’ve ever met. She got Karen through law school, and the early jobs of her career. She was friendly to others, but she was mom’s dog, and to a lesser extent, mine. Lyric had found her real family, and suddenly this nervous, standoffish, dog knew what happiness was.

There had been a battle of wills between Karen and Lyric in Morristown, and ultimately patience, persistence, and determined love won out over fear of the new and strange, and attachment to the old ways.

Maybe there’s a general lesson we can take from this, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out what that might be.

(c) 2009, Rich Sands, All Rights Reserved
Your Dog’s Best Friend
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Labs, Monkeys, Pirates and the Essence of Fear

My late wife, Karen, was blind, and used guide dogs to permit her full mobility. Karen’s first Seeing Eye dog was an incredible female German Shepherd named Lyric. She was a long-haired shepherd, gorgeous, and full of dignity. A tad oversensitive (the chaos of a crowded K-Mart would sometimes make her vomit, for instance), she nevertheless remains one of my favorite dogs ever. (OK, that’s a stupid thing to say, I see as I write this. They’re pretty much all one of my favorite dogs ever. Except Levi, of course. He’s my favorite dog ever!). Karen got Lyric right after college graduation, and Lyric got her through law school and the beginning of her career.

When Karen first got hired by the DA’s office, Lyric asked to retire. Yes, she did. She’d obviously been slowing down, and her hips were giving her problems, and one day when Karen was heading out to work, instead of going to the door to get the harness on, Lyric resolutely stayed on the couch. When Karen went up to her, Lyric did that dog thing, where they rub their muzzle with both paws and then sort of wave with one. Lyric was done. She’d retired herself.

Luckily, Karen had anticipated this possibility, and was already set to get her next Seeing Eye dog (by the way, “Seeing Eye” is a registered trademark of The Seeing Eye, Inc., the world’s first guide dog school, located in Morristown, NJ. Guiding Eyes for the Blind is the other major guide dog school in America, in California. There used to be a fierce, and to my mind, comical hatred between the organizations, which I hear is fading. The generic term is “guide dog” but that’s why I always capitalize “Seeing Eye.” OK, back to the narrative.)

Lyric was an overly sensitive, somewhat neurotic, dog, who we often said was a college girl in her previous life, probably a post-grad poetry major. The dog Karen came home with from her second stay at The Seeing Eye was a whole other kettle of fish.

Vinnie was a smallish black lab, and though he was a fine working dog, his personality was just what you’d expect from a lab. He was very silly, goofy, impulsive, hungry, and friendly to anyone. He could guide Karen brilliantly, but he didn’t provide the same level of security Karen had come to appreciate from having a German shepherd at her side. Not only did Vinnie look friendly, but we soon realized that he offered only faux protection for Karen, because, as we often said, he’d be licking the sweat off the butt of the rapist as Karen was violated. Happily, it never came to that. And, as I said, he was a good worker, not as brilliant as Lyric or Arthur, Karen’s third dog, but more than adequate.

Vinnie was the darling of the court system, loving and loved by all. If the court wasn’t comfortable for him, something was done. For instance, once this wheelchair bound DA brought a monkey into court, allegedly some kind of helper monkey.

It wasn’t, though. This guy, Pete, had a mail order wife from the Orient somewhere, and my guess is the monkey was some kind of bonus that came with the wife. In any event, it wasn’t trained professionally by anyone, it wore a diaper, and, bottom-line, it was a damn monkey!

Pete had been bringing the monkey to court for a few weeks before Karen had a case against him. We walked into court with Vinnie, up to the defense table, when we first saw the monkey. It looked at us and made some sort of angry monkey sound. Vinnie ran full speed to the door before Karen could grab him. He had to get out and get away from the evil monkey! The judge had been apprised of the situation by his clerk, and he came out and banned the monkey from his courtroom forever more. He wasn’t going to let his buddy, Vinnie, be upset at his job.

Karen and I never vacationed. We were always either too broke or too busy, and when we weren’t we had between 8 and 10 pets. (By the way, when a Seeing Eye dog retires, like Lyric, they just stop working. They aren’t sent away. Lyric quit work when she was about 10 and lived to be just short of 16). But, finally, we arranged to get away for four days. Being the sort of people we were, we naturally chose to go to Disneyland!

We walked into the Magic Kingdom, and Vinnie was like a kid. His tail wouldn’t stop wagging and his eyes were shining. Vinnie thought it was the greatest place he ever saw! Everything was clean and pretty, there were lots of kids and the air smelled like vanilla. I don’t think I ever saw a happier guy. He was strutting like a Clydesdale when we were walking, and when we weren’t, he was just taking it all in, amazed that such a wonderland could exist.

We saw costumed characters and Vinnie loved them! He “got” it. I’m pretty sure Lyric would have been very upset by a man sized rodent, but it was all so good to Vinnie’s way of thinking. I think he even especially liked the minty lukewarm water that comes out of the fountains in the Magic Kingdom. He was ready to live there.

When we went on rides, one of the lovely, clean-cut, Disney employees would hold Vinnie on the dock, or whatever, and when the ride was over, Vinnie was thrilled to see us again, but he’d also made a new best friend for life with the kid holding him. Incidentally, a Seeing Eye dog is as good as a wheelchair for cutting lines. I can’t remember how many times we rode Space Mountain (which, I’ve determined, is the only part of Disneyland cool enough for grownups looking for kicks). What I can remember is how many times we went on Pirates of the Caribbean. Just once.

When we got to the point where you get on the boat for Pirates, the apple-cheeked teenage girl boarding us said, “Oh, take him with you. We have lots of guide dogs and they love going on this ride!” That sounded reasonable. I knew it wasn’t fast or anything, and that there was plenty of room for him. So the three of us boarded the craft.

The boat beginning to move was fine. Vinnie was full of enthusiasm. Then we entered the tunnel, or whatever, where the ride proper begins.

Here’s the thing. A lot of dogs, apparently, just don’t understand the concept of animatronics. As soon as Vinnie say the pirates, saying, “Arrrgh,” and shooting guns and cannons, he totally lost it. He began freaking out and desperately trying to jump out of the boat to swim to safety. It took both of us to hold him down and keep him in the boat. He was looking around, frantically, at pirates chasing wenches, and wearing parrots, or whatever the hell pirates do, and he couldn’t have been more terrified. We were under direct attack by cannons and pistols, weaponless, and maybe Karen and I were OK with this state of affairs, but Vinnie really wanted to save himself! After all, how could he be any good to mom if he was killed by pirates? I ask you?

Thankfully the ride eventually came to an end, and we took the very shaken boy back to the hotel. We were both pretty scratched up from his nails. Karen just held on to my arm for that walk, and held Vinnie on a regular leash. He was way too devastated to work, and, we feared, maybe too traumatized to ever work again.

It turned out that he indeed could still work, fortunately. But that night, I observed, for the first time ever, Vinnie having a nightmare, frantically moving his paws, his eyes almost REMing out of his head. I know it was about the pirates. We’d had Vinnie for at least five years by then, and I’d never seen him have a bad dream before. For the rest of his life, he had occasional nightmares, and we always felt guilty for exposing him to the horror he could never have imagined on his own. But we’d only been trying to broaden his horizons. It wasn’t our fault. It was that little bitch at the Pirates ride.

So, the moral of this story is, dogs don’t fully comprehend what’s meant to be amusing about amusement parks, and if anyone ever tells you that guide dogs like Pirates of the Caribbean, you tell them for me they’re a damn liar.

© 2009, All Rights Reserved, Rich Sands
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