Chasing Bugle

They say that dogs and owners grow to resemble one another or that perhaps the owner in choosing the dog instinctively picks the dog most like himself in trait or appearance. I think there is some truth to that. In dog parks I’ve seen the long-haired, hip mom on her neon cell phone walking a well-manicured Giant Poodle, or the gray-haired man with a stoop to his back petting his grizzled Schnauzer.

I was not thinking of this phenomenon at the time Joey, who would soon be seven, dragged me into the pet store of a neighborhood strip mall every weekend to see the crated puppies. I had promised him his own dog on his seventh birthday, and he carried that promise into the store every Saturday when he began his search.

So we sat on the floor testing the measured patience of the employees and cuddled Bishons, Boston terriers, dachshunds, cocker spaniels, miniature schnauzers, and toy poodles.

During this time of intense dog petting, I began to wrap my mind around the idea that Joey needed a dog for reasons much deeper than the simple ones of why any child needs a dog. Certainly he needed something real to love and to be loved by, to learn responsibility and care, and to learn the intrinsic art of companionship that included wonderful afternoons of Frisbee throwing in the backyard, and also the lonely stance of a dog owner in the rain holding the leash of a pet needing to relieve itself. Yes, all these lessons would be important to Joey, but Joey was a unique and special child himself, and he was going to have a special dog.

Since entering the academic arena, Joey had made a name for himself testing the patience of all his teachers. “Circle time” was broken up by Joey rolling from one end of the room to another; “music hour” was disrupted by repetitive drum banging and window slamming; “art class” was impeded by Joey ingesting the Plaster of Paris that was to have been the planet Uranus. We conferenced repeatedly with teachers and school administrators who used words like “impulsive” “lack of self control” “inattentive” in droll voices that seemed to read out of medical textbooks. We hired child psychologists who tested Joey in little rooms resembling a school environment and who made notes on clipboard charts while he disassembled stacks of toys and stacked up the chairs until he could get a good view out the window. In one office, he encountered “sand therapy” where he built bridges and tunnels and fought wild dragons, and we were encouraged that this meant he was “looking for a safe way out” and “was fighting his own battles.”

He continued to be an impulsive, delightful child with no affinity for behavior charts or sticker reward programs or token exchanges. Instead he “changed his face” from happy to sad, lost out on recesses, sat alone at the lunchroom table, and endured his losses with the good nature of an oblivious child whose own active mind is all the company he needs. He was according to the schools administrators, pediatricians, child psychologists, and playground mothers “failing.”

“He needs a dog,” I told my husband. My mind was filled with My Dog Skip images of a lonely boy and a magic dog whose knowing companionship guides the boy through a troubled childhood and molds him into man.
“We need another dog like we need a hole in our heads,” Michael responded. “No, a boy needs a dog,” I insisted.
“He has a dog. Bugsy is a dog. A perfectly good dog.”
“He needs his own dog. A dog he can train, that will sleep at the end of his bed, that will grow up with him, and watch him get on the Trailways bus when he goes off to college,” I reiterated.
“Have you been watching My Dog Skip again?” he asked.

Bugle was at the pet store that Saturday when we went for our weekly dog window-shopping. She was a Beagle with a white stripe down a straight nose, brown sugar cinnamon eyes, a pink underbelly and long tail. She yelped and howled to see Joey when he approached the cage, and the owner’s daughter who ran the store on Saturdays let her out and placed her in Joey’s waiting arms. She wiggled free when he sat cross-legged on the floor with her, bolting in excited spurts up and down the aisles, knocking over the birdseed packets and disrupting the gerbils. As Joey and I and the two employees chased her around the aisles, I could only make out the raised tail waving at us from each round of the corner. Her fur coat was smooth and slipped through our fingers when we tried to grab her, and at each attempt, she pulled free and left us splayed on the linoleum.

“I want her! I want her! I’ve got to have her!” Joey cried. This was the dog, the one that spoke to his child’s heart, and he heard the magic call of a puppy for sale crying out amongst the pack – “Pick me! Pick me!” Somewhere in that wild chase around the pet store with the parakeets squealing and the floor displays being upturned, Bugle found her owner and Joey found his other self.

“We’re buying the Beagle,” I told Michael.
“This is a bad idea,” he said, sensing disaster.

And so Bugle came to live with us in late November tied with a ribbon. She had been marked down fifty percent since the runaway incident and she came with a free bag of dog food. But Joey was delirious at dog ownership and they nuzzled faces, and chased balls, and he tickled her belly until she fell asleep in the folds of his arms.

Joey’s school challenges continued. First grade ended with a limp to the finish line where even with the most considerate of teachers, he struggled with his reading, spent considerable time in the office of the school counselor where he played floor hockey in an effort to expel his excess energy; made friends with the school janitor Stan whom he trailed after looking for hidden places to explore; and entertained his classmates with tales of being in the circus and performing headstands in the hallways to prove it.

Meanwhile the puppy Bugle presented her own challenges. She was resistant to house training, preferring to pee wherever she might be conveniently standing or sitting even if that included the newly reupholstered sofa. She chewed constantly, gnawing on the cabinets and the baseboards and door molding until she lay surrounded in a puddle of wood shavings. She chewed a hole in the staircase carpeting, picking the Berber threads out of the matting one by one while I was in the next room on the telephone conveying my frustration to a dog trainer. She ate the heads off all the plastic dinosaurs and action figures until the playroom resembled the surgery ward of a diabolical madman. She raced around the back yard howling and yelping at every passing neighbor, deliveryman, squirrel and falling leaf. She was the consternation of Bugsy who treated her with the disdain of a miserly aunt to a passel of unrelated children. Bugle was oblivious to leashes, dog-training methodology, simple commands, and even stern looks. She was a wiggly, four-legged, fur-coated body of contained energy that desired nothing more than the pell mell race across the neighborhood to the squealing delight of all the children. I was beside myself. I had a hyperactive child who now owned a hyperactive dog.

When I contemplated out loud that Bugle might enjoy living at my sister’s farm, Joey wailed in grief that “Ohana Means Family. And that means nobody gets left behind.” Joey and Bugle had been watching Lilo and Stitch on the Disney channel. Thus, Bugle stayed and Joey went off to art camp for the summer where I hoped the daily activities with his hands would channel his energy in a positive direction.

The art camp was run by DeKalb County in its facility next to the community library. On the first day Joey wandered away from his counselors during the lunch period to explore the library painting project conducted by some county maintenance workers who were painting the library’s outside trim an industrial white. The maintenance workers were gone for the lunch hour, but had stationed their supplies behind a sawhorse and an orange cone. Somehow in Joey’s exploration he managed to step into a bucket of industrial grade white exterior paint, coating his left leg and both hands in a thick film. At the day’s end, the counselors were apologetic, admitting that his sandal was indeed “ruined” and that use of the art room paint thinner had not done much to remove the dried white paint from his hands and legs. They also encouraged me to look into some of the programs the City of Chamblee was offering next year.

The next morning when I was dropping Joey off at camp, we were running a bit late because I had an appointment to take Bugle to the vet. Bugle was in the car uncrated due to the lack of time, Ben was buckled into his car seat, and Joey was unbuckling and preparing to get out of the car with his lunch sack. As I opened the door to the minivan in the library’s parking lot, a flash of white fur went past me, and I realized too late that Bugle was out of the car. A steady rain had been coming down all morning, and as it was nearing ten o’clock, the traffic on Chamblee Dunwoody Road remained heavy. Bugle ran across the parking lot, onto the sidewalk and darted into the lanes of traffic.

Fearing the worst, I ran screaming into the northbound lane, waving at the cars to stop or slow down and to try to attract attention to the runaway dog. Joey and Ben leaped from the car and were running back and forth on the parallel sidewalk calling to Bugle and crying. The rain was starting to come down harder and the headlights of the cars skimmed around me as I ran in the same direction, sometimes in the street, and sometimes on the sidewalk, calling to Bugle, and yelling back to my children. Cars slowed and halted as Bugle ran in and out of traffic with me racing behind her, hands in the air, waving like a mad woman.

Bugle narrowly missed several screeching wheels and in fright she returned to the northbound lane that I had effectively stopped with my body and waving arms. Joey and Ben raced up the sidewalk towards the body shop and the dry cleaners on the same side of the road. Bugle crossed in front of me and ran up the hill to the dry cleaner where we then tried to block the driveway from oncoming cars.

A woman in a blue sedan who had been in the traffic congestion on Chamblee Dunwoody Road pulled into the driveway and attempted to help me catch the dog. Bugle ran in gleeful circles around the parked cars, barking and yelping. I yelled to Joey and Ben, who by now had caught up with me, to run back to our car and retrieve some food from Joey’s lunch bag with which we could catch Bugle.

A man returned to his white Ford Explorer after dropping off his cleaning, and I raced to the door and tried to get him to let me entice Bugle onto the seat of his car where once there I hoped we might shut her in. He looked at me strangely and acquiesced. By this time, my hair was wet and my tee shirt and shorts soaked. He searched his backseat for any kind of food item, but came up empty-handed. The woman in the blue sedan was trying to call out “Bugle” sweetly, walking up towards her in a crouched stance and whistling. Meanwhile I watched the returning figures of Joey and Ben running back down the sidewalk with their tiny fists balled around something. When they reached me, they each opened up their hands to reveal two or three mashed Goldfish crackers.

“GO BACK AND GET THE BALONEY!” I screamed at them. They dropped the wet crackers on the asphalt and ran crying back to the car. The woman working the dry cleaners drive- through window hung her head out and yelled something in Vietnamese. The owners came outside and tried to wave at Bugle with dishrags yelling “You Dog. Now Come!” The man in the white Explorer got in his seat behind the wheel and drove away when the rain started to come down harder. The woman in the blue sedan had already slinked back to her car and was easing it out the driveway’s entrance. Bugle and I were staring at each other in a bold face-off while the rain began to come down in sheets. I cursed at her and swore she had had her last day with me. She lifted her nose in the air, sniffing and headed inside the now open doors of the dry cleaners where the owners had spread wide the glass entrance doors and were waving white flags like linemen at NASCAR.

As Joey and Ben now ran back, out of breath, crying, and waving the lunch sack, Bugle ran directly inside the opened doors of the Dry Cleaners. “Got You Now,” the owner called out. As Joey, Ben and I crossed the threshold into the store, he closed the doors behind us. Bugle sat down on the linoleum floor and began to lick herself with deft confidence. Joey fell upon and began kissing and stroking her fur while Ben stared up at me in shock while I stood on the floor of the dry cleaners dripping wet, out of breath, and fuming. The owners of the store began to clap and laugh and shout, “Good Doggie” and Joey and Bugle smiled up at them happily, pleased with themselves.

When I finally got Bugle to the vet that morning, the cheery girl at the front desk ignored my soaked clothes, wet hair and haggard appearance and asked in a bright voice, “What is Bugle here for today?”
“Euthanasia,” I said.
She stared at me as if she had not heard me correctly. I changed the subject. “Okay, her shots then. How long can she stay?”
“We close at six,” she answered. She was beginning to observe my wet clothes and hair, and she leaned over the high counter and looked down at Bugle and Ben who were wet and bedraggled.
I handed her the leash. “She’s yours,” I announced and headed for the door.

Ben and I went to the Waffle House where he had waffles and I ordered a pot of coffee. Ben chatted to himself while I listened with one ear and stared out the window at the passing cars and falling rain. I wondered whether I had it in me to survive the boyhood of Joey and his dog Bugle. All my attempts at good mothering this child were met with obstacles and dead ends. Despite my concerted efforts to attack the problem, I was really no more than a mad woman running down the street waving my arms at the oncoming traffic. I had scorned medication, eliminated processed foods, followed book after book of researched advice in parenting this small boy with his boundless energy and endless imagination, and my one self-administered cure of dog ownership had been thrown back in my face like a cream pie. I warmed myself with coffee and felt the dismal shame of failure.

Ben smothered his waffles. “I think the next time we ride with Bugle she needs to be in a crate,” he said. I nodded in agreement, trying to imagine when I would ever let Bugle in the car again. Maybe it was just that simple. Wild dogs and wild boys need large open spaces and high fences. Lots of room to run and observable boundaries. A place to chase rabbits, both real and imagined, but with fences too high to scale. I just needed some higher fences, and they needed some bigger pastures. Ben and I headed home.

There are no magic dogs except in movies; and there are no easy answers to some boy’s difficult childhood days. I imagined that in joining our family Bugle would teach Joey those life lessons that he had not been able to learn from me. Later I realized that if Bugle had lessons to teach, they were mine to learn. And most of the time that is always the case.

Happy New Year, Life/Balance and Wacky Division

Happy Two Thousand and Eight blog-readers! I am energized about a new year and the chance to make good on some new year’s resolutions. I never seem to tire of promising myself I’ll lose a few pounds, stick with an exercise program, save some money, and instill some discipline in this household. I’ll let you know when fundamental change occurs.

But first, I must note, that I read my cyber-neighbor’s, Lilly’s in Bloom, blog just seconds ago and was reminded about that difficult time period when maternity leave ends and difficult day-care decisions have to be made. I realize how lucky I am to have made it through those early, difficult years. I’ve gone from full-time work to stay-at-home- mom work and now, I think, I have found a nice, happy spot with a part-time legal writing gig that offers money and flexibility.

Years ago in my other life when I was a trial lawyer in a fancy-pants firm, my friend and fellow associate, an woman who had had her children and gone back to law school later in life, advised me that I needed to have children because if I didn’t, then one day I would find myself sitting at the dinner table with a dog dressed in a sweater. No offense to dog owners of course, but she had a point.

I gave full-time work and child rearing a good faith two-year try, but several factors sent that plan up in smoke. First, a string of incompetent nannies proved that Mary Poppins was a Disney creation. Second, day-care proved dependable, but Joey’s immune system couldn’t stand up to the daily assault. He had so many ear infections, pink eyes, strep throats and stomach bugs that one month I worked a total of four days. After two years of exhaustion, stress and a lot of money down the drain, I quit to stay home full-time.

One afternoon after I had been newly employed as my son’s caregiver for about three months (and I believe I was pregnant with his brother Ben), Joey and I were lying on a blanket on a grassy hill at a nearby park. We had eaten a picnic of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and had been unsuccessful in getting a kite to fly. I lay down on the blanket and stared up at the cloudless blue sky. I realized that I been lying there not worrying about the next day, or thinking about some cross-examination, or worrying about some detail at the office or phone call that had to be returned. There were no thoughts imposing themselves between this cloudless blue day, my two-year-old, and me.

Recently, when I was putting Ben to bed, he posed this math problem. He loves math problems and always likes a puzzle.
“How can you split three in half and get the same on both sides?”
“Well, half of three is one point five,” I said.
“No it isn’t,” he said.
“Yes, Ben, one point five is the same thing as one and a half. Half of three is one and a half.”
“I’ve got a better way.”
“Ben,” I insisted, “there isn’t a better way. Half of three is one and a half.”
“No,” he said, “You can give your mommy the other one.”

So Lilly, I hope you find the right life/work balance. There are certainly no easy answers. What I thought I would do with my life didn’t exactly happen as I originally planned. We often feel like we are torn in two and can’t do justice to either area. But there are, I am happy to report, lots of ways to work and be there for your children. It may just require some creative thought. I do know this; the job I loved the most gave me time for picnics and kite flying. Mostly because every single day, when you divide three in two equal parts, I get to keep the other one.