The Three-Eyed Dog

            I knew that’d get your attention. I’m on 19^th Street, near Dance Manhattan dance studio. I got here early and have some time to write. This is the best time for me, when my creative juices are the most potent, after a long drive to tango. Also, I feel I am at the end of a long leg of a journey, like the hobbit, Bilbo, when he makes it out of the murky forest but still has a long way to go to get to Lonely Mountain.

            Today, I’ve decided to change the focus of my blog, from strictly tango, to anything, and everything, else. Don’t worry, I’ll still be dancing tango and writing about it, but I think I’ve exhausted just about every interesting avenue there was for me to explore.

            The end of this week brought me closer than I’ve been to nailing down a job and I’m pretty sure I’ll be departing next week. I’m excited about the prospect, even though there is no tango there. That’s okay, I will bring it with me and make converts. There is a whitewater river there, the Animas River, and I look forward to getting to know her. To get there, I must make a long drive, about 2000 miles. I can fly out and rent a car but I’ll make a lot less money that way, and will arrive with a lot less gear...gear that I will need to explore the Animas. So, I’ve got to ‘man-up’ and make the drive. It is hard for me to accept this fact but I’m a father, and, I’ve got two daughters in college; I’ve got to do the right thing.

            I’ve been living at my parents’ house and have grown soft and flabby. While I’ve been here, I’ve watched a scene play out that I will relate to you. My oldest sister had a dog, Duff. He was sixteen years old and, I believed, needed to be put down. She is divorced and lives next door to my parents. She has a 24 year old son, who stays with her sometimes.

            Through the holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, my nephew brought the dog over and it stayed, mostly, on a thick blanket at the end of the couch in the living room. I think Duff had cancer, based on a diagnosis offered by my other sister, a veterinarian. During this time, a strange air of dread permeated the conversations in our house, that, at first, I did not recognize. Until this time, I hadn’t realized Duff was sick and how much he was on the minds of my family members; not just my sister and her son, but also his siblings, my father, mother, brother and at least two other sisters(I have five sisters and two brothers).

            Duff and my nephew were close. I tried to imagine how hard it must be for him to come to terms with what I knew he must do. It was something I didn’t have the heart to do, once, and always regretted, even though the moment was fleeting. He had known Duff as long as he could remember, I wondered what it must be like for him, to see his best friend, in so much pain and be unable to help. In life, we are sometimes overwhelmed by emotions to the point of inaction and that, I believe, was the case here. I was convinced Duff needed some help and only his master could give it to him.

            My veterinarian sister was coming for the holidays and I hoped she would counsel my nephew on what needed to be done. Surely, he would listen to her and, maybe, she would have the words that would make this easier for everybody.

            But it was not easy for everybody and I soon came to the conclusion that the decision was not my nephew’s to make.

            Poor old Duff, he had become incontinent and had to be carried outside to relieve himself. When I saw he couldn’t stand on his own, I told my nephew it was time to put him out of his misery. I talked to my father and told him about my feelings and that I was thinking about talking to my nephew. It was a lie. I don’t know why I didn’t tell him I had already breached the subject with my younger relative, but I didn’t.

            My father’s reaction was quite unexpected.

            “Don’t tell him.” He counseled. Then he related, once again, the tale about Lila, his Irish Setter, who was his constant companion as he began a journey that would take him to the New York Marathon, several times: the journey of a jogger.

            I heard this story many times, but this time, it had a different ending. Lila was a puppy when she arrived. Shortly after, she began going on short runs with my dad. He had taken up the sport of jogging, for his health, when he turned forty. They developed a strong bond and my father would often tell of the time he was coming home from work, in New York City, where he stayed on weekdays and returned home on the weekends. One Friday, when he reached a certain point on his bus ride, he thought of Lila. In his mind, he could see her going to the window, on the front porch and knew, instinctively, that she was looking for him.

            When he arrived home, he asked my mother if she noticed Lila on the front porch. My mother said, “Yes, she was.” 

               He asked her if she remembered the exact time and she did. It was the same time that he had thought of her, when he was on the bus. He marveled that a man and an animal could develop such a bond.

            I marvel at this, too. To me, it proves that something called ‘String Theory’ is real. String Theory says there are not  four dimensions, which is how many dimensions we can physically prove, but, rather, that there are twelve or more. It seems to me that this bond between my father and the dog was proof of one of the strings and that it traveled through time and space faster than the speed of light…it traveled at the speed of thought. A string, one comprised of a strong emotion, connected the two, and could not be explained by conventional theories of the physical universe.

             My father continued the story, past the usual ending and to the arrival of my sister, the veterinarian. It was she who counseled him to put Lila down, when the dog grew too old to walk. He told me never to tell anyone about this but I can’t help myself. It is my blog and I’m obligated to write the truth as I see it. I can’t hold this information back. I only hope that some good will come out of it.

            He said it was possible that Lila might have gotten better and regretted not waiting to find out. I think my sister was right, but I could see that things were more complicated this holiday season and Duff was the reason why. Far more people than my nephew, were dreading the arrival of the 'animal doctor'. I could tell my father’s heart ached at the loss he suspected was premature. He would have given anything to have that dog around for just one more year, one more week, one more day.

            I think my sister, the vet, knew, once she arrived, the fear everyone had for her prognosis.  She simply said the dog was very old and left it at that. She didn’t stay long. Long enough to be polite and that was it.

            By Christmas, I had had enough. My sister’s house smelled like a kennel. I was staying upstairs and couldn’t stand the odor. I couldn’t believe it had gone this far and counseled my nephew, once again, on what I thought he should do.

            “I know, Uncle Perri,” he said, “I’m going to do something….after Christmas.”

            Christmas night, Duff lay on his blanket at the end of the couch and my eldest sister lay by his side. We talked and I expressed my views as compassionately, and, as forcefully as I knew they needed to be presented. I had experienced a similar situation and missed my chance to do the right thing.

            Crying like a baby, she sobbed, “I know, Perri, but I’m a, a, a big baby, waaaahhh!!!”

            I walked out of the room. It hurt me to see her diminished so. She was like a second mother to me growing up. I didn’t want to see her like this: weak, mortal, crying. Then I recalled the passing of our cat, when I was only five. My sister skipped school just to bury it. She was the one who couldn’t part with Duff. Her son felt her pain and couldn’t bring himself to hurt her so. The full scope of the problem was now clear to me.

            Real Mom, however, was a real mom. She had been here before. She had been here all along. She knew what must be done, but, she also knew the pain it would cause and kept quiet. She knew it was not her decision to make.

            As I said before, this decision had presented itself to me, once before. I was working as a river guide in the Adirondack Mountains. It was my job to oversee the inflation of the rafts at the beginning of the day. In the morning, before the guests arrived, I would gather the men in a van and drive them to the starting point along the river, where we would begin our journey.

            The Adirondack Mountains in the springtime is a lonely place. I had taken the job there because my heart was broken and I wanted to put as much distance between me and the woman who caused me so much pain. After three months, I was praying for some relief from the solitude and I believe I asked God to send a little pussy my way. I’m sorry for the vulgarity but that is how I phrased my request.

            God has a sense of humor. Shortly after I made my request, a female cat showed up, ready to bear kittens. All the river guides fell in love with her. She had her kittens and we took it upon ourselves to look out for them. We found a home for all of them except one. I can’t remember his name but we liked him the best. I think we secretly hid him from all the prospective ‘parents’ because we couldn’t bear to see him go.

            One particularly busy day, when I had gotten a late start rounding up my crew and was taking them to Put-in, I waited to enter the desolate stretch of highway that is Rt. 28. A car was coming from the other direction, something that didn’t happen too often. I waited for it to pass and pulled out.

            As the car sped by, the remaining male cat darted across the road and managed to make it between the wheels of the automobile, but not before its back end was crushed. It was a horrifying sight! The front of the cat was still running, dragging its grotesquely flattened back half.

            Half the guys in the van were yelling, “Kill it, kill it, put it out of its misery! “

            The other men said, calmly, sadly, impulsively, softly, “Don’t do it.”

            I had only a split second to react and I would be past the mortally wounded kitten. It was nearly full grown and looked like a full-sized cat.  I watched it bravely make its way across the road and swerved to miss it.

            The raucous discussion that followed afterward was nothing compared to the turmoil this caused in my own soul. Years later, I debated with myself about what the right decision should have been. It wasn’t until I had pets of my own, that I finally decided what the right choice should have been: merciful and quick death.

            Yes, death. That is a hard word for us to deal with and it haunted my family the entire holiday season, like a zombie waiting to be brought back from the grave.  Duff was already dead. Everybody knew it. What we were all waiting for was for him to stop breathing.

            He finally did, shortly after New Year’s Day. My oldest sister, her son and my dad all grieved for that dog.

            A few days later, my nephew visited my Uncle. My uncle was drunk, he said, but he told him of a discovery he made while digging in the yard. He found the skull of a dog and it had three eyes. He said my uncle wished he had kept that skull so he could show his kids what had been hidden underneath the ground for so long…a miracle: a three-eyed dog!

              It occurred to me then, as he spoke, that even my uncle knew, Duff had been dead a long time before he had ever stopped breathing, some people just couldn’t see it. If only they’d seen the skull of the three-eyed dog, things might have been different. Sometimes, there are people who are given the unfortunate duty to do the job that nobody else wants to do.