Another Dog Day

It's been a big day in foster dog parent land. My feet are hot as I type because a dreaming Rocky is lying on them, making very amusing noises. Abbie and I are sitting at our laptops while the wind howls outside. Another wild Saturday night at the Brandaos.


You'd never know it from these pictures of course, but the day had a rather rough start. Those of you who know Abbie from other contexts will be shocked to learn that she is a real softy when it comes to dogs. She seems almost entirely unable to use the Voice of Command nor the Finger of Doom when Rocky gets rambunctious, despite the years she has spent savagely abusing her art students. Maybe if I dressed him in a pair of plaid bloomers? (Rocky registers his disagreement by tapping his paws against the baseboard and snoring.)


After he got some exercise and five or six hours of love and play, Rocky was ready to help me cook supper (pictured above).

Sometimes we wonder what we have gotten ourselves into. He is so smart and so loving, but we feel like we have to watch his every move. Abbie is definitely not having the restful weekend she might have hoped for as we near the end of a long semester. I'm certainly not getting a lot of songwriting done. It's impossible not to love him though.

The band plays on Saturday at the Neutral Ground. There will be new tunes and lots of new harmonies. I hope those of you who can't make it will still celebrate the solstice with reckless abandon.

I'll leave you with my second-favorite dog poem.



The Revenant

I am the dog you put to sleep,
as you like to call the needle of oblivion,
come back to tell you this simple thing:
I never liked you--not one bit.

When I licked your face,
I thought of biting off your nose.
When I watched you toweling yourself dry,
I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap.

I resented the way you moved,
your lack of animal grace,
the way you would sit in a chair and eat,
a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand.

I would have run away,
but I was too weak, a trick you taught me
while I was learning to sit and heel,
and--greatest of insults--shake hands without a hand.

I admit the sight of the leash
would excite me
but only because it meant I was about
to smell things you had never touched.

You do not want to believe this,
but I have no reason to lie.
I hated the car, the rubber toys,
disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives.

The jingling of my tags drove me mad.
You always scratched me in the wrong place.
All I ever wanted from you
was food and fresh water in my metal bowls.

While you slept, I watched you breathe
as the moon rose in the sky.
It took all my strength
not to raise my head and howl.

Now I am free of the collar,
the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater,
the absurdity of your lawn,
and that is all you need to know about this place

except what you already supposed
and are glad it did not happen sooner--
that everyone here can read and write,
the dogs in poetry, the cats and the others in prose.


Billy Collins