Tag: Blake

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Holmes is On The Case

I’m constantly amazed at how fast Holmes’ mind works. He’s capable of amazing leaps. And once something catches his interest, he’ll stop at nothing to pursue it.

No, not Sherlock Holmes, the Great Detective.  Holmes Rochat, the Great New Dog.

Yes, for the first time in way too long, we’ve got a dog in the family again. Small-ish. Black. One year old. About as mixed as a mixed breed can be. And one of the fastest learners I’ve ever seen on four feet (or maybe even two).

Mind you, some of that is in contrast to what’s come before. Duchess the Wonder Dog was brilliant – as a combination of border collie and Lab, she could hardly be anything else – but also quite timid from some bad early experiences before we got her. Big Blake was 85 pounds of solid muscle, including his head: loving, devoted, but not exactly a canine Einstein.

With Holmes, we’re learning how to do this all over again. Largely because he’s so ready to learn himself.

Maybe it’s because he’s so young. Maybe his previous owner worked with him a bit. But Holmes listens.  Not always perfectly: we’re still working on concepts like “vets can be trusted,” “grass isn’t edible,” and “a flying hug isn’t the perfect greeting for all occasions.” But for the most part, he listens. He tries to do what you tell him. And he’s steadily forming a picture of the do’s and don’ts.

That’s awesome. And a little terrifying.

It always is when you have the power to be the Example.

“Into the Woods” put it well, with its closing advice to parents everywhere:

“Careful the things you say, children will listen,

Careful the things you do, children will see … and learn.”

We teach constantly. Not just in the conscious lessons like helping a dog learn to “sit” or a child learn to count and read, but in the thousand different ways we meet the world.

When someone shoves a dog roughly from their lap, they teach it to be fearful, even around those it should love.

When someone claims to love their neighbor but greets actual people with contempt or neglect, they teach that their word can’t be trusted … or worse, that it’s OK to mistreat those you say you love.

With our example, we teach what’s acceptable and who’s accepted, whether it’s by passing a law or paying a bill. (Dave Barry refers to the latter as the Waiter Rule: “If someone is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, they are not a nice person.”) We teach what we want to see by how we behave … and too often, we find the lessons coming right back at us, learned perfectly.

 If we want to see respect or compassion, we need to show it.

If we want to see justice, we need to confront injustice.

And if we want a nation that values everyone in it, we need to look at who’s being left out.

It starts with the small, daily actions. That’s how a dog learns it’s loved. That’s how a child learns it’s valued. It’s how a world learns the way we see it.

Big thoughts from a small dog, I know. And for now, that’s where my own attention is: watching Holmes chase butterflies, explore his new home, and learn just how much his new family loves him.

It seems so simple to put it that way.

Maybe even elementary.

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A Blake-Shaped Hole

There’d been a wonderful run in the mountains. As fast as a 15-year-old dog can run, anyway. He’d taken off on an impulse, just like the old days, keeping ahead of my wife Heather until she finally caught up with him near the road.

“Blake, you goof.”

Big Blake panted and grinned as only an English Lab can. All was right.

And then, back home, over the next few days, all began to go wrong.

For a long time, Blake had been slowing down. He’d always rally, sometimes from a change in medicine, sometimes from a laser therapy, sometimes from his own strong heart and a blessing from the Angel of Dogs. But each rally got a little shorter, each miracle a little less enduring than the one before.

Now what rallies there were seemed to come and go like summer lightning. A brief moment of courage to handle the stairs. Twenty minutes of ease while listening to someone read. Some excitement as Missy entered the room, stiffly heaving himself up to greet his developmentally disabled friend. And then, more pain and confusion.

The conversation that had ebbed and flowed for weeks began to accelerate in earnest as Heather and I tried to figure out how much time there really was.  Maybe two weeks? Next weekend? This weekend? Tomorrow?

Each time we looked at his hurting body and worried mind, each time we asked ourselves the question, the true answer got a little clearer.

Today.

And on July 29, after a hamburger of his own and half of Missy’s (this is still Blake we’re talking about), way too many french fries, and all the hugs and tears that a family’s hearts could hold – we let Blake go.

It hurts to write those words.

If it didn’t, something would be terribly wrong.

Because even when you’re ready, you’re never ready.

We touch so many lives, collecting heartprints from each one that embraces ours. We build a well of memories that refreshes our soul, we weave their story into our own for a richer, fuller tapestry.

And then the fabric tears away. And it leaves a hole behind.

It shouldn’t be a surprise. This is the bargain we make, every time we hold someone close in love – that loss will come, but that the having will somehow be worth the losing. We know it. But we let ourselves forget the day will come. We have to, in order to live.

Sometimes, it really seems like it won’t ever end. Big dogs don’t always last long, but Big Blake had an amazing gift of life. At 12, he had all the energy and athleticism he’d possessed at 6. Even into his truly old and slow years, he still had to be watched for acts of food burglary, still stuck to Heather like a second shadow, still often greeted Missy’s arrival with a loud THUMP, THUMP, THUMP on the floor from his muscular tail.

It fools you. Lets you think that maybe you won the lottery, maybe you finally discovered the one that’s truly immortal.

In a way, maybe we did.

Maybe we all have.

Every memory, every story, every past moment of love and exasperation, brings a bit of them back for a moment. It’s never enough. It never can be. And it hurts with the sting of salt water on an open wound.

But that’s part of the bargain, too. That if you give enough to each other, a piece of them stays on in you.

And so a little of me will be forever Blake. A bit of all our family is forever tied to that wonderful blockheaded klutz, with the voracious stomach and the mighty heart.

Once more, Blake is running ahead of us. Someday, we’ll catch up. Near the road, ready to smile as only an English Lab can.

We love you, Blake, you goof.

Wait for us, big buddy.

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Good Boy, You Bad Boy

“I know I should have yelled at him, but I couldn’t help it,” Heather said, with a smile that was just moments away from a laugh.

Well, that’s what happens when you get a Mischief Miracle.

The source, of course, was Blake. For all of his nearly 15 years, our beloved English lab has displayed a paradoxical intelligence: dense as a box of rocks on almost everything, but a genius bordering on Einstein when it comes to acquiring food. (Mind you, since his judgment remains in the “rocks” category, not all of the food that Blake grabs is actually edible – the baby wipes that he once consumed have gone down in family lore.)

But lately, Big Blake the Canine Trash Compactor has been slowing down as time and arthritis catch up. When even the promise of food required a second thought, and a third, and maybe even a fourth before rising to pursue the bounty, it was clear the big guy needed some help. Even after a vet visit, some lifestyle changes and some new pain meds, our concern remained as we wondered whether any of it would take hold.

And then, one morning, Blake paused. His face took on the old “I’m gonna go for it” look. Moments later, right in front of Heather, he lunged for a cereal bar … one that was still in its wrapper, for that matter.

The need for discipline has rarely mixed so thoroughly with the urge for joy.

If you’ve been the parent of a sick child, you may know what I’m getting at here. They get listless, you get worried. And then, you get some minor bit of misbehavior and it’s like the clouds have parted. They’re interested in something, motivated to something, doing something, even if it’s a something you’d rather not have them do.

It’s a sign of normal. For better and worse. But even the worse now goes in the “better” column because you’ve seen the True Worse and have no interest in turning back.

And you still hold your breath a bit. Because normal is oh-so-fragile and you don’t want to jinx yourself by celebrating too soon.

Sound familiar?

We’re seeing this on a larger scale, of course. As pandemic conditions recede around the country, all sorts of “normal” behaviors and conversations are starting up again, including arguments that might have once been chased to a lower tier by COVID concerns. (Billionaires in space, anyone?) Not everything that’s come back is welcome, but it’s a sign that things are coming back … maybe.

Because there’s still the breath-holding. The glance over the shoulder. The worry that the Delta variant, or some other monkey wrench, will put us through another cycle of grief and uncertainty. The need to still be careful until we’re sure the gap has been well and truly crossed.

With Blake, we know this is something of a respite. He’s a big dog who’s almost 15 years old and even in the best of worlds, you only get so much time. But we’ll take this respite for as long as we can hold onto it.

With the larger world … well, to some extent, it’s in our hands. Do we want this to be just a respite, or the next step upward? Our actions and choices during this time will lay the foundations for either.

Chew on that for a while. But don’t take too long about it.

After all, Blake the Walking Stomach is on the move. And if you’re not going to chew something, he’ll be glad to do it for you.

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Worse Than His Bark

WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!

Big Blake, the Labrador of Legend, has many qualities that have made him a frequent guest in this column. There’s his loving, devoted heart. His well-meaning but clumsy reflexes. His simple mind, undistracted by anything resembling thought – except, of course, when it comes to eating the inedible, from brand-new crayons to baby wipes.

Usually, his powerful singing voice isn’t part of the epic. But we are living in unusual times.

WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!

“Blake, buddy! What is it?”

WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!

“OK, we’ve got the message. What’s going on?”

With a bark like that, a reasonable person might expect that Blake had gotten himself caught somewhere. Nope.

A suspicious person might look for burglars or a fearful one for ghosts. Uh-uh.

Injury? Storm? Timmy fallen into the well? No, no and no.

Like much that goes on in the 17 brain cells behind Blake’s eyes, it’s a mystery. But after the 37th time and some careful observation, we think we’ve put together a working theory.

You see, Big Blake is about 15 years old. And while he still has the body of a former athlete (complete with bad knees), his eyes and ears ain’t what they used to be. So when he’s resting in a room, every so often he’ll realize he hasn’t heard us in a while.

Not realizing we have retreated to the far reaches of The Next Room or (heaven forbid) the Great Upstairs, he’ll search his mind and memory and decide that he’s been left alone. At which point, he proceeds to express his heartbreak through the song of his ancestors.

WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!

In short, he gets worried. He gets confused. He gets lonely. Most of the time, with help a lot closer at hand than he thinks.

Sound familiar?

These days, I’m sure we’re all sick to death of the phrase “unprecedented times.” We’ve had to adjust to a new normal … and then a newer normal … and then the normal after that one. With vaccines rolling out and masks coming off, we’ve started to allow ourselves to breathe just a little, but we’re still aware of just how fragile “normality” is.

Early in the pandemic, many of us literally howled at dusk to show solidarity.  Since then, the cries have been lonelier and more anguished or frustrated. The reasons are many, varied and all too familiar. Uncertainty. Fear. Stress. Loss. Desperation. Too many things have gone away that were needed or loved, too many have stayed that were unwanted.

Most of all, perhaps, we’ve felt alone. We’ve been keeping the world at arm’s length and then some. At a time when we need our neighbors most, we’ve sometimes struggled to even see the same world, never mind the same response to a crisis.

And so our lives have had a lot of bark. And even some bite, from time to time.

But even in the midst of isolation, we were always closer to each other than we realized. And every time we did realize it, it sparked just a little more hope.

And so we sang. Worked. Cried. Worshipped. Comforted. We reached for the things that make us human. Not easily or comfortably. But inevitably.

Now that things are starting to ease, maybe we can see that connection more easily. I hope so. It doesn’t have to be rebuilt, just rediscovered.

The house isn’t empty. It never was. And once we realize that, it’ll truly be a time to celebrate.

We might even raise the woof.

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Seeing Through the Walls

Big Blake’s tail didn’t thump when we walked in the room.

His eyes were … there but not there.

Even the magic word “Food!” provoked only a little attention and some reluctant movement – maybe. For a dog who had always been ruled by his stomach, that was the scariest of all.

“I think we’d better call the vet again.”

It would be his second trip in two days. Yesterday he had been moving fine and eating fine, but with rather messy results out the other end. He’d been checked out and sent home with something for an upset stomach – but this seemed like a new ballgame.

There are moments in a crisis when all the walls turn transparent. You can see all the possibilities but you have no idea which one the path leads toward. Were we looking at an intestinal blockage? An injury, from a slip as he left the car the day before? Something more insidious that had been waiting until now to show its head?

All we could do was take him in, hope, and watch the clock.

Two hours later, the call came. Two minutes later, so did our reaction.

“It looks like what he’s having is an extreme arthritis flare-up . We’ve added some pain medicine to his NSAIDs for now ….”

I think our collective sigh of relief must have re-routed hurricanes in the Gulf.

We could see the path at last. And it actually led somewhere that we wanted to be.

Now, with our furry friend beside us, we get to watch another moment of clarity and uncertainty – this time on a national scale.

As I write this, the drama of COVID-19 entering the White House is still going on. So many questions are still hanging in the air. How many more names will we hear that we recognize? What does this mean for the country? Headlines about confirmations, debates, economies, elections, and yes, very real lives – those actually infected and those affected by them and their choices – continue to whirl and spin across the landscape like a Kansas tornado.

Once again, the walls are transparent and the path unclear. The nature of the virus almost guarantees it. Some get sick and get well and get on with things. Some require much more intensive medical care. Some recover, but with serious after-effects that can hang on for months.

And yes, some die. Too many have.

Again, you’re reading this later than I’m writing this. You may already know the next chapter of the story. But if we’re still watching the news, wondering what’s next and what it will mean – well, I suppose in 2020, it isn’t all that surprising.

Once again, we have to wait. And to keep doing what we need to do while we’re waiting. Because life doesn’t stop for the rest of us.

We still need to hold out hope for the future and caution for the present, looking to a day when things can be better while taking the careful steps needed to make it there.

We still need to look to each other as friends and neighbors, giving and accepting strength.

We still need to look to our own care, so that whatever the world sends us tomorrow, we’re ready to meet it.

Ready when the path starts to re-emerge.

For now, we’re once again walking the path with our dog. Big Blake’s tail is thumping. His eyes are bright. And his attention to food is as laser-sharp as ever.

It’s the moment we didn’t dare hope for.

And we couldn’t be happier.

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Un-Conventional

The flash commanded immediate attention, filling the bay window for a dazzling instant. And then came the signature.

KRA-KA-BOOOOM!

If you were in Longmont on Friday evening, you know exactly what I’m talking about – a window-rattling, house-shaking thunder burst fit for a Beethoven video. The sort of close strike that makes you wonder what just blew up, or when the invasion began.

I gave a nervous glance to my front yard maple tree – untouched, thank goodness – and to social media, which was lighting up even faster than the sky had. But the skies themselves had other business; with their Big Boom out of the way, the agenda had moved on to a gentle rain rather than an extended battle.

Which in turn meant peace in Chez Rochat. Our mighty dog Big Blake, known to cower under desks on the Fourth of July, was on to his usual food-swiping and eye-begging ways within moments. Our disabled ward Missy, who jumps and yells at the sound of a backfiring motorcycle, kept rocking out to the tunes on her stereo.

There had been plenty of buzz. Lots of chatter. But no lasting effect.

This time of year, that seems especially appropriate.

Right at the close of convention season.

I spent 16 years as a newspaper reporter, most of it covering governments of one kind or another. I used to joke that it was a lot like following a soap opera: when you first sit down, the actions seems utterly incomprehensible, but over time it becomes addictive as you start to understand the characters and the plots.

Even so, I never saw the point of a national convention. To torture the metaphor a little further, it always felt like a “sweeps week” – a chance to juice the ratings and draw in some casual fans with a gimmicky plot that had little relation to the rest of the season.

Granted, that’s a recent thing. Once upon a time, the national party conventions were the ultimate bargaining table. History could be made with a quick deal that swung enough delegates behind your candidate. A potential president might emerge to find half his cabinet already filled from backroom promises or standing on a party platform with a few curious planks to bring in the stragglers.

These days, thanks to the greater weight of primary elections, everyone knows who the major-party nominees will be long before Day 1 of either convention. The event is no longer a bargaining session – it’s a week-long ad meant to generate a “bump” in the polls. And with one convention following hard on the heels of the other, the bumps have been getting smaller and shorter-lived.

It’s a thunder burst. Flashy. Noisy. But not really good for anything except a moment’s brief attention.

The lasting work in any storm comes from the rain. The sustained effort that actually grows something.

That’s where we come in.

Elections don’t need conventions. But they do need informed voters. Individuals who pay attention for longer than a few speeches and sound bites. Citizens who care not just about who wins, but about where we’re going  and why.

Grass needs rain. Democracy needs us.

I know, it sounds idealistic. It always has. But if enough of us dedicate ourselves to repairing what’s broken and even building something better, a difference can be made. Not easily. Not without a struggle. But not without hope, either.

The rumbles have died down. The flash has left the sky. But the real work is still ahead. Our work.

It’s time for us to take our part in the storm.

Long may we rain.

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One Giant Leap

When I peeked into the bedroom, a pair of deep brown eyes in a furry face stared back at me. From a much higher elevation than usual.

“Blake?”

“He jumped up,” Heather said smiling, as 85 pounds of English Labrador curled into her on the mattress of our bed.

This was big. And not just because of the sheer canine mass involved.

It’s been a long time since Big Blake managed to fly.

Mind you, in his younger days, Blake would leap for the bed about as regularly as he’d raid the trash, and with fewer emergency vet visits involved. If both of us happened to be there, he’d happily land among us like a moose onto a parade float, exultant in his accomplishment even as he inadvertently crushed anything nearby. If one of us had briefly gotten out of bed for any reason – to visit the bathroom, to get a book, to check on Missy – then the spot would be claimed by a furry black-and-white mountain range, requiring contortions, pleas and the liberal applications of snack food to alter the terrain by even an inch.

But that’s been a while. A 14-year-old dog’s knees just don’t have the spring that they used to. Medicine helps a bit. Steps get ignored. These days, Blake either gets a boost from one of us, or he stays grounded. Most of the time.

But sometimes motivation matters.

Like, say, the world suddenly exploding. Every night.

Blake hates the Fourth of July season. Hates it. The random booms, bangs and bursts that fill the air for two weeks before Independence Day and a week after it turn our big, bold hound into a nervous wreck. He’ll do what he can to find safe spots to curl up, places where he can feel less of the vibration while staying near people he trusts.

And if that means learning to fly again – so be it. Falling from a failed jump is scary. But maybe not as scary as the alternative.

You focus on the goal. And you do what you need to do to get there.

If ever there was a time of year to remember that, it’s this one. When an entire country took a leap into the dark and hoped.

I’ve said it before: the American Revolution was not exactly made for Hollywood. Sure, sometimes you’d get a Saratoga or a Yorktown, a battlefield victory to evoke cheers and celebrations. But most of it? Retreat, evade and endure, with a healthy dose of “survive” on the side.

“We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a feather bed,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in the midst of all. And we weren’t. The daily victory was staying alive by any means necessary, whether that meant getting out of New York one step ahead of the British, abandoning the “capital” at Philadelphia, or hunkering down for a long winter of next-to-nothing at Valley Forge.

In a world like that, it’s easy to get impatient. Easy to lose sight of the long-term goal. Easy to forget that the discomfort and struggle has a purpose.

But when the world is exploding around you – in revolution, in fireworks, in pandemic – you do what you need to do to keep moving forward. Because falling back isn’t an option.

And there is a “forward.” However hard it is to remember sometimes.

“Yet through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory,” John Adams wrote. “I can see that the end is more than worth all the means.”

We’re in mid-leap. If we keep our focus, we will stick the landing.

Even if it means working like a dog to get there.

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A Sweet Reminder

I came home to find Blake celebrating. This was not a good sign.

It’s not that I mind dogs being happy. When you have an 85-pound English Labrador, sudden happiness for the smallest of reasons is part of the package. (“Mom woke up! AGAIN! Come on, let’s go downstairs NOW!”)

So yeah, happy is OK. But when Big Blake is outright ecstatic, there’s only one possible reason. He’d gotten away with something, and something had tasted GOOD.

Sure enough. A pillowcase on the floor. The one that held Missy’s leftover Halloween candy. The one that suddenly held a lot less Halloween candy than it used to.

“BLAKE!!!”

Did you know you can hit Warp 7 when driving to the vet?

Yes, all is now well. Expensively well, but well. The dog with the iron stomach who has survived eating everything from baby wipes to grapes can now add “Halloween chocolate” to the list. (For those who don’t know, chocolate is poisonous to dogs, but the combination of a big dog and cheap milk chocolate is more survivable than most – though you still want a vet to make him throw it up FAST.)  He’s gassy now, but basically OK.

I’d like to say he’s learned a lesson. But I know better. Blake has a one-track mind when it comes to anything edible – or semi-edible, or inedible but enticing – and very little in the way of common sense, even at the canine level.

No, the lessons worth learning are for the humans. About keeping the dog on the radar. (I’d closed the bedroom door where he usually sleeps, forgetting that he was quietly napping on the living room couch.) About keeping candy on the radar, especially when Missy has a habit of leaving it around despite reminders.  And especially about vigilance in the ordinary tasks, so that the extraordinary ones become less necessary.

That’s a good lesson to remember with a country, as well as a canine.

Veterans Day has returned. It’s a time when we hold parades, say a few extra thank-you’s, and write or read long commentaries about how we need to remember the needs of our men and women in uniform throughout the year, and not just once every 365 days. Maybe a headline somewhere throws out a reminder of reforms needed at the VA hospitals, or homeless vets, or the thousand other things that need attending to.

It’s important. All of it. But there’s something just as important that we need to understand.

America isn’t just something to protect. It’s something to build, every day. And the job of making an America that is worth protecting is too big to be borne by our veterans alone.

It requires every single one of us.

I don’t mean that we all need to grab the nearest American flag and march down the street every day at noon, singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the top of our lungs. Displays are easy.

The real need is to pay attention. And act on what we see.

Every single one of us is “the government.” It’s our job to see to the tasks that keep the country going and make it better. To vote. To learn. To pay attention to what’s being done by those acting in our name and hold them to account when necessary – even when they’re on “my team.” To pay attention to our neighbors and their needs, so that we can make a world that’s better for all of us and not just the people who are most like ourselves.

It’s a constant duty.  Most worthwhile jobs are. And it only takes a little inattention to make it all break down. To let fear drive out judgment. To let apathy tolerate “the way things are done.” To let cheering on a team – however hateful or corrupt – replace holding up a country.

it just takes a moment. And as we keep learning, correcting the mistake is always more expensive than preventing it in the first place.

Thank our veterans. And then take your turn. Shoulder your share of the work. Like a bag of candy, a country should not be left unminded.

Because if you do, it’s sure to go to the dogs.

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Step by Step

To the outside world, our 85-pound English Lab is Big Blake – a powerful and adorable eating machine from whom no unattended snack is safe.

Then thunderstorms and fireworks hit. And he becomes Big Shake.

The other night, it happened again. Thunder shook the air. Lightning filled the sky. And a quivering Blake curled up tightly on his favorite flowered couch, doing his best imitation of a lap dog.

It’s a familiar routine. And by now, it has a familiar approach. Stay nearby, both to reassure him he’s not alone and to make sure that he doesn’t do anything impulsive. (Blake is big and lovable, but not all that bright and more than a little clumsy.) Gradually get him comfortable and relaxed. And when he’s finally interested in food again, slowly lure him back up to the bedroom, one potato chip at a time.

What doesn’t work is a frontal assault. If Blake plants himself somewhere, there he is. There is too much Blake to be pushed, lifted, or led on a leash if he doesn’t want to go.

It takes patience. Quiet persistence. And more than a little cunning.

And this time of year, that should sound familiar.

***

If you’ve studied any history, you probably know that the American Revolution is a bit of an odd duck. Sure, it has its great names, inspiring legends, and painting-worthy moments, some of which actually happened.

But how on earth did a war get won by people who spent so much time losing?

Look down the roster of battles and campaigns. Aside from a few notable clashes like Breed’s/Bunker Hill and some pinprick raids like Trenton and Princeton, our Independence Day heroes spent a lot of time getting chased all over the countryside. If you wanted a title that summed up the military history of the Continental Army, “Defeat and Retreat” would just about do it.

It’s not dramatic. It’s not Hollywood. And even at the time, it wasn’t the sort of thing that inspired recruitment.

All it was, was smart.

You don’t run head-first into a buzz saw. You don’t stand in front of a Mack truck and say “Try me.” And you don’t go repeatedly toe-to-toe with the greatest army in the world and expect to have anything left but vapor and a couple of stray belt buckles.

You survive. You outlast. You exhaust.

Not surrendering. Not quitting. But not expecting to do it all in one dramatic moment, either.

That’s hard.

Washington was an expert at it – and hated it, an aggressive general by nature. Nathanael Greene was the master, leading the British a merry dance all over the South, and then handing off to Lafayette to do the same, so that Cornwallis could be led into the Yorktown trap. But the greatest players of incremental victory may have been the colonies themselves, who had spent decades learning how to do without Britain before  it was finally put to the test in war.

Slow steps may be frustrating. But they make the big victories possible.

That’s still worth remembering.

There is a lot of evil to fight in the world, a lot of problems to fix. They can’t be ignored, nor should they. But a headlong charge with no preparation often does nothing, and sometimes makes matters worse.

And so … you prepare the ground. You build. You patiently engage in a thousand small ways, erode the rock, undermine the cliff.

And if you do it right, even the big dogs can’t stop you.

Especially if you’ve got a bag of potato chips close to hand.

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Pulling the Leash

Slowly but surely, the three of us approached the CSU veterinary school in the world’s most erratic chorus line.

At my right hand – literally – was our disabled ward Missy, angling her course periodically to point out the other dogs nearby, or to stop at the check-in desk to chat, or to steer a wandering route to the nearest restroom.

At my left hand – and my left wrist may someday forgive me – was the mound of canine muscle known as Big Blake. Amiable. Confused. And testing the strength of his leash, and of Newton’s Third Law, as every step drew us nearer to the home of “doggie doctors.”

Finally, in the exam room, Big Blake had enough.

“Why don’t we just take you right back for some tests?” the friendly and winning vet tech said – just before Blake leaned against me and dug his claws into the hardened floor, to Missy’s amusement and my knowing smile.

“OK … why doesn’t Daddy take you right back ….”

It’s hard to blame Blake. It had been a tough week for an easygoing English Lab. The immediate center of his universe – my wife Heather – had been gone for two days to help her sister through a difficult back surgery. Necessary. But uncomfortable.

So while Heather was being a source of comfort and transforming into the Amazing “Aunt Hufu” for our nieces, Blake was dealing with all sorts of schedules that were subtly off, from food to naps to food to family chores to food to errands to food. (When you’re an English Lab with a one-track mind and an iron stomach, there are certain priorities to consider.)

Mind you, it wasn’t the first time Heather had been absent for more than a few hours. It wasn’t even the longest. But it was the longest in recent canine memory, which for Blake stretches to about the previous Tuesday. Maybe.

Add in a vet visit after a long drive to Fort Collins and … well, you can understand Blake being just a little clingy. OK, a lot clingy. Like Saran Wrap made from duct tape.

Again, necessary. But uncomfortable.

To be fair, I don’t think most of us do a lot better.

Oh, we rarely get to fight back on a leash in the presence of a smiling veterinarian. But we’re all called on more than once to do the uncomfortable thing, to break the routine, to get something done that needs doing now.

And, many times, we resist.

It might be Jonah saying “Nah, you don’t need me to carry that message- hey, where’d that big fish come from?” Or Thomas Jefferson saying “Hey, Mr. Adams would be a much better writer for this Declaration thing.” Or something simpler in our own prosaic lives, whether it’s taking on a difficult task, reaching out a needed hand, or just getting that mole checked out that’s probably nothing, right?

We set up expectations for ourselves and for our lives. But life isn’t good at sticking to expectations. And rather than follow the new route, we often try to fight for the wheel like the protagonist in an action movie.

Sure, sometimes you need to stay the course as best you can. But a lot of times – whether it’s as personal as enduring back surgery or as large-scale fighting a policy that affects you and your family – you’ve got to hold on and make it through if you’re going to straighten things out. Maybe with the choice of an instant. Maybe with an effort of months.

We don’t get to choose everything that happens. Just how we deal with it. And how we help others do the same.

Blake’s home now. Heather, too. Both are happy and resting. And maybe, just maybe, our furry friend is a little readier to deal with the next time.

I hope so, anyway. My left wrist can only take so much.