Tag: Dogs

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Stepping Out

For a moment, the steps grow faster, the leash tighter.

“Holmes, wait.” We stop until the lead slackens. “Good boy. Ok, let’s come.”

A fenced-in dog challenges us, creating a short pause. A neighbor across the street draws some barks. It’s not a perfect run yet , especially when rabbits – the ultimate temptation – cross our path. But it’s already so much easier than it was.

Step by step, Holmes is learning.

If you’re only just joining us, Holmes is the latest addition to Chez Rochat, a one-year-old mixed breed with a boatload of smarts and Way Too Much Energy™. As a result, we’ve been throwing more Frisbees than a California beach, filling up food puzzles with the efficiency of a North Pole assembly line, and even trying to teach him how to calm down when needed, something my wife Heather calls “doggy Zen.”

And of course, there are walks. Followed by walks. And more walks.

Of the three dogs we’ve owned, Holmes is already the walking champ for sheer frequency. But he’s also new, stepping out with a mixture of curiosity, enthusiasm and anxiety about what he’ll  find … and still learning which situations merit concern.  (“Hey! Hey! That man getting into his car is VERY SUSPICIOUS! I mean, who does that?”)

I follow and guide with treats and patience and a slightly sore shoulder. Which means that as Holmes learns the world and how to behave in it, I’m learning Holmes at the same time.

Isn’t that always the way of it?

Everyone has a story and a struggle. Part of being human – or at least, a better kind of human – is to be aware of those stories and struggles even as we’re dealing with our own. It’s why almost every faith and philosophy on the planet has some variation of love your neighbor, help the stranger, reach out and touch someone … wait, that last one might have been AT&T.

The point remains: we’re here to help. But as some have pointed out, that’s not a one-sided proposition where help simply descends on someone like Batman from a skylight. When we teach, we learn. When we see into someone’s heart, our own is opened a little wider. Just like a handshake, you can’t touch without being touched in return.

That can be a little frightening. Not just in the responsibility it gives us for others, but in the possibility – no, certainty – that what we do will change ourselves in ways we don’t expect. It’s a reminder that we’re not really in control, a lesson that few of us enjoy learning. (If you’ve ever stepped on a phantom brake while in the passenger seat of a car, you know exactly what I’m talking about.)

But it’s also an exciting lesson, too. It means that no single one of us has to have all the answers or plug all the holes. It means there’s room for surprise and discovery. Most of all, it means that all of us need all of us, and that together, we can shape something pretty amazing.

Even in something as small as a morning or evening walk.

Reach out. Walk together. Look around. You might just find yourself on a path you never knew existed.

One warning, though. If that path has rabbits, you’d better keep a firm grip on the leash.

Right, Holmes?

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Snow Idea

A late May snowstorm carries certain obligations. Shake snow from the branches. Disconnect the hose. Rejoice that the Rockies won’t be able to lose today.

Oh, yes. And find a way to keep a young dog from losing his mind.

“Holmes, I promise, it doesn’t look any different out there now than it did 20 minutes ago.”

The deep brown eyes refused to believe me. I knew they wouldn’t. After all, the energy of a 1-year-old pup cannot be denied.

“OK, OK.”

The door opened. Holmes emerged … to a world still gray with cold and snow. The look in his eyes as he returned said it all.
“I thought you FIXED this!”

Sorry, buddy.

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve discovered that our new dog’s secret identity is the Flash. (I know, Barry Allen will be shocked.) Given the chance to let out his energy outdoors, he gets the “zoomies,” dashing here, there and everywhere with a velocity that the Indy 500 would envy. Frisbees? Fun! Sticks? Even better! Squirrels? LET ME AT ‘EM!

But he’s also not all that fond of water falling from the sky. So when he hit his first spring snow with us, his pent-up energy could have easily charged a fleet of Teslas. Indoor play time helped, but (puppy and toddler parents, please join in with me here), “It’s just not the same!!!”

These days, I think many of us can sympathize.

After all, we’ve had our own routines disrupted for a lot longer than a one-day snow.

For more than two years now, COVID-19 has been a fact of life for all of us. We’ve learned about it, guarded against it, seen it touch those we know (or maybe even ourselves). At different times, we’ve masked up, locked down and learned the six-foot safety dance.  

All the while, we keep looking for the way out again.

All the while, we keep getting frustrated.

By now, we all know the cycle. Cases cool down. Caution gets relaxed. We sprint for “normal” like Holmes heading for the back door, sure that the world is different this time.

And like Holmes, we discover the world hasn’t changed that much yet. New surge. New variants Same restlessness.

After a few rounds of this, the term “normal” has started reminding me of a line from “The Princess Bride”: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

We’re still finding out what normal is. It’s probably not going to look like 2019. It hopefully won’t look like 2020 (please, no). But there are two things we can know for sure:

First, normal is a moving target.  Always has been, always will be.

Secondly, discovering that normal will take time. And patience. And yes, some continued caution.

That’s not a popular thought. I don’t like it either. I’d love to be able to push “reset” and have instant resolution. We want clear definitions, quick resolution, a finish line that we can cross and celebrate.

But it’s not that neat and simple.

We have to wait out the storm as best we can. Or everyone’s going to keep getting drenched.

On Saturday, Holmes peeked out into a different world. Muddier. A little harder to navigate. But once again open to dashing and discovery. He hurried out, his faith in the world restored.

May we all be so lucky.

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Say My Name

Once again, Holmes had found his way onto a kitchen chair. And while it looked cute to have his fuzzy black canine head peeking above the table, some things Cannot Be Allowed™.

“Oliver! Down!”

Oliver? Where’d that come from? Oh, yeah, my sister-in-law’s dog. Try again.

“Blake! Get off!”

Blake? Big Blake hadn’t been in the house since last summer, when he passed away at 15.

“Oli … Bla … Hol … whoever you are, get over here!”

I’ve heard of this happening to parents, but it’s a first for Heather and me when it comes to pets. And other than the fact that all three are or were black dogs in occasional need of correction, they don’t have that much in common. They’ve never even been in the same house at the same time.

But reflex is strong. So when you need something quickly in the moment, you reach for whatever comes to hand first. Whether it fits or not.

But of course, the wrong name gets you nowhere.

Call a dog by the wrong name and they’ll be either oblivious or confused.

Get a name wrong in the newspaper and you’ll see upset phone calls or emails.

Using the wrong name in a conversation may draw laughter, frustration or outright offense.

Names matter. They’re tied into who we are and how we see ourselves. And they have a power beyond just commanding a dog to “sit!”

My wife’s middle name is Lyn. It ties into her mother’s name (Debra Lyn) and her grandmother’s (Marilyn). It’s a part of her heritage.

My own name was the product of a hasty family compromise: Dad wanted to name me “Walter,” Mom and Grandma hated it, and suggested naming me after him instead.

Some of my friends have been known by a nickname for most of their life. Others I know changed names as they grew up or changed circumstances: a BJ who became Brad, a Michael who became Kavya and so on.

It’s something fundamental.

But then, we’re good at getting fundamental things wrong. Especially when we act on reflex.

All of us have a story we tell ourselves about the world  and everything in it: beliefs, expectations, preconceptions. And inevitably, we bump up against something that doesn’t fit. What we do next says a lot about ourselves:

  1. We can look at the mismatch, see where we got it wrong, correct ourselves with a shake of the head, and go on a little wiser.
  2. We can decide we know better, keep insisting on our version of reality and wonder why the rest of the world is bring so stubborn.

Looking at the world today, we seem to have a lot of people in group B. And that’s a recipe for trouble. Sure, it feels good to tell yourself what you want to hear, but if you’re not calling something what it is, you’re not going to make progress.

And when a bunch of mutually exclusive versions of reality bump up against each other? You only have to look at the headlines to see the result of that.

Naturally, we may all draw different conclusions from the same facts. That’s human, and it can even be helpful. But when we can’t even agree on the facts … well, that’s where the problem arises.

So don’t always trust the reflex. Take a step back and think. It’s not always easy – sometimes even outirght uncomfortable – but it gets you farther in the long run.

Just ask Oli …I mean Bla …

Sorry, little buddy. Sooner or later, I’ll find the way Holmes.

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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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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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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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Leaping Into the Season

Written Dec. 7, 2019

With one excited leap, Big Blake fulfilled his holiday duty of protecting us from plastic pines.

CRASH!!!

To be fair, it wasn’t intentional. Our 85-pound English Labrador is a dog of mighty power, mighty enthusiasm and mighty little brain. Like all good dogs, he wants to guard his family. And like all big dogs, he believes that he’s the size of a terrier.

And so, when Blake watched out the front window and saw a human coming near his house, his protective instincts kicked in while his spatial awareness dropped to zero. Especially his awareness of the freshly decorated Christmas tree within millimeters of him as he turned on a dime – OK, on a quarter – and charged for the front door.

Did I mention CRASH!!!? Yeah, I thought I did.

This year marked a new holiday record for Blake. We had bought and set up the new tree (pre-lit, to spare the family’s spinal columns) less than 24 hours before. It had had a peaceful and beautiful Silent Night to start the season before its ignominious toppling to the theme of Oy To The World, The Dog Has Come.

It had been a while, but we remembered the routine. Lift everything back into place. Check for damaged ornaments (few). Untangle branches and ornaments that had gotten twisted together (many). And then step back and check the picture.

The picture, it turned out, was hung a little crookedly. Like an eager child the day after Thanksgiving, our new tree had developed a Christmas list – it was leaning just a bit to one side.

Somewhere, somehow, Blake had put a bend in the pole. Not a huge one. Not an obvious one (except to my highly detail-aware wife, Heather). The tree’s beauty was still there, but if you knew where to look, you could see that it had been through an impact.

On reflection, that’s not a bad way to see many of us at this time of year.

Every year, we’re reminded that this is a season of joy. It’s in the songs and readings, the lights and decorations, the wishes that we pass along to each other. “Merry Christmas!” “Happy Holidays!” “Have a great New Year!”

And for a number of us, the joy feels muted. It lands softly, or not at all.

It might be a season of ghosts, where memories of Christmas Past make Christmas Present a little harder to bear.

It might be a struggling time, or an anxious one, or a darkness that crept in with the cold and the snow.

It might even be something that has no reason at all, just a gray place that needs to be acknowledged for a while in silence and healing.

And that’s OK.

This shouldn’t be a time of forced gaeity. It’s not about hitting someone over the head with a jingle-bell wreath and then blasting carols at them 24 hours a day, like a Christmas edition of “A Clockwork Orange.” This is a time for remembering that we’re part of a larger family; one with hopes, and needs, and yes, pain that needs to be seen and acknowledged. To be reached out to in love, not bulldozed or whitewashed.

And as we reach out to each other, as we meet each other where we are … sooner or later, we find the joy never really went away. It felt like it. It seemed a certainty that it could never return. But in time, in that gentle, quiet reaching  out, we find the joy reborn. Dented. Marked. Leaning to one side like an injured Christmas tree. But beautiful all the same.

It takes patience. But it’s one of the best gifts anyone can give.

May all of you find your joy this season, whether bright and exuberant or dented but enduring. May we welcome each other as we are and plant the seeds of what can be.

And if that welcome suddenly includes the impact of a loving but clumsy English Labrador, I am so, so sorry.

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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.