The Raging Elitist

Sometimes I envy people who seem more decisive than I am. Why are they so sure of what to do when I’m so full of doubt? I think I’d like to be more like them, always moving forward, not bothered by the possibility of unknown risks, easily dismissing my past failures. Then, I remember that their apparent certainty is just a symptom of a more general lack of introspection and a blindness to their own assholery, and I’m cured. People are not like dogs, who don’t need introspection. Dogs don’t have ulterior motives that are unknown to them. Dogs know exactly what they’re about, and their beliefs about what everyone should be doing are pure, so the certainty and urgency with which they communicate is forgivable, if not downright admirable.

At the vet’s office, I have to explain to the tech that moving Sammy’s dinner time later in the day is not an option. Nothing could be more important to Sammy than her being fed at 2 p.m. She demonstrates this by positioning herself in your eyeline and staring. Any sign of attention from you will prompt excited wagging, nuzzling, and more intense staring. She doesn’t care about spacing her anti-inflammatories further apart. She knows that it’s time to eat, and if you somehow manage to ignore the message for the next hour, she will sink into depression. Is that what you want me to do, tech lady? Break my dog? She clearly knows what she’s talking about! Her dinner time is at 2 in the afternoon!

In Sammy’s younger days, back when osteoarthritis was not an issue requiring vet visits and medication, when we were experimenting with allowing her access to our bedrooms during the night, Sammy taught my wife and me that breakfast time is at 5 a.m. Nosing the edge of the bed, shuffling antsily on the floor next to us and whining, she responded to our insistence that she “GO AWAY” by running into our infant son’s room and nosing him awake. She knew that his cries were of a different sort – not to be ignored.

These days, a closed gate relegates Sammy to the living room while the humans sleep. She’s there to greet you every morning, jumping and pounding her front paws on the floor as she leads you to the pantry where her bowl and kibble are stashed. Once she’s eaten, she stare-tells you that it’s time for a long walk. It takes her a mile-and-a-half to properly move her bowels. Once that’s accomplished, it’s time for a rowdy play. These things must be done. There is no doubt. Arthritic shoulders and elbows change nothing, so when multiple rounds of exercise restriction and doggy Advil fail to cure her lameness, the vet recommends two injectable drugs, one that inhibits pain signals and another that acts as a lubricant for her joints.

“The problem is that they work too good,” he says, cautioning against overdoing it. “Just because I feel good after getting a steroid injection in my back doesn’t mean I can go out and play basketball.”

At 39 I’m unfortunately all too able to relate. “I get it,” I say. “She doesn’t need to run wild. As long as she can get her walks and go swimming, she’ll be happy.”

Back at the house, I explain to Danyelle what the treatment regimen looks like and emphasize that we have to continue to be careful with her even though she’s going to feel a lot better. I’m feeling satisfied that this is going to make the last years of her life better, and then Danyelle says, “What about when we’re in Sapphire?”

“Yeah, that is going to kinda suck.”

Typically, when we take Sammy to the mountain house in Sapphire, she transforms into an ancestral creature, following her nose deep into the woods, and leading us on hikes to the top of the mountain and back. I’m convinced that she had a psychedelic experience after sampling all sorts of fungi and vegetation on one such excursion. That evening when she should have been asleep on the couch, she watched things that weren’t there fly around the living room for hours, wide-eyed and making little woofs at them. Then again, I’ve often felt like there was something I couldn’t see in that house, especially in the bedroom upstairs.

The house in Sapphire is well over 100 years old. It used to be some sort of community laundry facility, which is why we call it “the laundry.” I’ve been spending part of the summer up there all my life. As a kid I slept in the upstairs bedroom to the drone of the big attic fan that pulls in cool air from the open windows on the bottom floor. No need for AC. My great grandfather bought the place. One time he got appendicitis when he was there vacationing. Something of a stoic, he couldn’t be convinced to cut his trip short by a few days to go home and see a doctor. His appendix burst, and he died in the upstairs bedroom.

I sleep downstairs with Danyelle now, and our boys get the twin beds upstairs. Sammy stays on the couch where she may or may not have tripped doggy balls, and Danyelle and I keep our door shut to prevent the wet snout wakeup call at 5 a.m. Sammy’s even more urgent about communicating when we’re in Sapphire, though.

One time, when the boys were 1 and 3-years-old, I woke in the predawn light to the sound of Sammy desperately whining outside our door. At that time in my life, I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’d slept through the night since our first child was born. “Always something,” I thought as I finally sat myself up and set my feet on the floor.

When I opened the door, Sammy was on the other side of the kitchen table looking up the stairwell crying. I followed her up the steps, and about halfway up I noticed a strange smell. It was almost chemical, and then I noticed the silence – the attic fan wasn’t running. I walked into the bedroom and found it slowly filling with smoke from the shorted-out fan motor, the boys sleeping peacefully in their beds. Naturally, I freaked out, and got us all the hell out of there. It ended up being no big deal, but that’s hindsight talking, something dogs don’t indulge. When Sammy senses something is wrong, she’s not taking any chances, and she’s going to make damn sure you listen.

My wife’s eyes are teary standing in the living room listening to me explain Sammy’s vet’s orders. We’re already talking about “making her comfortable,” and her final years aren’t going to include bounding up the mountain and experimenting with mind-altering substances growing on the forest floor. They will, however, include plenty of her telling us what’s what. For instance, dinner time is at 2 and 5 p.m. now, and you better not forget it. Yes, unlike with my bipedal acquaintances, Sammy’s certainty is truly a comfort.