Oogy_ The Dog Only a Family Could Love - Larry Levin [60]
Another time, I walked along the path and listened as Oogy splashed upcreek until finally I heard him moving toward me through the brush. I did not recognize the dog that emerged. Whose dog was this? Where was Oogy? It took a moment to realize what had happened. Oogy was completely covered in putrid slate gray mud. He smelled like a fertilizer factory. Riding home with him next to me was really a testament to my love for him. It stunk like something had been dead in the van for days.
Ordinarily when Oogy gets some mud on him it dries quickly, and because his fur is so short, I can wipe him down with a warm towel as though he’s made of vinyl. But this was altogether different. When we arrived home, the boys had to hold on to Oogy while I hosed him down. Then I took warm, wet rags with dog shampoo and cleaned him further before rinsing him down a second time and then drying him with clean rags. That removed most of the sediment — and restored our relationship.
After the township’s board of commissioners imposed severe restrictions on the ability of dogs to roam the conservancy unleashed, I learned that a local cemetery allowed dogs to run free — the smell of dogs scared away gophers whose tunneling undermined the gravestones — and Oogy and I spent some time there. It was an altogether different kind of experience, without the sense of joyful abandon Oogy had experienced at the conservancy. The rolling hills of the cemetery had a dull uniformity to them. There was no creek. There was no one for him to romp with. The only times I saw other dogs there, they were too far in the distance for him to engage. We visited only four or five times, and none of the visits seemed even remotely satisfactory. It was obvious that Oogy sensed there was a difference. Walking among the graves, he never strayed. He never broke into a run. The lives of the dead, the frailty of being, a brief touch on the shoulder that we are wanted elsewhere — these were palpable. The proximity of the dead seemed a weight that neither of us could avoid.
Then, in an adjacent township, we found a legitimate dog park of some thirty acres, a place where dogs are permitted off leash. A small creek lies at the bottom of the park. Virtually any time of the day, dogs can be found running, fetching, rolling around, chasing each other in twos and in packs. We have been there when as many as thirty dogs were galloping across the plateau, walking, playing, dogs of every shape and size and color, breeds I had never heard of and could not have imagined. It’s like doggy heaven. The dog owners are a responsible group who watch out for one another’s pets. We know one another’s dogs by name and give them hugs and kisses as though they were our own; throw a ball or Frisbee for someone else’s dog; give water from the doggy water fountain to other people’s dogs. When another dog puts his muddy paws on my shirt so that he can give me a kiss, it is never a problem. After all, I tell his owner, we’re all here because we love dogs.
When Oogy plays with other dogs, they run and run in circles, wrestle, flop around. Watching Oogy barrel along makes me think of the films I have seen of old-time locomotives, the big black ones, pistoning forward. Oogy is nothing but power, all muscle and moving mass. He will run for the sheer joy of running. He has some regular friends, dogs he will invariably interact with, but on any given day there is no way to predict who will be there when we are. He has also earned the nickname “the sheriff.” When a couple of dogs start mixing it up, Oogy will invariably run to the altercation and check it out, and more than once he has started backing off the aggressor dog with barks and shoves.