[Critique Group 1] Pieces are due today

[Leonard Tuchyner]

Hi group1,

Your submissions are due  today. Mine is below.


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Dogs and Water

 

April was the only dog who would rather have swum than walked.This became clear to me when  on a trekaround  our 5-acre lake. I called April,but she was nowhere to be found, so I decided to leave without her. Havingcrossed  the lake’s dam, I spied her onthe other side and called her again. The dam was no more than 10 feet from her,but she  splashed into the lake and swamto join us. 

April was a 75-pound dog with shaggy black and white fur, amixed breed of something like golden retriever and collie. She would often  be seen following a canoe we were paddling  down the length of  Lake Saponi. By following, I mean  swimming behind us. The ‘us’ could have beenanyone in my family.  We could outpaceher with our paddles, but sooner or later April would catch up. 

I doubt that the dog could have sunk.  Her fur was so long and  buoyant that if she stopped dead in the water she still would have floated, with her head sitting perfectlycomfortably looking at us. 

I recall a time that I was  fishing for catfish on the banks of the lake,when I hooked a whopper.  I got him outof the water and was halfway up the  bankwhen he fell off the hook.  Being afraidof grabbing it the  wrong way and beingimpaled by the very sharp and long dorsal fin, I tried to kick it up the hill.However, I couldn’t kick it quite hard enough, and it flip-flopped  back down the bank. So, I kicked it againbefore it reached the water, only to see it flopping down the bank at me again.So, I kicked it the third time,  only onthis occasion I was rewarded by the spine penetrating my sneaker. Boy, did thatsmart! But I was fired up, and I was prepared to kick it once again, whenApril, who had been quietly observing me from the top of the bank, decided to help me out. She followed the fish down the bank and gingerly pickedit up, carried it to the top of the bank, far enough back from the edge to makeits struggles  futile.  She lay down next to it and waited for me topick it up for the frying pan. I swear she looked at me as though to say, “Humans,Hmph.”

Another dog that lived with me prior to that time was Aric,a black lab, who was also a water dog. But he related to it in a different way.For one thing, He was a fetcher. Water was there to see what he could drag outof it. He loved me to send a missile as far as I could so that he couldretrieve it. The bigger the  missile, thebetter. Whole limbs of trees were no problem for him. It took some doing to getthese objects into the water, but not to bring them back, as long as theydidn’t sink. He brought stuff back even if it was not thrown.  I guess he thought that if something was outthere, it must have been thrown by someone. 

Water was  there tomake him look good. He loved getting on a wharf or a tall rock and launchinghimself into the drink. Aric did it with amazing aplomb. Each time he launchedhimself, it was a perfect dive. Since he was already a beautiful dog, the divesemphasized  his lines. He knew it, too.It was as though he said, “Hey, watch this.” However, he was not given to long,tranquil voyages following canoes.

My dog, Pepper, was not fond of the water. A mixed breed of dalmatianand English setter, he  would ratherwatch  and bark at others swimming, thanto do it himself. But I’ll never forget the time he thought I was drowning  in the Gulf of Mexico.  He forgot about his dislike of the wet stuffand jumped in to save me.  How thathappened is another story for another time. 

Bob was a purebred dalmatian. Maybe you’ve heard, dalmatiansand water don’t mix. I have found that to be exactly right. I got Bob as apuppy and paid top dollar for him. That was before I knew of his absolute terror of water. 

I learned of his antipathy to bodies of water when he washalf grown. We were invited to spend the weekend at a cabin in the woods by a couplewe knew. To get to their cabin, we had to cross a shallow stream in our car.Going  there was no problem. The streamwas no more than a few inches deep at its greatest  depth. In fact, I would call it a brook.  Bob and their dog  galivanted all over the place, disappearinginto the woods and showing up again just to let us know all was well. 

When it was time to go home, I decided to walk out to thedirt road just before the brook. So, my wife drove out to the road and waitedfor us. However, when we got to the water, Bob refused to cross. There was noway I could get him to wet his paws. Finally, I decided to break him of his fear with the possibility ofabandonment.  So, I crossed the brook, gotinto the car and we drove away, slowly. Finally, abandonment  became the greater fear, and he crossed. Nevertheless, he didn’t  get on better terms with bodies of water.

Back at the lake, I remember we went to get a floating dockback that had floated off in a rain storm. We found the dock on the other sideof the lake, in an alcove. When we arrived there on dry land, one end wasanchored by a spit of earth. It wasn’t going to be hard to coax it off itsslight hold on terra firma. We would then paddle it back to its rightful berthing.I convinced Bob to get on the wharf. No easy trick. But when I  pushed it off its mooring, Bob began toshake.  My friend who went with me wassurprised how frightened he was. Bob wanted to jump off to dry land, butthere  was already a growing gap ofwater  between us and land. So, hewas  stuck for the duration. He shook thewhole way. He had never been knowingly that deep in  the drink. When we got to where we touchedland  again, he was the first one off. 

With most  of thecanines that lived with me, I never got the chance to find out what their relationship to the water was. But I knowthey are as varied as humans are, as is the case with all relationships  everywhere. 

 
 
Leonard I. Tuchyner, Author
 
https://www.dldbooks.com/tuchyner/

 
  
 
 

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