Walks with Leporello, Thoughts on LOVE, GOD and DOG - 7. VII. Masetto and the Tennis Ball

VII. Masetto and the Tennis Ball

May 17, 2011

We are told that God created man in his own image. We are then told how man quickly revealed shortcomings. God’s disappointment, for those who hold the faith, is an ongoing limitation on our potential – our ability to connect with the flawless within ourselves. Of all of God’s manifest creations, man is his least honest, with himself, with the face he shows to others, and with his inherent potential to godliness. Of all of man’s many petty creations, working with what scraps we found around us, Dog is our greatest. For in him we stamped out not our own image in flawed coinage, but we created an honest portrayal of divine selflessness, and crowned him with the polar reward of man’s infidelity. Dog is man’s best creation, because we made him in God’s image. There is a Zen conundrum, of the “if a tree falls in the woods . . . ” ilk. The puzzle I am thinking of goes like this: Lord Buddha said a dog is free from the wheel of Dharma (the cycle of birth and rebirth), but a later master instructed that a dog can never be taught to be enlightened. How can that be? Now, the reason these conundrums exist is not to generate answers, not to even generate thoughts towards an answer, but to release thought from its own wheel of pointless roundabout misery. The goal of these puzzles is to free a seeking mind from its restless disease of philosophy – there is no answer. But my mind, afflicted as it is with thought, thinks the dog puzzle is an easy one. Dogs are born enlightened. They suffer none of the limiting ambition and scheming avarice that seems to be man’s self-appointed birthmark. To instruct them on godliness would be to presume to instruct God on the ecstasies of Dogliness.

Chip Brown, in his 1990 article on Airedales, mentions visiting with a family of these dogs. They offered their tennis balls to him as he sat – in the same fashion as Max had done to me – a test, they would not let go. Masetto, now eight months old, does this same Airedale thing. He grips the ball, holds it to my hand and then eyes me while he tenaciously grips it against my pulling. An eternal push; spring to spring to spring.

Tennis balls remind me of the many cutting room floor items that will not be elaborated on today. Like, how Leppy barked at a police horse and earned himself (that is, earned me) a ticket; how he would pull me into the open door of every hair salon or barber shop expecting to find a stadium full of people there (each hair on the floor speaking of an individual’s presence); how a mean old Scottie, unprovoked, bit him on the top of his nose and produced a scar there until his dying days; how he survived, one of the first dogs anywhere to do so, his bout with deadly melanoma via a new cancer vaccine; how he relished the flavor of carrots and of a particular soft-leaf weed that grows round about here; or how he would barge into the neighbor’s upstairs place to chase her wonderful cat Toro. Leppy, a bungling Keystone Kop of a lout, was never any match for fleet-sensed Toro.

But balls – tennis balls with their bounce – were his favorite toys. Social instruments as well as fun, he derived much from them. We could give a thousand, straight-from-the-package examples, but the gutter balls he found on the street: these he’d hold onto all the way back home, sometimes the tongue lolling from the side of his mouth, the heat no match for the joy the foundling ball provided. A veritable conundrum-sized problem arose when he chanced to find two gutter balls on the same outing. One would be dropped, the other picked up; dropped, again; picked up, etc., etc. Finally, he’d look to me, and I’d have to carry one of these grotty balls for its proud new owner. At the peak of youthful vigor we would take him to the double tennis courts at Corona Heights, and with the battered badminton racket Sunny picked out of the trash one day, hit ball after ball to him. He’d run into position, catch the ball in his mouth, drop it, and catch the next hit to him. After we exhausted our bagful of balls, we’d move to the other side of the court; I’d collect the balls, and Sunny would hit them back to Leppy waiting on the other side of the net. He could go on for an hour under the cloudless blue sky without even a pause, so we’d have to roll the balls into the far corners of the court and make him chase them one by one. Twenty minutes of this, and he’d finally plop down for a rest. A brief three minute respite, with sloppy tongue to the breeze, and he’d be up again ready to repeat the whole exercise. He loved the courts even when we were not on them, because I’d take him through the gates and to the trash cans. Pulling off the lid, Leppy would jump with front paws on the rim, and watch me extract discarded balls. Usually there’d be enough to fill a bag and one left over for his mouth to grip all the way home. How happy was he!

In the park he’d exhibit his social skills with tennis balls. He was never possessive, never broke his calm self-possession just because some dog ‘stole’ his ball. If he chased one we threw for him, and his trudge was interrupted on the way back by the chance meeting of another dog, the ball would be forgotten. Dropped in the grass, another dog to play with was always preferred. If that same dog, usually wary-eyed, bent down to pick up Leppy’s ball, he would positively present the body language of “Take it. It’s yours!”

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Masetto doesn’t have the same energy level. He plays a few minutes with a ball and seems to be fully satisfied. When Masetto’s age, Leporello would wake up in the middle of the night and play quietly for an hour or so in the dark. He’d toss the ball for himself, then scamper down our long hallway after it. He’d do this repeatedly, never bothering us, until he felt relaxed again. He never was a settled sleeper either. He preferred to get up and change position at least once an hour. Masetto in complete contrast, plonks down and snoozes the night away in one cozy spot.

Dogs look to us for the same guidance as we look to God. How ironic that while we look to a superior force of purity and love, they are forced to love an inferior example than themselves. It started on Labor Day 2010, the day that Leppy’s mortality was wedged into my immediate perspective. We visited friends in Bodega Bay. They insisted we bring Leppy and Figgy, but had they mentioned anything about their cats, we would not have brought them. Walking into their home, Leppy bumped into a feline who was napping. A quick swipe of the claw opened a tiny cut on Leppy’s right lower eyelid. A virus had been introduced to his system, but my only thought at the time was “we dodged a bullet with that one,” because his eye had not been scratched. A clean up of the trickle of blood, a dab of hydrogen peroxide and all seemed well. A check of the wound in the next couple of days shows a complete external healing, so the event was all but forgotten. So forgotten, that in the second week of October, when Doctor Fong told me Leporello was near death, and he asked me seemingly nonsense questions about where Leppy had been, I could not come up with the cat scratch. He asked me, could Leppy have encountered a raccoon? Was he digging and ingesting garden dirt? A virus, he said, one present in the natural environment could be causing Leppy’s renal failure. No, I said, no raccoons, no dirt – it was more than a month later that I recalled the scratch from an outdoor cat’s claw and the day of transmission.

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At the beginning of October, he went in for a regular checkup and everything seemed fine. Airedales have a notorious tolerance for pain, and when young, the only true way to know they feel under the weather is to gauge their badness. If they suddenly become angels, take them to the vet; something’s wrong. At Leppy’s age, he was a continual angel, so that standard no longer applied. I mentioned to the doctor his slowing down, but nothing suggested that a blood test was needed. After that, Leppy slowly became ill. No fever, no loss of appetite, but his drinking increased, his energy continued to decrease, and finally, ever loosening stools appeared. If a fever had appeared I would have known to take him back to the vet sooner, but by the second week of October, his prognosis was very grim. The morning I took him in again he had vomited, he had stopped eating, and he had full-blown diarrhea. The doctor told me they’d start fluids and intravenous antibiotics. Broached next was the subject of euthanasia. I respect each difficult decision ever made in this regard, but somehow I always ‘knew’ two things about Leporello: one, he’d live to be fifteen; and two, he’d pass at home with Sunny and me by his side. These were things I never consciously thought about, or had as goals, they were just always there, in the back of my mind, obtained at time unknown or by channel unexplained. But, there I was, my fourteen-year-old dog on the verge of being humanely killed before a virus murdered him in the hospital. “Do what you can,” I said. He was no better, in fact much worse, 9 hours later when I picked him up from his regular vet. They had no overnight care, so decision number two had to be made. Take him home, home to die that night, or take him to the referral doctors with their 24/7 treatment facilities. We picked up the tired-looking but still ambulatory Leppy and took him to the overnight care facility. They continued his treatment of fluids and antibiotics. At 6 AM he was to receive another blood test with immediate processing. If his blood toxicity was not on the rebound, another decision would have to be made. The phone rang at 7 o’clock – not only no better, but worse. Forgetting her impeccable bedside manner, the doctor wondered out loud how it was that Leppy was still conscious with the reported levels of coma-inducing poison in his blood. I told her, he’s coming home – no more needles; no more fluorescent lighting; just peace.

I have to say I was shocked to see Leppy twenty minutes later. He was barely able to walk that morning as he came through the ward doors to me in the waiting room. The overnight nurse who had cared for him the entire time slowly led a dog who acted so out of sorts, he did not immediately react to my presence. I was handed his lead and told the doctor wanted to talk to me, but my thought was to get Lep into the car. As I hoisted him into the back of our SUV and settled him on a blanket, he looked up at me. Those same guileless eyes that have looked at me for all those years from the picture frame – from that first Sunday we had him – they looked straight into me. “So tired,” they said. “I’m so tired – you understand me.”

The doctor came rushing out to the car. She looked like she was about to cry. “I’m so sorry,” she told me. “I’m so sorry.”

“No,” I said, glancing through the open car door. Leppy had repositioned himself to face the two of us. “No. Please call his vet and tell them we’ll try one more day of treatment. One more day.”

Something passed in that look. The ‘something’ to me was clear, but I must have conveyed another thing to Leporello, something that let him know I was supremely unready to lose him, and he, though he probably wanted to continue on to comforting rest, decided selflessly to fight. He, I firmly believe, at that moment fought on for my sake. In the very ecstasy of his own supreme suffering, he thought first of my pain, and my suffering was something he could not abide. He grasped onto love with the same tenacity as on a tennis ball. He would not let go, if I could not let go.

At the end of another nine hours, I took him home, but I could tell a marked improvement had occurred. The near-zombie of the morning was gone. He greeted me with tired jubilation and anxious energy to go home. The staff reported good news – he had eaten. The caregiver dedicated to assisting him that day had been inspired to try baby food: puréed turkey. Patiently he enticed an at-first-apathetic Leporello. He then rubbed some on his patient’s gums, and Leppy, despite himself, developed an appetite. Reluctantly at first, then with relish, he polished off several jars. This same nurse instructed me on how to give the fluids at home, Doctor Fong saying there was a chance his kidneys would be kick-started back into some function. This, with antibiotics, was Leppy’s only chance, but at dark-horse odds.

Getting Leppy settled at home, he showed no interest in the rugs, or carpet, but was actively sniffing for Figaro. Once he assured himself his little Cocker charge was safe and secure, Leppy settled down on his couch in the kitchen with obvious relief. Figaro, never one to stand on ceremony, sidled up to Leppy’s flank and curled up in his belly section. Leppy for his part, as far as anyone could observe by his cool demeanor, positively curled up around the Cocker Spaniel in comfortable reciprocation. He was home.

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The super volume of fluids introduced into his system meant he had to go outside every 3 hours. I’d help him stand, but otherwise he’d take himself up the three broad steps to the garden from the back door and relieve himself. I prepared his food – chicken cooked with macaroni – and pulled out the baby food I bought before I picked him up. I tried rubbing it on the inside of his gum, but he didn’t seem too interested. I prayed the next morning would find him hungry. To be ready to assist him during the night, I moved the outdoor sofa cushion indoors and arranged it on the kitchen floor next to Leppy’s couch. We slept that way – he sleeping more than I did – shaking off all those needles and fluorescent lights in a dark dreamless sleep. In the morning, I retried the baby food, and he seemed just as uninterested. This more than anything panicked me. He motivated running on several days with very little nourishment, and he could die from lack of strength. Something inspired me to try another way. A new approach – I dabbed some on the top of his nose. Out of sheer annoyance, his tongue would make an appearance and wipe it clean. After ten or so licks, I suppose the saliva glands were stimulated and the flavor in his mouth created an appetite. Soon he was licking it off my finger, then out of the jar, then another jar, then another. By afternoon, he was gingerly picking chicken pieces out of the macaroni. Then by evening, he was eating the starch too. But back in the morning, after he had something in his stomach, I gave him a liter of fluids and he napped soundly with Figaro at his side. Repeating this, my sleeping in the kitchen, staying up late watching late 1980s Friday the 13th: the Series reruns on TV and trying to get myself tired enough to go to sleep for three hours, Leppy and I passed many nights to come. But within a couple of days of our new routine, unbelievably – unbelievable for anyone who does not know what an Airedale who’s made up his mind can do – he improved. He began to eat his full. His stool returned to normal, and by the second week, he was wagging his tail at the sight of Doctor Fong.

“Have you met the Lazarus dog!” I called out to the vet from the waiting room.

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Hard to believe, but by Halloween, not only was he better, but he was better than in the weeks before his illness. His fluid volume was reduced to a third, to 500 milliliters daily, and his body adjusted to his new situation with complete continence. I stopped sleeping in the kitchen, and Leppy too returned to the bedroom and his bed. Upstairs was warmer, and cozier with all four of us resuming our slumber routine.

But like the character of Mary in Little Women, the recovery may have been full, but the constitution was weakened. Like Mary’s, Leppy’s time was limited. Miracle it felt on November 4th, 2010, to celebrate his fifteenth birthday. He tore open his presents with the same gusto as he did on his first. These days – six months and one day extra to be exact – were not selfish days. He resumed doing what was routine, walking the familiar sidewalks, and touching people like the open-armed baby in the stroller, and our lady neighbor into whose hugs he settled to receive her gentle “I love you.”

There were ups and downs, but Thanksgiving was a time for all his human friends to visit with him. He relished their attention, and his new charge, Masetto, learned by example how an Airedale properly attends a court of admirers. By Christmas, there was more wrapping paper to rip open, though he left all the toy contents to Masetto and Figaro to play with. Each morning I spent a couple of hours on his medical care, but these tasks were never very demanding. These few days since he died, I have kept this time – the time I spent on him – to write these essays. These hours set aside for him are not easy for me to give up, but with the time used to try and heal him, I have turned the proverbial clock, and borrowed his minutes no longer needed to try and heal myself.

When Leppy died, the layers of my grief seemed to focus on a certain bleakness of perspective. Namely, for fifteen years – looking backwards – I could find his presence there in each and every day. But looking forward, a future loomed where he did not exist in even one more of those days. But, by writing these seven essays, one every day for a week, I have cheated death, for at least in seven of these endlessly bleak days that stretch ad nauseam to my own death, Leporello walked with me. I forced him to be with me so that he will ever be here with me. I hope he chooses to remain through choice, but either way, I know I let him go – that I can let him go now, knowing that sooner or later, we will walk again together. I have less fear now that I shall forget his sweet alkaline scent, and I have better ascended faith’s rungs that I shall smell Leppy’s sweet presence again, when I am ready – when I am worthy.

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Yesterday we picked up his remains. They rode in my lap back home, the sad remainder of us taking that little pup from Max and Abby Gail’s side, and of that trip when he first came home with us. Then a certain plain mouse toy awaited him, and now a certain emptiness awaited the rest of us. After his passing – peacefully on his couch with us gathered around – Sunny and I performed the rites of family. We observed his obsequies with tear-stained eyes, wiping him clean from head to tail with moist towelettes and laying him down on the blanket from our bed. This blanket Sunny bought in Japan specifically for Leppy’s comfort and one that could be a bedspread against his nails that frayed all others. Sunny removed the name tag from his collar and placed it near his head, below his chin. When he was dying – the minute or two after he stopped breathing, but his heart continued to rush blood to his brain – I summoned all my strength and asked Max to come and lead him to them – to his mother and brothers and sisters, and I know he was there, there to collect his child from us as we had from him. Sunny placed the tag so Leppy could recognize his remains if he had to, and so that others could identify him too. For my part, I knew what I had to do, though it broke my heart. I went to retrieve a well-loved, faintly soiled little object. Without its blue-lined ears, or its rope tail, the mouse was otherwise intact. Leppy had ripped and eviscerated any number of toys of their stuffing – a hundred, perhaps – but through all the years he left his mouse alone. I placed it on the blanket with him – I did not want to – but I knew I had no right to keep it anymore. It went with him.

On the way home, I mentioned to Sunny that I had been thinking. Some of his ashes we should keep with us, but with the rest, we should set him free. Free to run amongst the dogs in the parks he loved: Corona Heights, Buena Vista, and especially in Duboce Park. We must share him with those he loved. And that’s what we did.

I started this with one question in mind: How can a Creator, a creator we are raised to believe exists in pure love, allow pain to exist? How can he in his creation have opened a door for loss to creep in? If he loved us, how can he have wrought in that love a pain that tempers love at the same moment? But, perhaps suffering is the one aspect of the Divine that we are allowed. Perhaps it is suffering that acts through the muddling confusion of human conceit itself. It tells us we are not the dashing, the urbane or polished, the artless, the self-possessed or meekly-lost people we fancy ourselves to be, sometimes in turns, sometimes all in a jumble. No, we are at best, faulty reflectors of the Divine moment when flashed the bitterest pain that God picked at the start of this world. For when a parent has to watch their child die before them of old age, we assume God’s vantage – we are forced to see a plain stretch before us of lonely and seemingly helpless sorrow.

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When I was a child, and out riding with my father, for he loved his twilight rambles, I would ask him if he knew what God’s favorite color was. “Green,” I’d tell him myself, “just look around!” And so God’s green ever pushes, always new, always at the pinnacle of optimism, and thus pushing, like Masetto closing his eyes to better take in the relishing of life and its emotions – the same as Max did with his parakeet. I too close my eyes, and I see Leporello. I close my eyes, and the force of ecstasy there I will tenaciously hold to myself. Through his image I will be able to remind myself, in dark days ahead, of the true force of Love, of God, and of Dog.

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