The Adventures of
Hody
By
A Friend
I came to know Hody in the heat waves of July, 2012. His Male Human calls him a Jack Russell but
conversations with other interested parties leave me thinking he is part border
collie as well. Consider his coloring: it
is the border collie’s white with black splotches and freckles, like an
exceedingly good portion of Oreos ice cream.
And his ears do not stand at constant attention as he walks, which a
terrier’s do. On the other hand, his
demeanor is all terrier. He is
determined, quick, stubborn and larky.
Then, too, he is as huge as a Jack Russell and as playful.
In fact, most of Hody’s day is marvelous play or delicious
naps. In his profession of playing and
napping, he has proven himself an ambassador, comedienne, man of medicine,
gourmand, hurdle racer and lover.
My acquaintance with Hody is mostly in the context of
out-of-doors. He makes a fierce noise
when I pick him up, sometimes for joy and sometimes because he likes to pretend
I am a robber and should be warned sternly away from his home. His Male Human prefers to put him in his
halter because Hody is so soft and glossy to the touch. When I perform this maneuver, I place the
halter on the floor, then pick up his paws and place them inside, praying he doesn’t
decide to dance in the seconds it takes to click the halter closed. Then we snap on the leash and out we go, in
a stately manner, as far as the threshold of the building, when he bolts into
the broader space of the sidewalk.
Sometimes he has a bodyguard or two waiting for him. He is thrilled to see who is waiting and
bolts over so that they can perform their Maypole dance of butt-sniffing. My own dog, Daisy, is always one of his
regiment of protectors and they see each other at least once a day. Still, they have to inspect each other’s
orifices in case one of them is really a cat or a squirrel that is in Daisy or
Hody disguise.
With the leashes untangled, the time has come to make a most
crucial decision: where should Hody pee first?
Recycling bags (from which odors are neither absorbed nor washed away)
are ideal, but so are the fringes of grass and ivy poking out of fences and
tree railings. The only thing that is
better than recycling is recycling with another dog’s piddle on it. It is an ecstasy of ownership. This place is mine, Hody grins as he
trots off the next stop, his black ears bobbing like a baby’s hands waving.
But I forget myself.
There is one thing that exceeds even peeing on pee on recycling. That is peeing over his bodyguards’ pee on
recycling. When Daisy and Gertie escort
Hody out into the world, I have to pause a long time for this business because
Gertie must co-sign each of Daisy’s signatures and then Hody trumps them both. They get in line behind Daisy and are quite
impatient to prove themselves as worthy a gusher as Daisy. What the black and yellow Labradors produce
in quantity, however, Hody exceeds in frequency. Sometimes he teases me by sniffing so seriously at a spot that
I’m sure and event will occur, only to shrug his little terrier shoulders and
continue his bob-bob-bobbing along down the street.
“Hod,” I say when he is, near the end of a walk, as I
confess I call it, shooting blanks.
“You’re yanking my chain.”
“Walker,” he says back, “there are only two important things
in life: what is in front of your nose and that you leave as much behind in
this world as you find. And if all you
can do is go through the motions of giving yourself away, that’s enough.”
“Did you acquire your knowledge of philosophy at Harvard?” I
asked him recently, but he only grinned and climbed a stoop to be adored by a
man watering the geraniums in his window box.
Because I live nearby and have a dog as well as walking
other dogs, I have a large acquaintance in the neighborhood that Hody has been
delighted to share. He is now a
notorious Lothario, having no use for boys but a healthy desire to get to know
any girl he meets. He is especially
fond of Sophie, a mix of hound and some other beautiful race, who appears (but
is not, in reality) to be about three times as big as Hody. She bows to him and he crouches to her, then
pounces so that they meet in an embrace of rapture, his legs hugging her waist
as hers rest momentarily on his shoulders.
After this greeting, it is time to get serious again. There is another Maypole dance and then Hody
mounts her.
“That’s my boy!” his Human Male crowed when I told him of
Hody’s dalliances. “A true Smith.”
A few days later, I extolled Hody’s exploits to his Human
Female Family Member. “Oh, no,” she
lamented in horror. “What will people
think of the Smiths?”
I looked at Hody, who wagged his upright tail complete
agreement with his Human Male’s pride, which is only proper for a dog of great
heart.
In this way, Hody has become acquainted with Grace, a bull
dog, Talullah, a Bassett-Rottweiler mix, Sandy, a golden retriever, Lucy, a
gray poodle, and numerous flings. So
far he has shown no interest in his bodyguards but this is perhaps professional
discretion on his part.
I have introduced him to Schuyler as well. Schuyler is a whippet who is used to being
picked on. He is so fast that other
dogs chase and chase him and sometimes, when Schuyler decides to rest, those
dogs gnaw on him as a piece of prey.
Schuyler is, therefore, a suitable young man for Hody to play with
because he dodges behind his Human’s legs while Hody snarls and lunges, then
comes out to bow when Hody gives up on his objections.
They can play this game forever.
Hody’s only true enemy is a German shepherd. He does not like that German shepherd at
all. I have a rule about the dogs
Hody dislikes and I am forced to remind him of it at least once every other
day: if the dog is too big to eat in one sitting, he must desist from
attacking. His Humans do not have
refrigeration space for a German shepherd, you see.
In his role as ambassador, Hody has welcomed Spanish,
Italian and Dutch visitors to these American shores, as well as tourists from
Out There Where There Are Yards. Many
visitors come to his Promenade in order to photograph the fence that keeps us
from falling into the fascinating but frustratingly forbidden rushing cars
below. Daisy patrols the benches in
advance, making sure there are no crackers or hamburgers in Hody’s way, and
Hody follows, looking for a hand and listening of the kick-kick sound
that dogs know Humans think is Dog Talk.
Ears are good, butt is best, and in this heat wave it is always pleasant
to sit under in shade under the bench in order to beg to be released from the
persecution and sadism he receives from me.
There is a last piece of business Hody must perform
outdoors. We will not delve deeply into
it but suffice it to say that it is very exciting when it involves leaping over
a tree railing, pacing around and around the tree so that my arms are wrapped
around the trunk trying to keep hold of his leash, and then, when I am either
dizzy or holding the leash in the crook of my little finger, enjoying the sweet
relief we all prefer not to speak of.
Because life is never dull, going home is as much a joyful
profession as going out for a walk.
Sometimes the Human with the Cookies in His Right Pocket is outside the
apartment building door! Sometimes the
Human with Suzie is there and they to sing together. But at the very least there is cooler air inside, followed by a
welcome home cookie and the laughter of his very own Human Man who is ready
with his Almost a Rabbit that must be killed after so much marking up the
neighborhood and teasing of the Human Walker.
The Human Man tosses the many-tailed Almost Rabbit and Hody bounds off
to retrieve it, shaking it and breaking its Almost Rabbit neck, growling
menacingly in case the Almost Rabbit should decide to fight back. Hody can kill Almost Rabbits for hours but
at some point even Hody –
– must –
–
sleep.
That, of course, is most comfortably done in bed, and in a
proper bed, with lots of
pillows and cool sheets and warm blankets and Human
Adoration. A pillow is a nice extra
mattress but every dog knows that the best place to rest one’s head is on a
Human Limb (although it is very comforting to snuggle deep against a Human’s
side as well.). Part of the joy of
Hody’s nearly perfect life (German shepherds and not being able to jump up and
drink from water fountains like Daisy) is that his Human Woman is always ready
to be a headrest. When you are as big
as Hody, and as abused by a Walker, you need the warmth and tenderness of a
Human in order to restore your acuity for hunting, and this the Human Woman
provides as she pursues her own dreams of fresh fields, splashy puddles, Real
Rabbits and the occasional snow. Each
sleeps better for the other until it is time to eat or hunt or claim the
streets again for his own.
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