The Long and Short of A Dog Story

Chapter 5: Transformation

I just happened to be leaning on that poplar chewing a stem.

Lying in my bed I pull a pillow over my face to stifle the sobs that no one is there to hear. Butterbean has been gone a month, and I am still busted up. I did what I needed to prevent going to jail after her poisoning by the executioner who owns Poison House next door.

Having walked the thin blue line earlier in life, I know, as any cop can tell you, how to get away with, let’s not say murder, but certain forms of extreme vandalism. In order to prevent the worst, I verbally unhinged the man in the street as he passed by my driveway. His response was typical. He denied. He threw his wife, the young woman who rented that sorry house, and me under the bus. I called him on it. He tried gaslighting. “How do you know it was poison?” he asked.

“Seven hundred bucks spent at two different vets who could not help tells me so, you asshole!” I shouted in his face. Then he told me how his old dog got poisoned on a golf course once. WTF?

“I don’t care about your dog!” I yelled. “I care that you are responsible for the death of a completely innocent being, a little blind dog, who never hurt anybody or anything!”

“I told that girl if anything happened while you were there, it was on her.”

“Stop! Just stop! You grown-ass man, take some responsibility. It’s your house. You’re the one spreading poison, not just at your house, but all over the neighborhood. You murdered my dog!”

“You’re just blabbing now. Stop yelling and we could discuss this matter like adults.” He stepped forward onto my lawn.

“There is no discussion.” I clenched my teeth so hard I loosened a chip, swallowed it. “I don’t want to talk about it. You killed my dog! Get the fuck off my property, murderer, and don’t ever step foot on it again. And keep your damn poisoned mice out of my water buckets!”

You will notice, as I did, there was never an apology; not even the squirmy just- outside-true-accountability kind, where the perpetrator says he’s sorry the dog got into the poison, or even that he’s sorry she’s dead. Still, confronting the man worked. It relieved me of seeking all-out revenge, for I was in a dark place, indeed. I would not have to make bail for sugaring his gas tank, or spraying bleach on his landscaped flowers. Or worse.

Within three weeks of Bean’s death, I found two more dead mice floating in a bucket of water I left in my yard to catch rain for the new plants. I scooped their stinking little bodies with a shovel, dumped them into a plastic grocery bag, tied the handles into a bow, and knotted it to the railing that led up the steps to the Bean killer’s front door. Beneath the bow, I scrawled on an orange sticky note, “I believe these are yours. I’m returning them. STOP USING POISON!!”

Some people might say I went too far. Some might tell me long parables that illustrate forgiveness. Those people might not have lost their Butterbean to the negligence of a slum lord. They certainly would not have cradled their beloved pet as it died an excruciating, undeserved death. For sure, they would not be former cops who might well have done much more than call an idiot out in the street. The level of forgiveness that man requires is way above my pay grade. I will be the first to admit it.

I’m happy to have prevented committing a crime against a nasty neighbor who lives half a block away. If my methods seem crude, I understand there are more delicate sensibilities than mine. What I grok about myself is that the actions I take, or words I use, when drawing a line in the sand are done to circumvent my imagination from creating an even harsher reality.

Bill poisoned my fountain of unconditional love. The touchstone that kept me alive during the dog days of my life was missing. What was given and received in my relationship with that sweet blind dog was no longer available. I was lost. I hated to come home without her waiting on the other side of the door to greet me. I didn’t even love my home anymore. I built this little paradise for the two of us. What good was it without her? I was all alone. Who would I discuss the day’s events with?

A month after she died, I sat by her grave and talked it over with her in the way we had learned to do before she left me. I said, “I don’t know what to do. I need a dog, Bean. I don’t think I can be alright without a dog to love me, to be loved by me. Yeah, I wanted to go to Iceland, but I need a dog more.”

I heard her say, “Well, if you’re bound to get one, you better go ahead and get it. You’re pretty well trained right now.” There was a pause for the “pretty well trained,” to sink in before she continued. “If you wait, even a year, you won’t stay trained. You’ll have to start from scratch. That’s hard at your age.”

Butterbean always spoke her mind. I didn’t take offense. I started looking online and calling around to see if there was a dachshund that needed a home. An older dachshund that I could befriend. It’s a thankless and damn near impossible task to find a dog like that. Most of the ones I found were either in poor health (Bean broke that bank) or they were even older than me. I didn’t want to get one that would die soon. There are no guarantees on a dachshund, but there is pet insurance, if they’re young and healthy.

I found the answer at a dachshund breeder’s in east Tennessee. I was wary. The head on that puppy looked too big for its body. I told the breeder this after looking up hydrocepahlus in small breeds. I also said I was gun shy of buying a pup at that price point who was not perfectly healthy. She sent me a video clip. At the end of the clip she held the little girl up, said, “She has this extra dew claw on her hind leg. I’m really sorry. I suppose I could get it removed.”

My ears pricked.I felt a light glissando trill up my spine. “Oh, no, don’t touch the dew claw. I’m glad it’s there. Really glad. It’s good luck, a witchy thing.” It’s Bean, I thought. She’s in that dew claw. It’s the pup’s Bean Toe.

When I googled what an extra dew claw on a dog meant, I read that the phenomenon is rare in small breeds. In the South, they are quite specific about their folklore. An extra dew claw, or sixth toe, especially on the hind leg of a dog, signifies protective magic. The animal can’t be killed by a poisonous snake because all the poison goes into the extra dew claw. If I needed confirmation that this was a true sign, there it was in writing. The Bean Toe would soak up any poison, since it could no longer hurt my Butterbean.

Cats with an extra toe or claw or often called Hemingway cats. Supposedly they bring good fortune to the writer, while the author is writing, at least. I don’t know since things didn’t work out so well for old Earnest. Anyone who knows dachshunds understands they have a lot of cat in them. They do what they please, as they sling a side eye at your last command. Not a cat, but a dachshund with a sixth toe was exactly what I needed.

The Knott dog (as opposed to the Hemingway cat) is a lucky dog.

My friend Jane and I made the drive to a McDonald’s outside of Knoxville on the Saturday of Summer Solstice. We had baby’s first picnic at a park on Lake Cherokee before heading back to Asheville. The pup was a dapple, light brown with dark domino spots. She wore black eyeliner, which emphasized her round dark eyes. She was soft and cuddly and sleepy. She had never seen grass or lain in the sun before. Everyone wanted to pet her. It was lovely for all three of us.

McKenna Seior Knott was christened and is part of my household now. Kenna means “of fire born.” Her middle name is a secret word for magic. Born on April 8, she is an Aries, as am I. She loves anything red. So far she has fallen through the deck slats reaching for a red leaf. She ripped a red rose from its thorny perch, no matter the splinters in her teeth. She chewed a hole in the red toes of my socks.

She had her own toes stepped on by my work boot, got caught in the screen door when she zipped in behind me, just missed being crushed by a heavy rocker. If she survives puppyhood, she will be a tough little Doxie. She is fearless, unafraid of thunder, lightning, fireworks, a bear, or the warning shot fired into trees above the bear’s head. She can stay several hours in her corral while I go to appointments or run errands, although I don’t like to leave her that long. She loves to ride in the car and I take her with me as much as the hot weather allows.

Potty training is proving tough. Because she doesn’t really understand what grass is, besides something you loll about on, or that she should do her business in the lovely green stuff, she refuses to use her very own back yard as a potty dump. She plays for hours outside with me, then runs into the house to pee on her pad. Worse, she’s a poo eater. I’m breaking her of it, but this is complicated by her inborn quickness and the fact that she prefers to make the poo inside, rather than in her yard. She friggin’ loves the stuff. This may be TMI, but I didn’t want you to think she was perfect in every way. She also has the sharpest teeth since baby Merkel with his shark teeth, and like him, persists in doling out love bites that pierce my thin skin. There’s not a bedsheet, towel, or tee shirt that is not stained with her favorite color.

I know there are readers who have fallen in love with Bean by now. Who wouldn’t? She was the best-mannered, most important dog I’ve ever owned. I learned more from Butterbean than any human in my long history of loving humans. She loved me as I was, and for no other reason than the fact that I belonged to her, heart and soul. Mind and body, I was her human. She was my dog. Those truths stand.

I ache for my Butterbean every morning and every evening. Life would be too perfect if I could have had them both. Never fear. Life is not perfect. Odds are against it. But when I come home now, there is someone waiting on the other side of the door. When I enter, Kenna will jump up and down on her hind legs just as Bean did, the way neither of them should do with their dachshund backs.

No other dog will be able to take Bean’s place, but I find there is room for another to lay beside her in the long grass of home, here in Swannanoa, where we all reside. And here we will remain, barking our way happily towards dog heaven, where one day we all will be reunited. Then, when the treats are handed out, you can bet we’ll be sitting pretty.

THE END

KNOTT!

Transformation. A new beginning…