Ode to Lucie

A couple days ago Lucie—our beloved black lab/border collie mutt—tried to jump up onto our bed for her ritual pre-dawn cuddle… and didn't make it. Her back legs just don't have the oomph any more. It was a sad moment.

Lucie weighs about 50 pounds and turned 12 this month. While otherwise in good health, a dozen good years is about all you can expect for a large dog, and here we are. Though we knew this time was coming, it's no less difficult for having arrived.

We three—Susan, Lucie, and I—are the sentient animals that comprise home base for us, which is all the more precious in these days of home quarantine. While we are all getting well along (Susan and are septuagenarians and Lucie is the canine equivalent) we are loath to break up a good thing.

To be sure, age has been creeping up on Lucie for some time. In the last couple years she's lost interest in playing fetch (too much running), and a few months ago she started balking at walks that featured too many uphill steps. This month we started feeding her glucosamine supplements to help with her aging joints. This morning Susan and I discussed making her a step platform so that she can get onto the bed—which may or may not solve the immediate problem.

At this point Lucie has no trouble getting into her usual spot on the living room couch, which is only 18 inches off the floor, and she can still manage to ascend onto the bed in the back bedroom (22 inches), from which second-story perch she can oversee everything happening to the east (border collies like to be in control, which can make them difficult to distinguish from humans). As our bed is 28 inches off the floor, we're thinking of a platform that's 14 inches high so that she can negotiate the bed in two steps. (I like to think that Susan would build me a step platform, too, if I had trouble getting in and out of bed—but hopefully that level of allegiance won't be tested.)

While Susan and I are hopeful that we'll have an extended stretch of quality time with Lucie yet, these changes in her range and capacity bring her mortality into our consciousness, and it's a tender topic. It causes us to reflect on how much dogs can become integral components of our emotional world, which they accomplish through an attractive combination of attributes: touch friendly, highly relational, comfortable with routine, minimally judgmental, and extremely loyal. They are the quintessential personification of unconditional love, and who has too much love in the their life?

Lucie joined Susan's household in 2009. I joined in 2016. Both Lucie and I have a similar story: we experienced upheaval in our respective worlds and Susan became our safe harbor in storm-tossed seas. The last four years have been a terrific time all around. A silver lining to staying home right now is that I'm not missing any of these days of poignancy with Lucie. Blessedly, we three have the spaciousness in our lives right now to make the most of what we have.

Eight Days Before the Mass

I woke up this morning with 70 pounds of warm mass leaning against my left thigh. Ceilee's pit bull, Zeus, had once again crawled onto my air mattress and snuggled against me in the night.

While not the same as sleeping with my wife—which I love and which I prefer—I am very fond of Zeus and happy to have his company in bed when I'm on my own, which has been the case this past fortnight for my road trip stops in Oakland and Las Vegas.

(The only downside is the challenge of peeing in the middle of the night. Extricating myself from the air mattress is analogous to climbing out of a vat of jello in the dark with a sentient wriggler moving between my legs, hoping to lick my face. When you're groggy and have to go, it's an interesting exercise in balance, patience, and spatial perception. Worse, by the time I return a few minutes later, Zeus will have repositioned himself smack in the middle of the warm spot and I have to fight him for the covers.)

• • •

In 1840 Richard Dana, Jr published Two Years Before the Mast, a compelling story about the privation of common sailors aboard sailing vessels. The writing was based on the author's personal experience in 1834-36, when he left Harvard to go to sea in an attempt to improve his vision after it had been compromised by a bad case of the measles. Though his intention had been to improve his eyesight, Dana gained insight into the plight of basic sailors (whose quarters were in the forecastle—before the mast) and his book became a bestseller. Though born into the owning class (he'd enlisted as a 19-year-old sailor on a ship his father owned), Dana was deeply affected by his experience and went on to become an antislavery activist.

Dana's story is affirmation of the potency of the classic admonition to walk a mile in the other person's moccasins. After coming to know a sailor's life—from first-hand experience, not just as a thought exercise—his patrician views about the social consequences of capitalism were forever tempered.

This age-old lesson maps well onto cooperative group dynamics and the skill of facilitation. As a trainer, I teach students:

1. Seeing It Through the Speaker's Perspective
It's important to be able to be the other person when establishing a connection; to see the presenting dynamic through their eyes—just as Dana was able to write from the experience of a sailor before the mast. This is not about agreeing with the speaker; it's about being able to authentically speak for them. This can be huge when the speaker feels misunderstood or isolated—which is often the case if they are upset.

To do this well, you need to be able to bridge to both their position and their affect.

2. Translation
When Person A and Person B are missing each other and unable to get traction on the issue at hand, a good facilitator may be able to pull them out of the mud by translating what Person A said into language (or perhaps imagery) that's accessible to Person B while still being recognizable to Person A—and then being able to do the same thing going the other way.

To be able to pull this off, the facilitator needs to be able to first recognize that a miss is occurring (it's usually not that hard to accurately diagnose off-comments or querulous looks), and then find a frame of reference that both parties can access. It's this second step that's harder, requiring that the facilitator be able to articulate a bridge that each player can walk across.

This takes Dana's insight to another level. To be good at translation, it is not enough that the facilitator can describe the ends of the bridge (each person's position); the facilitator must manifest a connection between the positions that both parties believes is substantial enough that it will support their weight.

• • •

Today is get-away day. This evening I catch a dedicated Amtrak van that will take me to Kingman AZ, where I'll rendezvous after midnight with the eastbound Southwest Chief, rambling in from Los Angeles. Thursday morning, Ma'ikwe will be waiting to collect me at the art deco train station in La Plata MO. Yippee! I'll be home for the holidays.

Meanwhile, I have one last day with Zeus (who's poking me with his snout even as I type this, hoping for some loving—dogs aren't really that different from people; they're just less subtle). Later today, we'll go for a walk (he gets so excited when he sees me putting on my shoes that it's hard to tie the laces without him knocking my glasses off).

This past week I've mainly been staying at Ceilee & Tosca's, which means that Zeus has been my main squeeze. During the day, if I'm the couch (watching TV, hanging out with a grandkid, doing a crossword puzzle, or visiting with adults) Zeus will regularly check in with me, which means putting his paws on my leg and pushing his massive face into mine, the better to lick my ears. After a bit of enthusiastic petting, he usually settles down by my side. Zeus especially likes my visits because I laugh a lot and am more dependably interactive (excepting when I have a full cup of coffee or my six-month-old grandson in my lap).

When I'm in Las Vegas, a good part of each day involves wrestling with good-sized dogs. If it isn't Zeus, then it's one of my other two granddogs: Yoshi or Zelda (who are part of Jo & Peter's household across town). While I've been with Zeus most nights, I've also been sleeping around (hey, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas). Last Friday I spent the night at Jo & Peter's apartment, sleeping on the couch with Zelda. While there was some late night negotiation around how to arrange body parts in the vicinity of my feet, everything went better once I convinced her that it wasn't going to work out unless she stopped licking the top of my head.

During Friday's Game Day at Jo's (see my blog of Dec 10, Visiting the Dren) there were a number of times when Yoshi came into the back room to check out the action, presenting me the opportunity to rub my hands on his silken fur between turns (for luck).

As I reflect on it, it's eerie how high a percentage of my eight days in Nevada have involved a mass of granddog in my immediate proximity. While dogs are not a religion to me, they are definitely family, and I've come to think of my time in Vegas as attending mass.

Going to the Dogs

When I come to Las Vegas I rarely spend time on the Strip, but last night was an exception. I had a lovely evening with my son Ceilee, my daughter Jo, and her partner Peter. We started with a three-hour sake tasting at the Mirage (150 varieties!), and followed that up with a nostalgic visit to the Sahara, where we played some blackjack and roulette until midnight and my kids each pocketed a souvenir chip when it was time to cash out. The Sahara is one of the grand old ladies of the Strip (it opened in 1952), but the owners announced last month that they plan to close this icon May 16. We decided to pay homage to this classic casino whose time was coming to an end.

For a Vegas casino, 59 years old is ancient—not for its patrons, mind you, but for a business operating in the land of hype, where show-me-what's new is king and they overhaul the landscape of the Strip about as often as strippers change outfits (and with a similar degree of subtlety). The Sahara goes all the way back to the prime of Louie Prima & Keely Smith.

Sadly though, the glory days of the Sahara are long gone. There are many newer, glitzier hotels and casinos and the epicenter of the action has moved further south down Las Vegas Blvd. The Sahara had become a dog of a casino, and it couldn't survive the current recession.

Man's Best Friend
While many people who visit Vegas may consider casinos their best friend, I'm more of a traditionalist: I like dogs. Sitting next to me as I type is Zeus, a pit bull/boxer mix that Ceilee brought with him from Missouri when he and Tosca moved to the desert back in 2007. Occasionally he gets bored with my pecking away at the keyboard and suggests we go for a walk by placing his considerable muzzle on my thigh and staring at me hopefully (and when doesn't work he starts licking my ear).

Though I thoroughly enjoy my occasional forays to the Strip with Ceilee and Jo, the truth is that I happily spend way more of my time in town petting and roughhousing with my three granddogs (in addition to Zeus, Jo & Peter have two dogs: Yoshi and Zelda). When I stay at Ceilee's, Zeus is my regular companion. When I stay at Jo's, then I'm sitting on the couch next to Yoshi or Zelda.

[I can't help inserting here my fascination with these dogs' names. It isn't very often that you encounter a set of three arbitrarily named things and the one closest to the beginning of the alphabet starts with "Y."]

Growing up, my family always had a dog. In the years I lived at home there were only two. First Clipper, a Shetland Sheepdog (a kind of collie who left tufts of hair all over the furniture); then Beauregard, a Springer Spaniel (who was forever salivating on the windows looking onto the backyard, as he stared longingly at the birds and squirrels trespassing on "his" territory). In addition to their shared breed alliteration, these were both medium-sized dogs that lived more than 12 years, and were both well loved by the family. They were also dogs that had been bred for a particular purpose—herding sheep and fetching birds—that was spectacularly irrelevant to our suburban lifestyle.

It wasn't long after we started Sandhill Farm (back in 1974) that we had our first dog: Rochester. He was just a mutt that showed up one day and never left. He lived with us about 10 years (until the day that Mallie Phillips accidentally hit him with a pickup and Rochester died in my arms with a broken back). Though Rochester was essentially on outdoor dog, Annie would get me out of bed but letting Rochester into the house first thing in the morning. He'd race into the bedroom, jump onto the bed, and lick my face until I couldn't stop laughing.

While Rochester was the dog in my life that I bonded with most, we've had many dogs at Sandhill over the years. Mostly they're just pets, yet they help deter deer and rabbits from predating on our garden and that's a true benefit. It's wonderful that we can give our dogs so much room to roam (in sharp contrast with the 100-foot long fenced backyard that was all that was available to Clipper and Beauregard). The one strict behavior rule we have with our dogs is that they can't stay if they chase chickens.

Sandhill's current resident canines are Sammy and Biscuit, and they are loved just as much as their predecessors, though they have bonded more with other members than with me. I'm just on the road too much these days and the dogs that are closest to my heart today are the three I'm visiting this week in Las Vegas. Thus, whenever I make plans to come out here, it's not just to see my kids and my granddaughter—I am going to the dogs!

The Wisdom of Babies and Dogs

This past week I've been spending a lot of time hanging out with both my seven-month-old granddaughter, Taivyn, and my three-year-old granddog, Zeus—often at the same time. Both are happy to have my undivided attention, and sometimes they even get it.

As someone who's lived in community for 34 years and has been working with groups professionally for 21, I'm often wading through the jungle of convoluted interpersonal dynamics, looking for clear paths. It's refreshing to be reminded by Taivyn that life doesn't have to be so complicated. She can be crying her heart out one minute, asleep the next, and then all-forgiving when she wakes up, unencumbered by any grudges about how I wouldn't let her poke her inquisitive fingers into the electric outlets right before her nap.

Adults are rarely that straight forward with one another—either in terms of being emotionally artless (with babies, what you see is what you get) or willing to start each new interaction with a ready smile and a clean slate. Unfortunately, we adults tend to keep score. Worse, we rarely use the same point system or even announce the standings. It's messy.

For his part, Zeus is the embodiment of unconditional love. Just like Taivyn, he's happy to interact with me whenever we make eye contact. Unlike Taivyn, he never pitches a fit. He just wants to lick my face, get his belly and ears rubbed, and go for a walk—in about that order. If he gets turned down, he either tries someone else or just lies down, slows his heart beat, and waits for the next chance. When you run into people like that, you tend to question whether they're hitting on all cylinders ("Why are they so happy all the time?). Canines set such a high bar when it comes to loyalty and affection that you can understand why some prefer dogs over partners as housemates.

Tomorrow at first light I'm off to a weekend job with a troubled group. While my main motivation for this visit was to be with my son and his family for six days, I realize at the cusp of my departure that I got a bonus. In addition to nurturing family relationships, I also received an unexpected balm after basking for hours and hours in the unalloyed affection and availability of a baby and a dog. I experienced it as a massage for my psyche. Though I didn't know it when I planned the trip, I needed it.

Taivyn & Zeus, this jaded warrior thanks you for your therapuetic ministrations and loving innocence.