Ode to a Dog Show

Patience and young Swede William

 

This Labor Day Weekend I joined Patience and our waggle of whippets on the maiden trip in our motor home to the dog shows in Amana, Iowa.  The experience reminded me of something I wrote after my last dog show - the Eastern Specialties in Atlanta GA in 2005.

Ode to a Dog Show

 Here I sit, pen in hand

Somewhere in Atlanta land

Looking at this page with dread

Just as empty as my head

Dogs and people prancing ‘round

One’s a canine, one’s a clown

All their faces etched with hope

Until they hear the judge’s “nope”

Which quickly sends them on their way

…but tomorrow is another day, and

all the nopes can’t dash the hopes

Atlanta, Sept. 05

FAT CHARLIE

Never in my wildest imagining did I think I would be living with 7, 8, or 9 dogs in our house. When asked about this my usual response is…”I don’t love dogs, but I love my wife”, which is only half true. On my own, I would not be living with any dogs in my house, but dogs, raising them, showing them, racing them, loving them, and writing about them is my dear wife’s passion, and that makes them mine…well…almost mine. Ninety nine percent of the time I am either content or enthusiastic with our canine family, and one percent of the time I’m ready to give them all away.

And then there are those moments when I am alone with one of the whippets and something special happens, as it did just moments before I began writing this. Fat Charlie has been lying on “my” chair in the dining room while I’ve been eating dinner and listening to Johnny Cash radio. When I finished I took the dish to Charlie for the routine canine pre rinse cycle, sitting on the floor while he completed the task before him, something I’ve done countless times before. I removed the clean dish, and Charlie raised his head and looked at me; and I found myself looking into the dark pools of his eye, directly at the one of the gentlest souls God has ever sent to us. In that moment I knew unconditional love, and my heart belonged to him.



Tonight it was Charlie, tomorrow it may be Mama Pajama, or Delia, or William, or one of the other whippets. These are the magical moments that wash away all of the stress, anger, and frustration, and make living with our canine family possible.

WHERE IN THE HELL ARE THEY?!

Ok, my patience is running out (no pun intended...I’ll explain later). The studio is reorganized with new open working space, I have a painting sitting on the easel awaiting my attention, and I find myself sitting here looking out the windows or reading some mindless mystery, anything but painting. I can’t get excited over any of the many ideas flowing through my head. I tried forcing things with a couple of small watercolor sketches, but that didn’t lead to anything but 2 small wc sketches. The muses are staying away longer than usual, and I can’t help thinking, they are trying to send me a message. So I’ve given up efforts to do anything but sit and listen to what they have to say in the quiet stillness of my studio. We can hear more in the silence of our soul than in the noise of others or the noise we make ourselves.

Regarding my patience, and my Patience...she is Sweden! For the next week it will be just me and the nine whippets. Now if it were only me, there would not be nine dogs in my home. But when you love someone, you love who and what they are, and the woman I love is about animals, specifically dogs, and more specifically, Whippets. Therefore I am about whippets, nine of them to be exact, and they do test my patience.

I do 3 walks every morning, one short one with the old dogs and 2 long ones with the rest. Thanks to our friend Karen who accompanies me on the 2 longer walks, what could be a chore has become a chance to spend time with a friend.

After the walks comes the poop scooping in our fenced in yard, but that is another story.


I believe I've posted this photo before, but It such a great shot...by the amazing photographer and friend, Laurie Erickson...I just had to show it again.

L to R, back row...Swede William, Giacomimo, Delia, Lucianno, and Sam I Am.
front row...Fat Charlie and Mamma Pajama. Not shown, Lindy Loo.

VERY OLD DOG

Patience, Fat Charlie, and Giacomino (bottom dog)

It is my nature to be introspective and reflective, an affliction that is both a blessing and a curse. Last evening my attention was directed at, or responsive to, Giacomino, our very old whippet. Giacomino (“jocko-meeno”) is 14 years old, quite ancient for a whippet, and was one of our first rescue dogs, a rescue that I like to believe I played an instrumental role. He is every bit Patience’s dog, as are all of the others with the exception of Delia, and under her expert tutelage has won more honors than my non-dog mind can comprehend. But what I do understand, and do so with painful clarity, is my emotional attachment to this dog. I cannot look at him without remembering the 10 week old, skinny puppy with the worried face, the face that has never left him, and feel him tugging at my heart.

He is now quite wobbly, and his worried face often shares an amusing look of confusion. He moves slowly, needs guidance on our stairs from hell, and finds it a struggle to simply lie down. Yet in spite of his age and infirmities, he always maintains an air of dignity, and I can’t help thinking that he wants us to relax and stop fretting. He knows he is old and that his future is limited, but hey, isn’t that what life is all about. He is not concerned, and neither should we be. He certainly doesn’t feel sorry for himself, why should he? As I see him enjoy what he still has and what he can do, with no trace of self pity or regrets I wonder if I would be capable of the same.

That I love this old dog, more than any other cannot be denied and I will cry when he is gone. But I will not feel sorry for him.

THE WOMEN IN MY LIFE

Patience and Swede William

I have been blessed with the most remarkable women in my life: my mother, my daughters, and my wife. It is my intention to write about each one of them, putting into words my profound respect and appreciation for them, and all that they have meant to my life.

Yesterday I had the rare pleasure of visiting with all of my daughters at the same time, to see them together, talking, laughing, and just being who they are. In my very darkest hours, uttering those three names brought tears to my eyes even as they held me together. Living under different roofs was devastating, and my only my only means of coping was to remind myself that I had a lifetime ahead of me with my children, and not being in the same household would be but a very small blip on me life. And it worked! I value my relationship with my daughters as my most important accomplishment and credit all four of us for making that happen.

To be with all of my children I had to travel from my home in Paducah to Maryland, and this meant leaving my wife, Patience, at home. (Because of our waggle of whippets it is very difficult for us to travel together.) And as always, as soon as I leave, I miss her dearly. For those of you who do not know her, Patience is a most remarkable woman, and it would take several postings to do her justice, but I am prepared to state unabashedly, that she is the one person who has made my life complete. I cannot imagine how the last 25 years of my life could have been any better than they have been with her as my partner.


The Warburton Whippets,,,not present is Lindy Loo, a puppy when this was taken