DogSpell

They ran and barked and barked and feigned disinterest and then put their muzzles all over one another. It was a beautiful sight. A wondrous in the woods sight. One was black, the other white and black with pockets of soft beige. If you looked from a distance at the non-black dog you would think his colors were blurry, a bit touched up on computer, Photoshopped in. A good combine, as Maria would say. She would take them out, rather, she would take the Photoshopped dog out and would hope to meet the black one along the way. The black one belonged to another family and yet when he saw his dog friend and Maria, his owner confessed to me recently, “he nearly jumped through the front glass.” It is better than any dog park, by way of trailage and sniffage.

I do not know how black dog would fare in a park with many other dogs. Blurry color dog would do well. He would show off in front of the other owners, first by going to the people first and forcing them to pet him and coo, and then second hanging over the very small dogs with a wicked grin. Some would be intimidated. No, make that most of the v small dogs would be intimidated, but he would charm them too. And win them over 87% of the time. There were dogs of the very small size that would never allow themselves to feel the love of the giant dog hovering over them. Photoshop dog would pretend to be cool and not interested, and then at the very last minute would shower them with great attention, and then would cow down to their height and move his front paw in the air as if it were a chalkboard and he were quickly making a mark on it for them to see. A pawprint. As if that were the magic key. And if successful the two dogs, or more, would run and bark and pounce and hop and lift and separate. And the owners of all of the other dogs would make note of this frolicking. Some would even comment in favorable tones. The tones one emits when admiring a Thanksgiving turkey, say, or a birthday cake. Yes, you could rightly claim that the Photoshopped dog was like a birthday cake.

But there was one dog in the world that Photoshop dog would not ever get along with. This rival dog was genetically mutated dog, whose parts came deliberately from the chromosomes of other dogs for maximum benefit. Say you take a dog that prefers to eat brie without the moldy covering. And you take another dog that can tell time. You are a person who can’t wear watches and you prefer that part of the brie so much so that it’s a struggle for you to actually eat the cheese. You have room for only one animal. What do you do? You go to a Frankenstein lab, a kennel. You talk with these animalistic scientists who have fur on their couches, metal cages in their dining rooms, a microscope in the bathroom, and lots of bowls of water strangely on the floor in different rooms in the house. You tell them your situation. Dog, mold, clock, space. The designer boutique scientist offers you a plethora of options. A dog with really short front legs and tall, tall back ones. A dragster is the proper term. A dog with a red muzzle but chocolate brown coat and white paws. The Coach Luggage dog. You name it, they can cross hatch it. They can systematically file it and splice and mutate and coax it to whatever you want. Soon, they joke, there will be a dog that can get better mileage than the current version. Sure, that’s fine, you offer, but what I want is something a bit more refined. Can you do subtle? Can they ever! A few months later you’ve got your perfect dog that fits in well with the size of your house. He eats the cheese, you the skin. And you always know without having to dial up the Tell-A-Time number on the phone to find out where you are in the day, because the dog comes to you, leash in mouth to announce mid-day walking, or early evening walking. Somehow you just know about the morning walk without having to be told. You can tell which is which without ever looking out the window because the dog does a special kind of dance for lunchtime and another special dance for after dinner. It’s a subtle way with the tail, you can’t describe it, but you can tell by seeing it. You find that you love love love this dog. He is exactly what you’ve been looking for all of your life, so you bring him to the pet shop and let him pick out toy after toy. You two have made so many trips and have gotten so many toys that the ones he does not play with could entertain an orphanage. But that wouldn’t do, really, since there are teeth marks on all but two of the rubber toys. You look and think about this and put it in the back of your mind until one day your friend also gets a dog. Your friend lives far away but comes to town often to do banking and other such things. You start to give her the toys her genetically modified dog doesn’t play with anymore for her dog. Her dog, the Photoshopped dog, takes them. Of course he was meant to get all kinds of toys. He doesn’t question the bites on them nor the weird smells. For him it’s a given. Photoshopped dog chews and plays and smells them and soon the toys are almost as if they are part of him. He is that purple ball with the huge rope. He is that tennis ball color ring that bounces and feels like a baby chicken in his mouth. He is one with his universe.

Months later the owner who doesn’t like brie comes for a visit. She has not brought her own dog with because there are travel complications. Her dog is better off at home. She sees Photoshopped dog, pets him on the head. Photoshopped dog and she hit it off immediately. Maybe it’s the eye contact she makes with him. When people first meet him they are usually drawn to his fur and his height. They don’t see his inner dog right away. But your friend does, and because of this, Photoshopped dog exists only for your friend. He does strange things only for her. He goes upstairs on rickety-about-to-fall-down stairs that you yourself could not bribe him with a side of beef to go on. For her, he prances right up and is on the second floor of a house that he had previously only heard about. So the rumors are true, your dog realizes for a flash, looking around, before putting his focus back on your friend. There is a thing called the upstairs. The two of them spend the weekend together drinking soda and fetching balls. Laughing and sharing. He realizes that the smells from his toys are similar to the friend. And since the toys are part of him, the friend is part of him too.

The friend goes back home the following Monday and Photoshopped dog is bereft. The trails with the black dog don’t quite cut it anymore. The sniffage is fresh, for sure, but uninteresting. All these ferns, evergreens, maples, poison ivy: they don’t carry wafts of Chanel No. 5. They don’t hint at mango conditioner. Black dog goes nose to nose with Photoshopped dog. He stands there smelling what’s inside of Photoshopped dog and realizes that something’s not right with his friend. He turns around three times, lifts his leg, and pees on the stop sign they are both standing near. Black dog goes back to his house and cries to be let in. Photoshopped dog slumps home and gradually, eventually, painfully slowly, he gets his appetite back.

To be continued...