Johnny Angel, How We Love Him and "If Feeling Isn't In It" [prose by Stacey Lehman, poem by John Brehm]

For the past four weeks, we’ve been under the rule of Johnny, a twelve-year-old twenty-eight pound Schipperke. David and I have never had a dog together and I haven’t had a dog since childhood. My family always had German shepherds and though I remember each of them-–-Noah, Cito, Yoffey, Regan–-I can’t remember lifting a finger to care for them. For a brief period in the late 1970s I took in a puppy that I rescued when I caught him trying to cross the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, but I gave him to my mother, who was between dogs at the time.

Since Johnny has been with us in Ithaca, I’ve learned that dogs force you to reorder your life. You may be able to put them on a schedule, but face it, when they have to “go” you have to jump. Johnny wakes me at around 6:00 am. He’s on a strict diet. And even though he no longer has the energy of a puppy, he’s quite good at getting into trouble. He’s figured out how to open the garbage to get at any scraps. When he wants something, he lets us know thought we can’t always figure out what it is that he’s after. A walk? A treat? A massage?

We’ve grown quite fond of Johnny, especially David, who likes to take him for long walks and whom I’ve overheard saying sweetly, “I love you, Johnny,” and it is with mixed feelings that we look forward to returning him to my sister and brother-in-law on Monday. Will he miss us? Will he ask to visit? If he does, how will they, or we, know? 

One day about three weeks ago Johnny burst into a paroxysm of growling and barking. Someone was approaching our front door to deliver a package. I realized that he was both warning us of what he sensed was approaching danger and threatening what could be the source of that danger. I was deeply moved. He was protecting his home.

So much has been written about dogs and how they make us human. My favorite dog memoir is “My Dog Tulip,” by J. R. Ackerley. I also love this poem by John Brehm.

If Feeling Isn't In It 
        by John Brehm

You can take it away, as far as I'm concerned—I'd rather spend the afternoon with a nice dog. I'm not kidding. Dogs have what a lot of poems lack: excitements and responses, a sense of play the ability to impart warmth, elation . . . .  
                                                                                   Howard Moss

Dogs will also lick your face if you let them.

Their bodies will shiver with happiness.

A simple walk in the park is just about

the height of contentment for them, followed

by a bowl of food, a bowl of water,

a place to curl up and sleep. Someone

to scratch them where they can't reach

and smooth their foreheads and talk to them.

Dogs also have a natural dislike of mailmen

and other bringers of bad news and will

bite them on your behalf. Dogs can smell

fear and also love with perfect accuracy.

There is no use pretending with them.

Nor do they pretend. If a dog is happy

or sad or nervous or bored or ashamed

or sunk in contemplation, everybody knows it.

They make no secret of themselves.

You can even tell what they're dreaming about

by the way their legs jerk and try to run

on the slippery ground of sleep.

Nor are they given to pretentious self-importance.

They don't try to impress you with how serious

or sensitive they are. They just feel everything

full blast. Everything is off the charts

with them. More than once I've seen a dog

waiting for its owner outside a café

practically implode with worry. “Oh, God,

what if she doesn't come back this time?

What will I do? Who will take care of me?

I loved her so much and now she's gone

and I'm tied to a post surrounded by people

who don't look or smell or sound like her at all.”

And when she does come, what a flurry

of commotion, what a chorus of yelping

and cooing and leaps straight up into the air!

It's almost unbearable, this sudden

fullness after such total loss, to see

the world made whole again by a hand

on the shoulder and a voice like no other.

 

        from Sea of Faith by John Brehm

Comments

[Terence Winch]

Beautiful post---both the prose and poetry halves. I'm sorry you're losing your loaner dog. A New Yorker piece a few years ago claimed that dogs prefer the company of humans over that of other dogs.

[Laura]

I love this.

[Alan Ziegler]

Lucky Dog! There are people with dogs, and there are dog people. I think you and David are the latter.