Published: June 14, 2009 11:56 pm         

The Off Season: The happy ‘tail’ of a dog named ‘Clark’

We were never quite sure where he came from, but some weeks ago a big black dog ambled sideways up our drive, his huge pink tongue hanging askew in search of a good drink of water. He promptly sacked out on the steps near my front door, and there he stayed, sleeping near our potted plants.

My wife and I both grew up with dogs, she with a hyperactive Irish setter, me with a yippy collie and an all-American mutt that could have been a mixture of any handful of breeds. But we aren’t dog people anymore; dogs need a little more attention than our cats, who are more independent and private, and in need of human companionship only on occasions of their choosing. So we weren’t interested in keeping this big, goofy orphan. As a matter of fact, we wanted to send him home as soon as possible, if he had one. We took to calling him “Dog” because we knew that as soon as we gave him a name he would be more of a permanent fixture around our place, that we would soon be going through an adoption process, and making an appointment at the vet for his shots, and buying him a rawhide chew toy. So we avoided looking straight into his big brown eyes, knowing too that if we did, we’d be hooked, and we’d be keeping him.

Despite his more endearing qualities, he had some irritating ones as well. As far as our barn cats were concerned, he was a terrorist. Not used to expelling much more energy than it takes to chase a lethargic chipmunk or swat at a butterfly, our trio of outdoor felines suddenly found themselves challenged by this furry goon every time they stepped a paw out of our barn door. They literally disappeared for a few weeks, living in our hay loft, venturing down a ladder for meals and water, paranoid, I’m sure, that we were actually going to keep the psycho who was holding them hostage.

The dog, so enthusiastic in his appreciation for a dish of food or a pat on the head, liked to reward us by jumping on us, treating us like awkward dance partners, leaving big muddy paw prints on our shirts and blouses, and bloody scrapes and scratches on our arms. His always active tongue slurped and lapped at our faces, our legs, and our hands, and his tail, more of a British bobby’s truncheon, actually, beat our shins black and blue.

In our pre-Dog days, I sat on my garage step to put on my work boots or walking shoes, often sitting there in the sun to listen to birds and to the breeze as it blew through our big white pine. After he arrived, my moments of solitude were now rewarded with generous whiffs of dog breath, doses of dog saliva, and whacks on the side of the skull with that blackjack of a tail. I gave up sitting on our deck to work a crossword; my new pal thought that our small green deck chairs were made for two.

Despite his size, Dog couldn’t have been more than seven or eight months old — an overgrown kid really, and we quickly understood that he also needed to chew… At first, it was our broom handles; then he started on the wood pile near my office door, reducing several nice-sized lengths of tulip poplar to sawdust. He carried off three pairs of sandals, consumed at least two flower pots, and opened up a couple of bags of top soil I stacked near our barn before I planned to use them.

Almost immediately we began to advertise him in local newspapers as “found.” We put up his picture on the bulletin board at our town bank, and we asked just about everyone in a 10-mile radius if they were missing a four-legged version of Gomer Pyle. Despite the fact that Dog was well-fed when he arrived at our home, that he even wore a collar, we soon became convinced that his behavioral issues had led his previous owner to dump him in the country, a solution that some people take at the expense of others.

Time passed; so did our patience. Dog began to make my lawn his own executive bathroom; I was convinced after cleaning up a couple of his messes that an elephant was running loose in our neighborhood. He was a ferocious mole hunter, and on the hillside near our wood line where the ugly little miners run rampant, Dog soon turned the area into a Mesabi Range of open pits and gouged earth. He howled like a lonely wolf at the sound of my leaf blower, ran alongside my riding mower like a sled dog. He hosed down shrubs, flopped in flower beds, walked around our driveway with our garden hoses in his mouth…

Finally, relief came in the form of the Parke-Vermillion County Humane Shelter and Pat Tryon. Pat told us that Dog, despite his penchant for mischief, was welcome there and that from the physical description we gave her she could tell that he would be sent to Wisconsin on a special truck that took displaced animals to a state where strict spay and neuter laws make such refugees relatively rare. Once there, he’d be adopted.

So, one afternoon, we loaded him into the bed of my truck — we were convinced he’d shred my seats — and headed to the shelter north of Hillsdale and his new future. The trip wasn’t a pleasant one. Despite the fact that he was pretty well-behaved as we made our way through the country, Dog wasn’t too happy about being around large trucks and motorcycles when we got onto the highway. My time with him soon became the equivalent of a WWF cage match.

To complicate things, it rained on us — hard, and an accident on Indiana 63 forced us into a detour that eventually made our odyssey one of nearly 60 miles. But we arrived, both soaked and smelling about the same. His required fees were paid, he was registered — more like booked — and then Dog made his presence known by greeting a large cat in the office rather rudely. He was named “Clark” by receptionist Kelly Blacketer and was to undergo a personality test that afternoon; Pat said she expected him to pass with flying colors.

Now, before you think we ran out on Clark without a thought, you should know that both of us had feelings of guilt. He looked a little lost when he was placed in a pen near a baying hound on one side and a manic chow on the other. That ever-present tongue lapped at Joanie and me through the wires, and both of us, at the same time, did notice those big brown eyes of his, too.

But Clark will soon be a cheesehead, placed with an owner who will give him the attention he needs and deserves. I hope that he’ll be happy and that his new owner treats him with the respect that his previous one didn’t, that he’ll have a long life of chewing up other people’s shoes …

Tonight, well, I’m going to sit on the step and listen to the birds.

Mike Lunsford can be contacted at hickory913@aol.com, or by regular mail, c/o the Tribune-Star, at P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808. Visit www.mikelunsford.com for information about Mike’s book, and please, donate to your local humane shelter. The Parke-Vermillion Humane Society is located at 1884 S. State Road 63, Hillsdale, IN 47854.