A number of tricky issues that Mugsy had adhered to for all his years with my parents were slowly altered once he was out of jail and living with me. Actually, at least one of them had been resolved even before he went to jail, while we were still staying with the ghoul. Because Mugsy had longish, shaggy, curly terrier hair, he needed grooming, especially in summer heat. My mother had always paid the people at yuppie Valhalla to do this: bathe him, haircut him, nail trim him. I never got to the point of attempting to teach him to let me cut his nails (just let the vet do it when he was in for something else), but I did indeed meet with success in the other hygiene issues.

When summer came in 1998 and there we were at the ghoul’s, there was Mugsy’s hair all grown out. Very long on his front feet (I called these long-haired feet his slippers) and matting up, eyebrows grown over his eyes, torso hair so long that I’m sure it was making him hot. So one day I bit the Mommy-of-a-neurotic bullet and took him to the hose in the backyard, carrying his brush, scissors and a bottle of shampoo. Sat him down and had a talk: Okay Mugs, this is the way it is. Mum had the money to send you to the beauty parlor, but I don’t. You’re gonna have to let me wash you, and give you a haircut, and NO BITING. BITING IS NAUGHTY. You need to get clean so you’ll feel better. You need to let me cut your hair so you’ll feel better.

I can’t say that these very first efforts went completely without attempts to run away and a few half-hearted attempts to bite my fingers or the scissors. But it was so much milder and more manageable than I’d ever expected it to be. He’d always let my mother do his eyebrows and his beard, but nothing else. I trimmed it all, whole body. The slippers, the eyebrows and beard, torso, long hairs around the bum. Then the all-over dousing with the hose, the lathering, the rinsing. Survived with all of my fingers intact, and my face. Many firm statements had had to be made during the process, and there were those efforts at running away and biting. But on the whole I was amazed at how easy it had been. This was another thing about which my mother had made much drama: Oh I have to take him to the groomer. If I try to go near those front feet with scissors, he bites me. If I try to cut the hair on his sides and his bum, he has a fit. Maybe all this was true, and maybe not. My mother was known for abandoning truth when it suited her. But even if it was true, she might have got around it by having an honest, serious talk to the dog, the way I did. There was no other reason in the world for Mugsy to let me do things after ten months of living with me that he wouldn’t let my mother — his mommy — do for eight years. No other reason than that he had picked up on my seriousness and knew he wasn’t going to be able to bamboozle me on this one the way he had my mother. He may also have picked up on the notion that I was doing these things to help him, not to punish or harm him.

Another issue that went well was getting him not to grab at my clothing when I was walking out the door to leave (most of the time). I had already trained not to do this to me while we still lived with my parents, but months of psychic trauma in kennels had nullified the thing. When I’d moved back to live in the family home, I’d given Mugsy a chewing-out (so to speak) the very first time he tried to grab me when I was walking out. I’d turned to face him and, speaking loudly and firmly, had said the following: Don’t you even think it, dog. I’m not gonna be throwing biscuits every time I wanna go out the door of my own house. You can just stop that right now. It’s naughty. For eight years my parents had departed from their home by arriving at the door followed by a terrier ready to grab at them. They would do an about-face at the door, throw biscuits across the room, and dash out the door while he was running for the biscuits. Even severe neuroses didn’t trump the canine love of food. But I wasn’t having any of this crap. From that very first lecture, he’d sat there calmly and let me go out the door. He’d continued this model behavior for the whole eight months we lived there. I’d never had to do anything for him in order to escape except to turn to him and say: Be a good boy. I’ll be back to see you later.

It was a number of weeks in 1999 to get him back to this civilized approach. I developed the habit of giving all three of the dogs a treat before I left, and making the speech that they should take care of the house and the other animals and be good dogs while I was gone. I’d come back to see them later. This took care of the clothes-grabbing deal about 99% of the time.

Then there was the destruction of human clothing. I don’t remember ever giving Mugs a lecture about this after I got him out of jail, but maybe I did. Or maybe he just stopped on his own. If my parents ever went out without making sure that they’d left no shoes, socks or garments where he could get them, they’d come home to find that these things had been chewed to death as punishment for having left Mugsy alone. I worried about this the first week or so of his freedom, but I’d always return to find that he had chewed nothing in my absence but his own toys. My own opinion about this change of heart is that Mugsy now had dogs, and when the human left, he was no longer alone in the same way he had been before. He now had two of his own species to keep him company. Sadly, this didn’t prevent other abandonment behaviors, at least not right away, but it did stop the chewing of human belongings almost immediately.

Separation and abandonment fears also led to piteous crying, yelping and howling when the humans left the premises. This was another one of those things that he’d done with my parents for eight solid years. They could hear him as they drove away, but had always found him quiet when they got back, whether they’d been gone thirty minutes or as long as six hours. I was probably close to a year getting him to refrain from doing this at least 90% of times I left. One of the reasons it took so long was anger. Mine. About six months after I brought Mugsy home, my life escalated to higher levels of stress and difficulty, and this did nothing at all for my patience. Many, many times I could maintain my equanimity, at least on the outside, and go from the street back up to Mugsy on the second floor, to give him yet another treat and have yet another talk with him about being quiet. Sometimes it took three or four times up and down the stairs, sometimes only one. And there were those times, though they were infrequent, when I’d just be overtired and overstressed and yell at him. Yelling was futile with Mugsy, and I knew it, had seen it over and over again with my parents. Human temper, human adrenaline, only put his own anxieties into a higher spin. On the days I yelled, I wasn’t going to get him to be quiet. I would just walk away from the house in utter frustration, hearing him cry and howl as I moved along the street. Fortunately, I say again, these moments of failure on the leaving the house issue were infrequent.

Progress was made. Good progress over time. On these issues and some others as well. Every time Mugsy managed something that my parents had told me couldn’t, or something that even I myself didn’t think he could manage, I was happily surprised, and pleased, and proud of him. And every advance convinced me more and more that what several terrier breeders and trainers had told me wasn’t a hard and fast rule: that terriers born with these problems could only be managed by someone with training in canine behavior or this or that. I think that to an extent they’re right. Most ordinary dog-lovers aren’t going to bother with serious anxieties like Mugsy’s. But I had the time, and I didn’t have little children who might be affected, and I had the motivation. To bring out as much as possible of the good that I knew Mugsy had in him. To help him manage his fears as much as I could. And I had other dogs. This responsibility for and companionship with a pack calmed Mugsy down a lot, all by itself. He’d needed a pack all his life, and when the randomness of  living landed me with more dogs, it was a great thing for an over-zealous alpha of the type that Mugsy was.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

read…    Don’t ask (satire, including ginger rubberboobs)

a href=”http://twitter.com/share” data-count=”none” data-via=”annegrace2″ data-related=”ziidjian:outre tweeting”>Tweet</a><script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”></script

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

all photos, graphics, poems and text copyright 2011 by anne nakis, unless otherwise stated. all rights reserved.

On that friday April night in 1999, I slept with Mugsy beside me for the first time since 29 September 1998. When Mugsy ultimately died in 2006, he did so on September 29th. Maybe it’s an Asperger’s thing, maybe not, but I’m always in some way grabbed by numbers and dates that converge like this, or that have a symmetry of some kind. Another thing that helped that night stick in my mind, as if I needed anything else, was that there was a fire at the pizza house. Sirens woke me. When I opened my eyes, listening to the ear-stinging volume of these sirens, knowing the fire was close by, I didn’t at first remember that I had Mugsy back again. Then it came into my head like the clichéd flash of lightning. I had to sit up and look for him in the murky light, to make sure it was real. And there he was, lying at my feet there on the couch. It was real.

But Mugsy’s freedom didn’t mean his issues were over. We had hurdles we had to leap, bringing a dog like him into a home with two other dogs in it. However, to my great amazement in the first few weeks after his return, they were not the hurdles my mother had scared me with: He won’t tolerate another dog in the house. He’d tear it to pieces. It turned out that my mother didn’t know her dog as well as I’d given her credit for, or she was simply lying. It further turned out that my own long-ago instinct that another dog would be good for Mugsy was a solid one.

He did not tear any other animal apart. The other two dogs were larger than he was by a good deal, 70-80 pounds, compared to his meager 45. One was a Rottweiler, though she was the meekest and gentlest thing, despite the reputation this breed has. What happened was what I had always suspected would happen, and not what my mother had caused me to fear: the cats and the other dogs had to obey Mugsy’s rules, and they had to defer to him in certain things. When they complied, there was harmony, because he loved them all. He was just an extremely intense and neurotic alpha.

Achieving harmony needed several weeks of training. Mugsy trained the other animals, and I trained him, as far as that was do-able. No one — human or animal — was allowed to go near Mugsy’s dish when he was eating out of it; no one was allowed to take any toy of his, even if he wasn’t using it; no one was allowed to step on him, even by accident. If I or any of the animals committed one of these infractions, there would be the whole drama. Snarling, yelping, snapping. But he never made contact with flesh. He might grab the other animal’s fur and gnaw away, making horrendously mean noises the while. My little efforts at training were to say over and over in a firm voice, while he had his maw on one of them: Mugsy, don’t you bite the kitty/doggy. Biting is naughty. When he left off, I would go to the victim, dreading torn flesh and a vet trip and stitches. Nothing. Not a scratch. He never touched flesh, just left a section of fur saturated with his saliva. I don’t believe that any of this was just luck. In the nine years of his life, Mugsy had never torn any flesh open, and I believe that if that had been his intent and his desire, if he had been totally out of control, he would have done real harm long before his ninth birthday. I think he had just enough control over his impulses to intentionally do no harm. You can argue with me all you want. You can say that animals are not capable of that kind of cogitation, but I won’t accept your premise. I’ve seen too many animals over a lifetime do too much excellent cogitation to ever believe that Mugsy didn’t  know what he was up to, in spite of his serotonin.

After a few weeks, the dramatic scenes with cats and the other dogs stopped almost completely. There would only be an occasional kerfuffle. They learned Mugsy’s rules. Some of them even competed for the honor of taking a nap beside him. Mandy and Liam were two of the cats who really enjoyed this privilege, and Mishi, the beta male lab-mix, wanted it too. I will not be able to convey to anyone ever what an intensely loving creature Mugsy was. I tell you the tales of his foibles and trials and idiosyncracies, and you probably have no trouble imagining snarling and growling and teeth. But there are no words, or I’m not a good enough writer, to tell you how much sheer love emanated from this dog in all the other moments, hours, and days when he wasn’t having a hissy about something. I can’t describe to you how the other animals, right down to the birds, missed him in the days after he died. The animals knew about Mugsy what humans would not accept: that snarl and snap as he might, this was insercurity, this was fear. He was not mean. He oozed love. Rabbits knew it, and dogs and cats knew it, and even birds. Mugsy lived to love a family and to care for them in his own canine way. If he hadn’t also been born with these brain chemistry quirks, he would have been a favorite dog of every person who ever met him, so eager was he to love and be loved, and to please.

And two other dogs in his castle? He taught them the rules when he had to, but in every other moment he was devoted to them. There’s no other word for it. Mugsy the super-alpha finally had a little pack to reign over, and he adored them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

read…   Scealta liatha (poetry in english)…   Shadowpoems…

Share  ~~~~~~~  website  ~~~~~~~

a href=”http://twitter.com/share” data-count=”none” data-via=”annegrace2″ data-related=”ziidjian:outre tweeting”>Tweet</a><script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”></script

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

all photos, graphics, poems and text copyright 2011 by anne nakis, unless otherwise stated. all rights reserved.

His stay on the hill in the woods lasted from Tuesday 17 November 1998 to Friday 30 April 1999. None of the dates, so far, that I’ve used in Mugsy’s story have had to be looked up anywhere in my journals. I don’t even have my journals — they’re in a barn. These dates are indelibly written on my heart and in my mind.

Since I didn’t have the money to get the muffler fixed (any extra disposable income was going to the kennel), I was dependent on others for rides to visit my dog. This did not sit well at all with me, because I wanted to visit Mugsy nearly every day, and other people who provided me rides had no desire whatsoever to go to the wilds of Gill and hang around while I visited my dog. When you are dependent on other people for things that are important to you, it stinks out loud. When you’re poor for many years, you learn this. There were months when I could visit him once a week, and months when I could only get half that.

These visits were not just the height of his day, they were the height of mine too. To see him looking not nearly as nervous and depressed as he had looked at Valhalla, to walk with him in the woods, to brush him, to tell him what a good boy he was being regarding the biting business, to say to him that I was looking hard for a place where he could be with me again. To spend time with him, my soulmate, the first ever dog of my own, out there in the trees, sitting down on a log while I brushed him. To give him the treats I always brought him. Boiled eggs, chunks of cheddar cheese, chunks of beef or chicken or pork. When I knew I was going to see him, I usually cooked something the day before that I could take to him. To see him still alive.

It was there in that woods on a Valentine’s Sunday afternoon, sitting on that particular log, that I told him our Daddy was dead. The father who had been Mugsy’s for eight years and mine for forty-six. There was an especially vibrant sunset going on around and above us as I cried and told him the news. Did he understand me in any way? Certainly he had known for eight years which human being the word Daddy referred to. And he most definitely knew that tears meant sadness. Maybe that was as much as I could get across to him: that there was something very sad going on about the man he had known as Daddy.

I had little things I would do while he was locked up, little efforts at psychic communication with him. I have no idea whether such things really happen or not, but in case they do, I was going to communicate with Mugsy over the seven or so miles between us. One of those things was to light blue candles. Just by accident, it seems, blue had become his color once he’d been made my dog. I’d ended up buying him several things that were blue, including the blanket for Valhalla, without even realizing it until I saw the things all together in the room at the ghoul’s house. So when I lit candles for his safety, they were blue ones. I would say to him as I lit the flame: No biting, Mugs. Mommy’s trying to get you out of there. Another little thing was to walk along the riverbank, looking across the water to Gill, a little westward to the trees and hills among which I knew the kennel was sitting, with my boy inside. I’d talk to him there, and hope that things like psychic communication were real, and that the energy of my love and my concern would somehow cross the water and make its way to him there in the hills of Gill. You can call me loopy if you want to, and as I’ve said, I don’t know if such things work. But when you love someone deeply, you’ll try almost anything, won’t you? How is what I did any loopier than prayer, which all kinds of people practice and believe in.

I spent most every day fearing his death. I’m a person with a lot of anxiety anyway, and after the events at my parents’ home in 97 and 98, and certain events in 98 with the ghoul who murdered woodchucks, that anxiety was a lot worse. I was afraid that before I could find a home to bring him to, Mugsy’s nerves would fry completely and he would bite someone at the kennel on the fingertip and draw much blood, as he’d done with me. Someone would then say to me: get this dog out of here, or get him the lethal injection. He did indeed bite Sharon on March first, and it was just one of his usual scrapy-bruisy bites, but she hadn’t been expecting it, and there was a certain degree of ominous talk. Nothing like there would have been at Valhalla, but putting down was mentioned, however gently. They gave him another chance. As far as I know, he never bit again. The bite happened when I hadn’t been able to get a ride there for three weeks.

After that I found a different ride, and that person was pretty good about getting me out there once a week, and I paid her. It wasn’t much, but it covered gas. One day when she didn’t show up, I walked all the miles between my back door and his cage on a fairly warm day to see him. So he wouldn’t miss that visit. So he wouldn’t bite. By the time I got there, there was only half an hour till closing, so it wasn’t much of a visit. But it was enough to keep him calmed down. Sharon drove me home. With the chronic illnesses that I have, a seven-mile walk is a very bad idea. A three-mile walk is a very bad idea. I made myself sick, but I’d known that when I started out. I didn’t care how sick I might be for a couple of days. I was determined that he get his visit, that he not bite again, that he not get the lethal injection.

Why. I asked myself this about once a week during all the months he was in jail. Why am I so determined that he should live. Because I love him. But maybe I’m being selfish. Maybe this kennel life is too much misery for a dog with Mugsy’s issues. Maybe I should just let him go. I tried more than once to convince myself to do this, to end the kennel life for him, to end the possibility that I would be forced to have him killed. Tried to make it my own choice, rather than something that would be shoved down my throat.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t choose to make an animal die who wasn’t terminally ill. I couldn’t choose to make an animal die because he had brain chemistry problems. As if this were his fault. If Mugsy’s bites had been serious and damaging to people, then I might have made a different decision. In fact I’m sure I would have. But I, made the way I am in relation to animals, could not choose to kill him because he was a nervous wreck. If Mugsy was going to die, then someone was going to have to order me to do it.

To say what I went through in the apartment search would just be further proof of the ignorance, sneakiness, tight-fistedness, and lying that I see as salient features of Turners Falls residents and which I despise so thoroughly. These are poisonous people in this place. I will say it till I die. Two apartments I was told I could have were later lost as the result of mind changes. Say no from the get-go, dweebs. Don’t jerk me around. But they did jerk me around, these landlords, and so more than once, hope and relief turned to more depression and fear.

In the middle of April, a place was found. It was a bad place in certain ways, a good one in others, and it was all that was on offer. Mugsy had been thrown out of my parents’ house with orders that I should have him killed on, I say again, Friday the first of May 1998. Exactly a year later, on Friday the 30th of April, I sprung him from his life in a cage. He came home to an apartment he had visited several times, since someone we knew lived in it. He came home to two more dogs, whom he had met briefly before. He came home to no cage.

Was this the happiest day of his nine years of life? I think so. I know it was one of the happiest of mine, and I was on that day forty-six. When I had fantasized about this day, about the day Mugsy and I would get to have each other back, I’d imagined myself laughing, and crying, and acting silly all over the apartment out of sheer joy that he was home. But when the day actually came, my reaction was totally unexpected, unforeseen. I was so happy I could barely speak. This continued through the afternoon and evening of that day. I had to force myself to utter some words in the car when we were bringing him from the kennel. Once inside with all the other animals, I had to push a few words out of my mouth to tell everybody that Mugsy was back with us again. When I walked him at the river in the early evening, it took such an effort of will to speak to him, because he was used to me talking to him when we walked. We had Mishi with us too, and he was just as used to my talking as Mugsy was. But it was so hard. My relief, my happiness were so enormous that they shut me down, shut down my desire to make words. All I wanted to do was stare at him, hour after hour, taking him in through my eyes in silence. Watch him eat, sleep, walk, interact with the other animals. Drink the sight of him in, hour by hour, to convince myself it was all real. He was really home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

read…   Poison and snowflake trees…   Spite and malice…

Share  ~~~~~~~  website  ~~~~~~~

a href=”http://twitter.com/share” data-count=”none” data-via=”annegrace2″ data-related=”ziidjian:outre tweeting”>Tweet</a><script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”></script

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

all photos, graphics, poems and text copyright 2011 by anne nakis, unless otherwise stated. all rights reserved.

On November 6th I started out on my usual Friday two-and-a-half-hour drive (one way) to visit Mugs. A couple of days before that, a noisy hole had developed in my muffler. I didn’t get very far past Erving on Route 2 east when I was stopped by a state cop. He didn’t give me a ticket, but told me to turn around, go home, and not drive the car again until the muffler was fixed. I didn’t have the money to get it fixed, so there were no more visits. I called Elizabeth. She went to visit Mugsy that day. How he was returned to the cage I don’t know, but there were no reports of bites, so I assume all went well.

Mugsy’s sentence in yuppie Valhalla was nearly over anyway. Elizabeth and I been had making arrangements to move him to a kennel out here close to me. I had moved back to Turners with my other animals on October 11th, but the landlord wouldn’t allow dogs. As soon as I had moved into this apartment, I’d had to immediately start looking for a different one. Where I could have a dog. Until I found one, Mugsy would have to stay in jail. But I liked the second jail a whole lot better than Valhalla. It was on a hill in the woods. It was much smaller, so there was more one-to-one attention for Mugsy (and it cost less than yuppieville). He could sit in his little patio and look out on trees, birds, squirrels, etc. Instead of the highway that had been his view before. I often found him doing just that when I arrived to visit him, watching the trees and animals just beyond his fence. And the two women who ran this kennel, one of whom owned it, were much more laid back and philosophical about dogs with bad anxiety issues, up to and including non-serious bites. If he had to be in jail, which I hated, this was a much, much nicer one. And I would be able to visit and walk him in the woods.

The day of the great transfer was Tuesday 17th November. Elizabeth sprung the boy from yuppiedom and drove out here to Turners, arriving about 1:00. We got a pizza and took it to the river to eat, Elizabeth and I across from each other at the table and Mugsy tied to one of the legs. He was so happy. We shared pizza with him, and in his eyes was the light of dog joy. I knew what he was thinking: I’m going home. Elizabeth had freed him from the cage and brought him back to me. We were eating together again at a picnic table, the way we had done all summer. Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday afternoon, after we’d closed the book store at five, we would go to McIntyre’s for supper. McIntyre’s had been there since I was a little kid: fried clams, chicken, shrimp, scallops and fish; onion rings and french fries. All those meals at those picnic tables, Mugsy getting his share of the goodies, and afterward he and I would go home. He was sure he was going home, wherever that might be.

So how much like a traitor, like the worst kind of creep did I feel when, after a couple hours of visiting together, Elizabeth and I had to take him to yet another kennel and yet another cage. I could see the devastation in his eyes when I closed the door on that cage and walked out. But it was no greater, I firmly believe, than the devastation I was feeling myself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

read…    Lucked out...     Cutting the pie…

Share  ~~~~~~~  website  ~~~~~~~

a href=”http://twitter.com/share” data-count=”none” data-via=”annegrace2″ data-related=”ziidjian:outre tweeting”>Tweet</a><script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”></script

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

all photos, graphics, poems and text copyright 2011 by anne nakis, unless otherwise stated. all rights reserved.

I went back to see him again a week later, on October 30th. The control-freak amazon had left her histrionic marks.

The back wall of each dog cage was wooden, the wall of the building itself. Small doors had been cut into each cage so the dogs could be let out into their little fenced-in patios. Kennels are made this way. The other three sides of the cage were cage; cyclone fencing, or something very like it. On each of these three sides, Mugsy now possessed signs. At least one on each section of fencing, if not more. Memory tells me that his cage was covered with these signs, but that may not be so. It may only have been one on each side. The shock I got when I saw them hurt me so much that my memory may be creating more signs than there actually were.

The signs were written in blood-red magic marker on yellow photocopy paper. In capital letters. DO NOT TOUCH THIS DOG. And THIS DOG BITES. And maybe there were other phrases too that are no longer in the memory banks. My dog’s cage looked like the cage of a pitbull who had been ruthlessly and cruelly trained to tear flesh on sight, to go for the throat, to go for the guts.

In his whole eight years of living, at that time, Mugsy’s bites had left behind, I repeat, a little scraped skin and a bruise. No puncture, no penetration. He had never gone for face or throat or guts. Always the arms and legs. The bite he had given me on the fingertip the previous week was the worst bite he’d ever made, and he’d done it to me, and he’d done it on the fingertip. He’d been in that yuppie monstrosity for nearly a month, and had never bitten anyone there.

Yet there were these signs. Alarmist, silly messages designed to strike terror into the hearts of anyone who saw them. Man-eating beast. Forty-five pounds of shaggy-haired man-eating beast. Mugsy had spent that summer working part-time in Elizabeth’s bookstore with me. I’d kept his leash on him so that when customers came in I could hold him, in case he had any nerves. Never a single attempt to grab anyone: Elizabeth or customers or me. He loved hanging out in the bookstore, loved being with me all day long wherever I went, loved seeing new people and places. Even if he wasn’t allowed to go close to the new people, he loved the stimulation and he loved being allowed to see them from ten feet away and smell them and hear many of them say Hi there, boy to him. My parents had loved him, at least for about seven years, but they had handled his nerves in all the wrong ways. Mugsy had never been allowed within ten feet of another human being while he belonged to them. Understandable on one level. But this constant imprisonment in life with only my parents and their yard and their car, which might have been fine for some dogs, made Mugsy the busy dog, the herd dog, the dog who wanted work to do, only more frustrated and neurotic. I’d once asked my mother why they didn’t get him a second dog, that a dog companion might help him. Oh no! was the exclamation. He’d tear any other dog to pieces with his jealousy. He’s the prince here. He’d never accept another dog. I accepted this for the time being. Figured she knew her dog better than I did. I’d once asked my father why they didn’t get him a muzzle. Then he could meet the relatives and the neighbors and there would be no torn pantlegs and scraped skin. Muzzles are cruel, said my father, and in general I agreed with him. But in Mugsy’s case I thought a muzzle might actually make his life better. I didn’t say this to Dad. I knew his mind was made up on this issue, and there was no point trying to change it.

With a painful lump in my throat, anger in my chest, and water coming in my eyes, I took Mugsy out of his now warning-covered cage and took him into the yard. I think at one point I sat down on the ground beside him, petted, cried, and said things like: Don’t worry Mugs, I know you’re not mean. I know you’re scared. I know how much you love people.

I got him back into his cage without incident. As it turned out, I would never visit him there in yuppie Valhalla again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

read…   Stolen stars…   Braonwandering…

Share  ~~~~~~~  website  ~~~~~~~

a href=”http://twitter.com/share” data-count=”none” data-via=”annegrace2″ data-related=”ziidjian:outre tweeting”>Tweet</a><script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”></script

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

all photos, graphics, poems and text copyright 2011 by anne nakis, unless otherwise stated. all rights reserved.

Mugs remained in this yuppie fortress from 30 September to 17 November in 1998. In the midst of this incarceration, I and the other animals moved from Rowley in the east back out to Turners in the west, and this we did on the 11th of October. While we were still nearby, I visited Mugs every day and took him outside, and these visits kept the worst of his neuroses at bay.

One day I saw he had no blanket. I asked. He had shredded it. I say: please tell me when he shreds them so I can get him a new one. The reply from the dykey amazon kennel maid? He’s not allowed to have anymore blankets. I should have argued this. I wish to this day that I had. To the effect: my friend and I are paying for him to be here, and you, dear, are being paid to take care of him, whether you like him or not. I wish him to have blankets. I pay for these blankets. What right do you have to tell a paying customer that she cannot bring her own purchased blankets for her own dog. The shredding of the blankets gives him an outlet for his stress. I have the whip out even now as I write. I self-flagellate, thirteen years later, that I did not stand up to this control-freak bitch.

Once the rest of us moved out here, 12o miles away, daily visits were impossible. I was lucky to go out there once a week. It was on the visit of Friday 23 October that all hell broke loose. The friend (Elizabeth) who was helping me, very hugely, in paying for this imprisonment, knew I was coming out that day, and wanted to surprise me. She got to the kennel before me, took him out for his walk, and that’s where I found them when I arrived: out in the yard. Mugsy loved Elizabeth, and she him. There was never any doubt of that. But his neuroses needed certain routines, and the routine that he and I had established for getting him back into his cage was one that needed to be conducted in private, with no distractions. I didn’t get this realization fast enough.

Elizabeth came in with me when it was time to re-cage Mugs. This was an alteration in the routine that he could not handle. And in retrospect I think that the fact that both of us were there led him to believe that we were taking him away. So when I led him to the cage, he immediately went into panic mode, looking from me to Elizabeth with desperation in his eyes, as if to say: No. No cage. You’re taking me home now.

The procedure for the cage was that I would throw a couple of dog biscuits to the back of the cage. Mugsy would do his damnedest to scarf those biscuits fast enough to get back to the door before I could lock it. Sometimes he succeeded, and I would have to throw biscuits a second time. But most of the time I was fast enough. On this day, I had him inside the cage, door still open for me to throw the biscuits, and suddenly Elizabeth spoke. I turned my head towards her voice, and in that instant Mugsy grabbed the middle finger of my right hand and bit down with great conviction, puncturing the fingertip.

Immediately Elizabeth is now upset. Oh Anne, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I tell her as calmly as I can (the finger hurts to the heavens) that Mugsy and I need to be alone. Okay, okay she says, and leaves. I get Mugsy into the cage. I talk to him. He knows his nerves have got the better of him again and that he has done the bad thing. The look in his eyes is piteous and tears my heart: Now I’ve done it again, his look is saying, I was bad again, and now you’ll never take me home. I assure him that I love him, that it wasn’t his fault, things went wrong, I still love him, and I’ll come and see him again.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth, in her own nervous state, has been out at the desk tattling. Oh he bit her. It was my fault. I distracted her from what she was doing. The amazon dyke comes into the kennel with sheer hell-bent fury on her supercilious yuppie face. What happened in here, she barks. But I don’t need to answer. She looks down at the channel in the middle of the floor, which still has water in it from the morning cleaning. The long, long channel is full of red water, water dyed by my blood. The fingertip had been bleeding like a stuck pig for five, six minutes, and every drop of it had rained into the channel and turned it bright red. Something out of the bible, or a fantasy novel, this rivulet of blood. It even got to me when I looked down at it. How could there be so much blood from one fingertip, I think, and then I remember how fast blood spreads in water. Nonetheless I got queasy and dizzy, as I’m very squeamish about large amounts of blood.

I am led into a side room where a vet tech disinfects my wound, asks me if I need to go for stitches, bandages the thing when I say no, no stitches. I am fussed over a while longer, am asked if Mugsy went vicious, and I have to keep saying, No, he went scared. He went nervous. He is NOT vicious.

Finally Elizabeth and I leave, have supper in the diner, and then I begin the long drive back to Turners Falls with a handicapped right hand.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

read…   Spite and malice…   Mishibone…

Share  ~~~~~~~  website  ~~~~~~~

a href=”http://twitter.com/share” data-count=”none” data-via=”annegrace2″ data-related=”ziidjian:outre tweeting”>Tweet</a><script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”></script

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

all photos, graphics, poems and text copyright 2011 by anne nakis, unless otherwise stated. all rights reserved.

2 Comments

1. 

   PaulettePostMiller said,

   February 5, 2011 at 6:14 pm · Edit

   It is so painful to deal with dogs and their deprivations. I had two dogs that Bill (husband) would not let into the house. He had a run built for them and fed them himself and put them in the garage at night. It was horrible. I was sick and wasn’t able to take care of them except the occasinal brushing. The dogs were maniacs because no one paid much attention to them and the Fuhrer was in charge of them. Bill expected them to act like good little soldiers and do Exactly What They Were Told To Do. If you know what I mean. Finally they got older and Bill got older and I got the bigger of the two to come into the house where I lavished attention on her (Esther). She died the same day as my husband died. April 6th 2009! The other dog got sick and died before Esther. He was a maniacal Jack Russell (Parson’s) Terrier (Dukey). He had been my son’s dog and when my son left home the dog was inconsolable. He used to dive into the pool and snap at the splashing water. He’d get into the bath tub and bark for me to give him a bath! After his sojourn in the garage I brought him into my room because he was old and sick. He died lying beside my bed. These things tear you heart!

   Reply
2. 

   braon said,

   February 7, 2011 at 12:49 am · Edit

   Paulette… Naturally I’m distressed hearing that dogs weren’t allowed into the house. I know there are people who do this, but it just tastes bad in my mouth. Well, that was a dark day, Bill and Esther dying on the same day. I didn’t have a person living in to love, so everyone I loved were my fourteen animals, who were taken all in one moment. Since you have had a very dark day too, perhaps you can imagine what it might be like to lose ALL the loves in one day. I have a very tear-able heart and yes, many things concerning animals, my own and others, cause me extreme distress. Before the stealing of my life, I was so often torn by human suffering too. But I’ve hardened severely towards humans since 2008, and I won’t allow myself anymore to be torn by human suffering in the world. It’s great to have someone come to Mugsy’s Book and share dog stories. I wish more would do it. Find your wordpress blog!

             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. 

   Babs said,

   October 1, 2010 at 8:06 pm · Edit

   So glad you spoke about this. I wondered if Musgy’s days were all full of Sturm und Drang or if there was sweetness and love.

   Reply
2. 

   braon said,

   October 2, 2010 at 2:47 pm · Edit

   Well, I got more to write on this post. Me the one with all the German degrees and you’re the one who comes up with Sturm und Drang. Good for you. Great phrase for Mugsy’s difficulties.

   Reply
3. 

   Babs said,

   October 8, 2010 at 10:10 pm · Edit

   There is a dog of my acquaintance who is just a person in a dog suit. You look in his eyes and EXPECT him to speak with you, and not just about squirrels. He looks like he can chat about the stock market, the Red Sox or global warming.

   Reply
4. 

   braon said,

   October 9, 2010 at 2:10 pm · Edit

   Babserooni: That’s precisely what I mean.

   Reply
5. 

   PaulettePostMiller said,

   November 5, 2010 at 4:34 am · Edit

   KNew a dog that ate rocks and his owner had him put to sleep! I was so angry with her. He was a huge Rottweiler. With the personality of an angel. I don’t know what I would have done if the dog was mine but it surely would not have been putting him “to sleep”.

   Reply
6. 

   braon said,

   November 6, 2010 at 2:58 pm · Edit

   I have been virtually homicidal many times in my life, Paulette, over imbecilic and heartless things I see people do to their animals, up to and including the lethal injection. I know how you feel.