NOTES FROM THE HINTERLAND
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL DOG IN WINTHROP
By Laurie Meunier Graves
“But hard, sharp-eyed, kind, sentimental London always keeps its head and,
in a crisis, resorts at once to the stern mask of
respectability….‘Something’ absolutely must not happen in this room, office,
cinema, bar, street. We are appalled—unless, of course, the ‘something’ has
happened to a dog, and then all our passion is roused and, in chorus, we go
mad and address the whole world with indignation.”
—V. S. Pritchett, London Perceived
I am a dog lover and have been for as long as I can remember. When I was
quite young, four or five perhaps, one of my mother’s friends had a baby,
and, with gifts in tow, we went for a visit. As I peered at the little shape
in the crib, my mother’s friend asked me, “Well, how do you like him?” It is
a well-known fact that when adults ask a young child a question, they will
get an honest answer. “He’s not bad,” I replied, “but I think puppies are
cuter.” My mother’s friend was not impressed by this answer, and my mother
had to spend some time soothing hurt feelings.
Fortunately, my husband loves dogs nearly as much as I do, and for most of
our married life we have had one. Our last dog was a Shetland sheepdog—a
sheltie, as they are commonly called—much larger than is standard for the
breed and a dead-ringer for Lassie. He came to us as a fuzzy puppy—alert,
smart, and temperamental—and my husband named him Seamus. Recently, we had
to have Seamus put down, and the grief we felt over his death hit us hard.
Intellectually, we know we will probably outlive our pets, and we should be
prepared for this. But where love is concerned, emotion trumps intellect,
and we did love that old dog.
I suppose I am boasting when I say that Seamus was the most beautiful dog in
Winthrop (the town where we live) but it is not an idle boast. No doubt,
there would have been challenges if there had ever been an actual contest,
but I feel quite confident that Seamus would have won. Right to the end, he
had a full sable coat with a magnificent white ruff. His face was shapely,
his dark eyes were bright, and, in his younger days, he would prance down
the road whenever anyone was watching.
One day, when I was working in a shop in Hallowell, a town about ten miles
from Winthrop, some coworkers and I decided to go to a nearby pub for happy
hour. As we walked in, there was a man playing a keyboard. I had never seen
him before, but when he finished the song, he came over to me and asked,
“Aren’t you the one who walks that beautiful collie dog in Winthrop?” I had
to admit that I was. As it turned out, this man lived in Winthrop, too, on a
road that connects to ours, and he had seen the two of us walking together
many times.
In Winthrop, it was even worse. Store clerks, postal workers, committee
members—people whom I had never met —would inevitably ask when introduced to
me, “Aren’t you the one who walks that beautiful dog?” Yes, indeed, and I
must say it’s quite a thing to be outshone by a dog.
Once, Seamus and I were walking down a rural road not far from where we
live. The houses were few, the trees were many, and desolate would not be an
unreasonable description for that stretch of road. A pickup truck came
behind us and slowed down, trailing us. I tried to look casual, but I knew
if I screamed nobody would hear me. I glanced down at Seamus, but he seemed
unperturbed. Slowly, the truck pulled up beside us, and the driver was a
middle-aged man whom I didn’t recognize. He rolled down the window. Without
saying a word, he stuck out his arm and opened his hand. A dog biscuit
rested in his palm. Smiling, I took the biscuit and thanked him. He just
smiled back, waved, and drove away.
Of course, as the writer John Bayley would put it, Seamus had his “little
ways.” He barked like a fool whenever we used the microwave or lit candles
on a birthday cake or looked at him for longer than a minute. In fact, he
barked for the sheer joy of barking. He hated crowds and traffic, and even
Winthrop’s small downtown made him so nervous that when we stopped at the
local snack bar, he was unable to eat ice cream, one of his favorite foods.
Ditto for riding in a car. First came the drooling, then the vomit. Worst of
all, he was not good with small children, and whenever they came to the
house, Seamus had to be shut in the bedroom, where he would howl more or
less continuously.
On the other hand, Seamus liked everyone over seven years old who came to
visit. Seamus never jumped or made a pest of himself, settling down as soon
as he had finished his greetings. When we played hide and seek, he would
find us every time, no matter where we hid. On that last Sunday, when we had
to keep him in the cellar most of the day because the tumor on his foot was
bleeding profusely, he never held it against us and was always happy to see
us when we checked on him.
His “little ways” combined with his beauty, his intelligence, and what can
only be called grace made him the dog he was. And he was just right for us.
In the movie The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, Mark Bittner
wonders, “How do you get so attached to an animal?” In his case, the animals
were parrots rather than a dog, but the question applies to any animal loved
by a human. I don’t have an answer, but I know the affection is real, and so
is the grief when the animal dies or goes away. It may be a cliché to say
that loving an animal broadens our horizons but that doesn’t mean it isn’t
true. To love another human takes us outside ourselves, and to love an
animal stretches us even further, bringing us beyond our species. As far as
I’m concerned, humans can use all the stretching they can get.
Although we will get another dog, Seamus will be with us in our memories
until we are gone. His picture is on the wall by my desk, and when I look at
it, I can’t help smiling. By gosh, he was the most beautiful dog in
Winthrop.
