Travels with Dogs

Michael Baugh CPDT-KA, CDBC

I’ve set off across the country a few times now. I gathered up my things, and packed them with my sense of self. It was always for a job; that’s the way it was working in TV news. I’d rent a truck, cram everything in and tear out. It was always a quick move with a bunch of stuff cast aside, stuff I wanted to forget, emotional stuff. I set off on my own, again and again, leaving home, looking for home. Of course I wasn’t really on my own. I left people behind. The dog always came with.

Juno made the last two moves with me, the delicate blond golden retriever I first met

in the front seat of my car. My partner at the time came into the newsroom in St. Louis to tell me he’d found the “most perfect golden retriever ever.” He was more right than either of us knew. He’d left her in the parking lot, in the car, balled up on the front seat, nose tucked to tail, fast asleep. When I saw her I let out a long sigh, and smiled. She looked up at me, bleary eyed, just 8 weeks old. Two years later we’d leave the partner who brought me Juno. He’d follow us to Cleveland and four years after that we’d leave him again. I’m sorry for that, for the pain we caused. My heart belonged to a dog, and a life I would never find except in the journey with her.

I’ve thought about Juno and St. Louis a lot recently. My colleague from those days, Jean Whatley, is traveling across the country with her dog, Libby. She’s writing, snapping photos and rolling video of the adventure for her blog

(www.offtheleashroadstories.com). She tells her own story much better than I ever could. Still, there are themes: regret, reflection, the seeking and hope for redemption. These things resonate so deeply and wake me at night. What now? What’s all this about? Why this time, these people? Why me? I’ve got to get out of here. I have to go. Now. Don’t forget the dog.

I worked with Jean in St. Louis at a TV station that would eventually shut down its news department. I was in the first round of layoffs. The news director invited me to sit. I refused and stood stone-faced. He told me my contract was not being renewed but that I could finish out the remaining 6 months. It was an easy sentence compared to today’s layoffs. It was still the worst thing that had happened to my fragile ego thus far in my life. I went home to Juno and cried, deep wracking gasp-for-breath sobbing. She looked at me like I was an idiot, but in my state I saw it as love. In the movie version I say this next line aloud to Juno. In real life I just thought it. I will never again depend on a company or a boss for my sense of self worth or our survival. I promise. That was the moment I decided to become a professional dog trainer. “And, damn it Juno, you’re going to help me.” That part I really said.

We loaded up the truck and moved to Cleveland, me and Juno rolling across the Mississippi River Bridge. It may have been the same route Jean took to Chicago when she set off with Libby. I don’t know. I was on my way to another TV job and to start a dog training company. Jean – I think she’s got a book in her. I wonder if maybe it’s mine. It’s funny how good stories work out like that. We all have a share of them, the big questions, and the epic quests for self and how we fit in. What’s it about and why me? If you’re a traveler, you load up a car and go. The answer’s down the road, I suppose.

Juno did help me become a dog trainer, a pretty good one. We moved again together, this time to Houston for another TV job. The best tales have little twists like that, don’t they? We met Tim, my partner. Then, a short time later I came to my senses and decided to leave TV again.

That was right before Juno left us. It was cancer. We laid her down on the cool wood floor under the piano where she loved to listen to Tim play. The vet had come to our house to help her along. She relaxed and looked up at me, bleary eyed, 11 ½ years old. I let out a sigh. You really are the most perfect golden retriever ever.

Juno and I logged a lot of miles together, lots of cities, and adventures. But our real journey wasn’t about travel at all. I wonder if that’s what it’s like for Jean and Libby out finding themselves in America. For me, it turns out the journey was about where Juno was taking us without ever leaving my side. It was about finding my better self in the reflection of her eyes, the one worthy of love even when I was acting like an idiot. It was about learning to stay put, to draw people near and dare to love them the way Juno loved me. Yes, it was about big questions, but it was about the little questions too. Who are you? What’s your story? Do you want to share the path for a while? And, by the way, have you met my dog?

Swim Stella, Swim!

Michael Baugh, CPDT-KA, CDBC

“This dog can’t swim.” That’s what I thought as I watched her struggle, bob and tip in the pond. I was about to jump in the murky water myself when I saw Stella briefly roll onto her back and then right herself. She stepped gleefully to the shore, shook off, dropped her ball, and looked up at me. She had no idea how pathetic she had looked.

Of course, I was concerned. Stella had swum before, albeit briefly. But, this last time was different. Physics failed her. She listed to one side, nearly sank, and then went keel up. She was wholly out of her element, and I’d so wished her element was water. I wanted it badly; I wanted it with every memory of the retriever before her, with every hope of the retriever I dreamt she would become. That was the problem. This wasn’t about me. It was about Stella; and Stella couldn’t swim.

I tried to get my brain around it. Maybe it really was bad physics. Stella’s chest is unusually deep and her waist is unusually small. She’s narrow, very narrow. She’s tall and long, unnaturally so. Her face and coat say retriever, but the rest of her says whippet or Italian greyhound. Okay if I’m going to be brutally honest, if you catch her at the wrong angle the whole package screams “cartoon dog.” Maybe her body just wasn’t built for water; maybe she was too lean, too spindly. Maybe she just couldn’t swim.

When my heart’s breaking, I write. So, I wrote some veterinarian friends of mine. No, they said. There’s nothing wrong with Stella. She is quirky beautiful and fully buoyant. I wrote to a local dog swim coach (who knew?) and she said the same thing. Some dogs are naturals, others are not. Stella can learn. She can swim.

I can’t explain what happened next. Sometimes there’s no way to fix a thing set askew. Then again, sometimes there’s no holding back a thing intent on setting itself right. Stella’s new coach is an affable woman in the middle of life, with an easy smile and a gentle feel for a dog’s spirit. She welcomed us to a long glistening pool in the early light of day. “Does Stella like toys?” she asked. “Tennis balls” I answered. The rest was unstoppable. It was the simple magic of letting things happen, letting go, swimming with the current of the moment.

Stella waded into the pool for her ball, and brought it back. On the second throw, she leapt across the shallow slope into the deep. Stella’s head slipped under and then popped up high in the water, a bow splashing and awkward, and a stern dragging too low. Her coach moved with deft purpose, the subtle speed of a woman who knows her craft. She righted Stella’s hips, bringing them level to withers just below the water’s crest. Stella sailed with ease back to the shallows and out. She dropped the ball and looked back at what she’d swum.

222531_224371824265357_107851415917399_539116_2541228_n — courtesy: Rummy's Beach Club

I threw again. Again she leapt and swam. Again, and again Stella’s body stretched, and her head skimmed the break where water meets air. Her legs tucked naturally, fronts propelling, backs adjusting for balance. She used her thick retriever tail like a rudder. Stella leapt and swam. She moved with ease and grace, ball firmly in mouth, eyes gleaming in the morning sun, nowhere to be but here, nothing in mind but now. Stella leapt again and then swam some more. She panted and pushed hard against the water, a wake behind her. The air was sweet with the smell of wet dog and abandon. I moved up beside her and kissed her cheek. I would have loved her the same no matter, but oh how I love my water dog.

We stayed on like that until we were both soaked through, swimming together.

Stella at Two

Michael Baugh, CPDT-KA, CDBC

There was a night I feared she would not survive. She was twitching incessantly and crying inconsolably. We knew her disease was often fatal, but she had to survive. We’d only had her a few weeks, but already she was ours.

Something magical happens when a dog turns two, especially a retriever. She is young but no longer a puppy. She is socially mature but not yet old. The bonds she forged in the months prior become solid. All that she’s been taught, including the ability to learn, takes hold. And, she takes on the quiet wisdom that is the signature of her kind, the very best of her kind. She comes into her own.

Our dear Stellla is imperfect and quirky, undoubtedly. She stands nearly as tall as she is long. That counts for something because her height and length are each considerable in measure. She is equally lithe and narrow. She is a leggy strawberry blond. Add to that her twitch, constant and rhythmic, as if she were keeping time to a song no one else can hear. Stella is, well, odd and cartoonish and beautiful.

To be certain she is not a classic beauty like the Goldens and Labs in her genetic buffet. Hers is the beauty of movement, grace at an open run, the leap and grasp at a thrown ball, the dance of play with her own kind, strength and inhibition in equal measure. Stella is the gangly egret at rest, arresting beauty in flight, the gasp and the awe. Even when resting she is never still. Only her eyes hold fast, a lasting gaze with a subtle wink just before they close and carry her away to sleep.

Something magical happens when a dog turns two, especially Stella. She is breathtaking in the way so many normal dogs are. This is, with certainty, because of who she is. She is a dog, imperfect and beautiful and that’s enough. But, she is so much more. She is ours. We plucked her from death in a cage at a shelter and claimed her. She peed at our feet and shat and barked and we loved her just the same. She twitched in my arms and cried late into the night, fighting a virus none of us could see. I cried with her and loved her imperfectly. We were reflections of each other, the best of all that is dog and all that is human, goodness from each in equal measure.

Stella turned two today, our magical dog. Tonight she will rest by my side. I’ll watch her ear twitch as she falls into a deep refreshing sleep. She never stops moving, not ever.