Sunday, November 1, 2015

A Yorkshire on Oxford

“Just another strange day in paradise,” I said as we strolled down Oxford Lane. Our neighborhood in the far north suburbs of Chicago was shady and serene, a picturesque place to stroll after morning coffee with a pup in need of some fresh air. The large brick homes were set on half acre lots, lawns professionally manicured, and the drama that accompanies humans regardless of affluence or education comfortably distant from the street, behind heavy double doors and large picture windows. And therein lay the absurdity of it all. We joked about being the poor folks in town and never quite felt like we fit in.

Our twenty-pound black Cocker Spaniel tugged hard at his leash, choking to get to the next hydrant or tree, nearer yet to the story told by another lingering delicious scent.

“You think he’ll ever learn to walk like a normal dog?” Jeanne asked.

“Doesn’t seem likely. It’s been four years,” I said.

We soon found that a harness alleviated choking and much pulling, making walks much more pleasant for us all. It was one of those magical discoveries that don’t get nearly enough publicity.

We rescued Jett from Orphans of the Storm. He generally behaved like a stuffed animal with a bladder, and needed only to be brought into the back yard for one stop to the count of twenty, emptying himself of a hot yellow stream. Then, back inside to sprawl on the couch, or in a comfy beam of sunshine on the dining room carpet. We walked him only for his health, for exercise.

“Oh great, look at this,” I said, motioning to an unfamiliar dog-walker with a retractable leash fully played out.

A crazed looking Yorkshire Terrier the size of a coffee cup darted left and right like a sweeper seeking mines. Twenty feet behind him, striding like a hurried penguin on bejeweled high-heeled slippers came an excited “dog person” eager to make a new friend. The dog was just an excuse to meet us and talk at us. These conversations are seldom much more than monologues that begin with, “Oh they want to be friends!”

Our dog was a runner. He could never be taken off-leash without a significant risk of having him wind up back at Orphans. He was also fairly unpredictable when mixing with other dogs. We preferred to avoid encounters with strangers, both human and canine, for fear of what might happen.

We were completing our Saturday morning walk, enjoying the quiet and pleasant summer weather when “Gucci” and his human, “Ditsy” approached on a rapid and clearly intentional vector in our direction, with a motion that resembled an early morning beach walker with a metal detector, eager to communicate. Jett was finishing up his business, and we were at a disadvantage, being in recovery mode from the awkward inside-out bag poop retrieval protocol. It’s the one that results in a trophy swinging like a shrunken head in a plastic grocery sack at your side for the remainder of your walk unless it’s garbage day.

“He doesn’t get along wi…” I tried to blurt as quickly as possible when I saw the crazed looking Yorkie rapidly closing ranks. Gucci decided to go nose to nose with Jett instead of the more customary nose-to-rear introduction that always makes us laugh and go, “Eeewww.”

As the words left my mouth the woman on heels was spewing the usual friendless pick-up line about the kindly nature of her adorable little dog. His messy orange and brown top-knot made him look like he’d recently stuck his cute little tongue into an electric outlet.

Jett apparently thought him ridiculous looking as well. Or tasty and bite sized. Or a threat.

The two stood nose-to-nose for less time than it takes to say, “Your perception of dogs is about to change forever, and today is going to be really bad.” Much, much less time.

The ferocious reflex with which two snarling masses of hair became one is not an image I will ever forget. The law of physics about two objects being unable to occupy the same space at the same time ceased to apply, at least in the region of Jett’s fanged mouth, which entirely engulfed Gucci’s head.  Yes, little Gucci’s head was completely missing if you were to review National Geographic-quality ultra-slow-motion footage of the attack. That footage is stuck in my brain and continues to play back at the annoyingly slow speed characterized by horrifying events or periods of extreme pain.

Our adorably mellow stuffed animal proceeded to shake Gucci from the neck the way a panther whips its prey from side to side at break neck speed, and with force enough to, well, break a neck. Gucci’s body was limp and lifeless. I imagined his last thoughts, peering down the length of a long pink tongue into a darkened throat. Lights out.

“DROP IT!” I yelled, shattering the Saturday morning silence, accompanied by a chorus of screams from Ditsy, whose own head began to revolve and emit demonic accusations about our “effing dog” and other unintelligible exorcist-like ranting.

“SPIT HIM OUT!” I shouted, lifting Jett up by the leash like a reverse-motion gallows scene, rising from the ground, suspended by the neck at the end of his leash in a most uncomfortable manner. At some subconscious level I was remembering guidance not to get between two fighting dogs. Not that it was possible at the point at which the two appeared to be one.

My ploy worked. Gucci was dropped. I set Jett back down on all fours. He was choking a bit, but not much more than his usual gasping leash-pulling routine.

Gucci was not in fact dead. He scampered off-balance a few feet sideways, looking even more confused and crazed than normal, with a bit of blood and saliva complementing the natural earth tones of his complexion and Sassoon coiffure.

We were stunned into silence. Not so with Gucci’s mom, who was as verbose while cursing us to Hell as she was when trying to make new friends.

Her string of first-rate expletives started with an accusatory “You” and ended with a wailing sound somewhere between a wolf’s howl and a vacuum cleaner. She scrambled through the grass, dropping to her knees and falling out of her slippers as she tried to comfort her ravaged puppy.

Neighbors began to peer from front doors and emerged into the street-side Hellscape theater the way neighbors always do when the sirens and flashing lights of fire trucks and ambulances stop nearby. But this was a much more intimate setting, on the parkway maintained by their landscaping crews, just off the asphalt where the Rockwell-esque Fourth of July parade passed by with never a worry or a care.

More expletives ensued with high energy, trembling and tears, not at all the very put together image that approached us minutes earlier.  She proceeded to unfasten Gucci’s leash from his collar, we assume to comfort him. It was another bad decision, something of a core competency for this barefoot human.

Gucci saw a chance to escape from his nightmare and took it, full speed on a ninety-degree tangent to the lawn-based vivisection his morning had become.

“OOOOHHH, GU, HU HU CHI…” sobbed his liberator, bounding to her feet and giving chase, crossing the street without looking in either direction, across two lawns and into…

“He’s going into our back yard!” said Jeanne.

“Oh no, where are the kids?” I asked, and then I saw them staring out the patio sliders on the side of the house facing the commotion, wide-eyed and clearly scarred for life.

We were left holding a dog, a bag of poop and what was left of our dignity on our neighbor’s lawn in an area of strangely matted grass, a bit of blood and two eastward facing high-heeled slippers. I remember choking back a laugh, immensely relieved that Gucci was alive, but struck by the absurdity of the scene and the outrageous outburst from our new “friend.”

Later that evening, our doorbell rang. It was an apologetic Ditsy with her older brother, our neighbor. She declined our offer to pay any vet bills and said that Gucci was fine. He just had a small puncture wound on his face. We hoped that the episode had been a series of learning moments, and returned to the living room sofa to snuggle with our little buddy, vowing never again to take for granted the instinctive nature of this domesticated friend, or any other. It had indeed become a very strange day in paradise.