The Will and Why

Post-Roe July 4th
hard to see the independence on this independence day
where the Christian minority imposes religious values on the country
(looking at you, SCOTUS)
and fails to protect the environment
fails to address gun violence
fails to evolve
Beyond the founder’s limited worldview and privilege

I’m scared
for my 2SLGBTQIA+ friends
for my marginalized friends
for the people this land was stolen from
for our right to the pursuit
Of life, liberty, and happiness
for our future
our children’s future
their children’s future

We have to fight
The gloves are off
expand the court
eliminate the Electoral College
protect & broaden voting rights & access
universalize healthcare
fund community services
vote & support pro-choice

If you have a uterus
I support your right to choose
your right to bodily autonomy

If you have a penis
consider a vasectomy
as a means of prevention
It’s no big deal

been there, done that

If you have privilege
use it now

If you’re sad, scared, angry
I see you
I’m with you
and so are a lot of good people

With love,

Let’s make something clear from the very start. I was not a dog person, and still do not know if I am one. But, I married a dog person, and in February of 2016 Kendra came to me for an honest conversation. We had struggled for several years with infertility and just finished our last round of medication/options before IVF became our only path forward. She needed something to care for in her life, and though the ultimatum was never exactly presented this way, it became clear the choice had narrowed to getting a dog or ending the relationship. We got the dog.

Not just any dog. Japhy. Though he was not Japhy when he came to us, as the rescue group had named him Baron and the foster family then called him Cash (for Johnny). As part of our relationship bargaining, I won exclusive naming rights, and chose the character of Japhy Ryder from the Jack Kerouac novel “The Dharma Bums” as his namesake. Japhy Ryder is based on the poet Gary Snyder, and is a freewheeling, mountain climbing Zen-buddhist in the book. A week after Japhy joined our family we found out that Kendra was pregnant.

We have no details, but suspect that Japhy’s start in life was on the rough and tumble side. Though we thought we were getting a one and a half year old German Shorthaired Pointer mix, a DNA test later showed that he was more coonhound than pointer. His tail was docked shorter than typical, suggesting that the “breeder” may have been sloppy. Again, he joined us in February, after having spent most of the month of January loose in the frozen cornfields of Iowa, arriving with the rescue group around 45 pounds. Later, his healthy body weight normalized nearly fifteen pounds heavier. His ears had scabs from frostbite, and he spent the first month blowing the thick coat he had developed from clearly living as an outside dog prior to his time on the run.

In those first weeks, he showed us his determination and character. Also his trauma. We tried kenneling him downstairs, and he shredded beds and pulled apart several crates due to separation anxiety, a trait that persisted throughout his life. Once we decided we could trust him in the house and set him free to roam when we were away, he was much happier. We tried putting up a child gate to keep him downstairs, and though we never saw it in action, he figured out how to hurdle it heading uphill.

He pulled like a Budweiser Clydesdale. I still remember seeing Kendra head down the road with him for their first run together, and it looked a bit like Wiley Coyote being attached to the Roadrunner with an Acme bungee. She looked like she was headed for the hundred meter world record. He pulled, and pulled, and pulled. Gagging and coughing didn’t seem to bother him, and no harness would slow him down. We resisted the prong collar for a long time, but when we eventually succumbed, we found it was the only thing that actually helped to keep our shoulders in their sockets.

I make him sound like an extremely active dog, and I tried my best to cultivate that personality. A month or so after adoption, Kendra left for a week for a conference. Without knowing better, I made him run every day with me for those five days, over forty miles total. At least he slept well. In reality, he was just as happy sleeping on the couch in the afternoon sun (or in a chair, on our bed, wherever he could wiggle into some warmth, really). Must have been the Zen Bhuddist part of him at play. It became a game to turn on our gas fireplace and see how long it would take for him to get too warm to stand it. The answer was quite a while, and he ate the heat up.

Speaking of eating, life on the run influenced his appetite and ways significantly. Maybe it was his life before, too. He never passed up a meal or a snack, even if it was a piece of week old gas station chicken rotting in the ditch. We learned to speed up when we saw horse apples on our typical running loop, because Japhy seemed to think they were an excellent fuel for running. It was difficult for him to choke down the horse poop if we made him run hard. In his first year with us, he gorged himself in the kitchen twice. Once he figured out how to spin the lazy suzan and ate almost everything that he possibly could, and after we moved the food to a cabinet, he sorted out how to pull that open. Each time, he delicately left a jar of peanut butter labeled with his name alone. Somehow he knew that the peanut butter was already going to be his, and that he could save it for later.

His appetite may have been outweighed by his patience. We got so, so lucky. Our daughter, Ida, was born in October after his February adoption. On her birthday, Kendra insisted that I go to work, and that her contractions were not actually contractions. Japhy stayed by her side at home until I came back for the trip to the hospital. Kids loved Japhy, and he would shower them with that endless patience, possibly because he thought that there might be food as a reward. I swear, there were times that Ida and our friend’s kids poked him right in the eyeball, and he never blinked. He was so gentle.

He gave great hugs, too. When we would come home at the end of the day, or after walking outside for ten minutes, he would jump up and put his paws on each of your shoulders. More often than not, he would try to lick your face too.

The only anger he showed came at the front door. A knock or the doorbell would set him off, and for a while, we had a recliner set up in such a way that from his bed he could take two steps, leap off the seat and spring over the upright back like a hurdler. He bayed, too, that coonhound voice coming through to intimidate the intruder-to-be. Once the door opened though, 95% of the time he just wanted to have his ears scratched by whomever was standing there.

His hearing was selective, and influenced largely by his stomach. He knew the sound of a dog treat from across the house, and loved licking out the inside of yogurt containers. Once that scraping of a spoon on the plastic started up, he came running.

We tried to take him camping, but it was not really his thing. That month outside in January was enough sleeping out of doors for his lifetime, he preferred the couches and beds. Runs and walks were generally good, unless it was windy and cold, in which case he could hold his bladder for upwards of twelve hours. Almost seventeen, once.

I would label my runs with him as “Japhy Pace”. That generally meant some kind of balance between sniffing, pulling, and exasperation. He insisted on leading, and would try to trip you if you got ahead of him, often successfully when the trails narrowed in winter. For a pointer, he did not seem much interested in birds. Squirrels yes, deer maybe. There was a time that, on a pre-dawn winter morning, an owl swooped over our heads on the snowmobile trail on Hawks Ridge. Japhy did not seem to notice, or if he did, he did not mind.

There are stories on stories, and I wish I could tell every one. He is gone now. In December 2021 we noticed a lump, and he was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive oral tumor. The prognosis was one to two months as a worst-case scenario, which proved true. We thought we had years, but there was nothing to be done. In the end, the tumor started to bleed, and infection loomed. We tried to do right by him, and scheduled in home euthanasia near the end of January, after pursing any treatment options we could and letting him have a lot of good days. The pain medication helped, though we saw the discomfort breaking through more and more. He was still himself on that day, and we think he had a sense of what was coming. That morning, he asked to go out several times into temperatures that were well below zero, just to look at the backyard. Seemed like he was taking it all in. When the vet arrived, he greeted her at the door and asked for a hug, almost like “I’m glad you’re here.” Maybe we just want to comfort ourselves. He died on a sunny morning, laying on his bed in front of the burning fireplace, with Kendra and I petting him while Ida held his paw. It was the least we could do, to make sure he was warm and loved to the end.

I still cannot say that I am a dog person, but I definitely became a Japhy person. He gave so much more than he owed to us, to the universe, and his journey ended far, far too soon. So please, take his advice, and enjoy the warmth of the sun the next time it hits your shoulders. Have an extra helping or two of dessert. Indulge, in his memory.

Postscript: I wanted to leave the story there. After sitting on it for a week, I could not. Too hopeful, too much silver-lining. I miss the sound of his toenails clicking about on the hardwood floor, and scratching his ears on the couch before bed at night. It really sucks that this happened after two years of enduring the pandemic (of course, many folks went through very different kinds of loss), and the house feels so empty these days. We do too, I think.