I was sitting in my friend’s kitchen when his “dog alarm” went off. Max The Maltese was barking in the living room. I bent down to touch him: “Keeper Of The Community, Watcher Of The World,” I said. Bill’s brother laughed and mocked the Maltese: “Oh, look, CJ! A leaf fell!” Bill used to chuckle at Max’s behavior in the back yard, especially at night. Once let out, the dog would charge into the dark, stopping inside his electronic fence, and let loose.
“Max likes to go out and tell the world he’s here, ” Bill said to me once.
Dogs are our faithful companions and guardians, and take a serious position on the defense of the household. Six pound Max is as ferocious in his stewardship of his home as was Duffy, my beloved Irish setter. The yellow lab, Allie Dog Woods, was the exception in the guardianship of the home: she did not care who came and went. She loved everyone, probably assuming that they all loved her as well. I cannot remember the sound of her barking. But in the spaces I occupy at this time, there is barkage.
Along the path of my morning walk there are dogs. They greet me in passage, halfheartedly now, since my presence has become a ritual. At one corner there are two dogs behind a chain-link fence. They signal a third, whose fence abuts theirs; this dog yaps at me until I turn the corner and scampers to meet me at the other side. His flexing is primal and his threat is comical. I reach the corner of the street and turn to meet my next guardian: a golden retriever. She is not often outside in the morning, but she used to greet me with enthusiasm when I passed her in the afternoon. Her provider would be with her on those later occasions, holding a leash more decorative than functional. When first we met, her barking would set her golden mane waving like a wind-blown wheat field. She now gives me a “’Sup, CJ” bark, and not a “stranger/danger” bark. She reminds me of Duffy.
When I refer to my “beloved Irish setter,” it always triggers a giggling memory of “the Great Dog Chippie.” In Pat Conroy’s novel, Beach Music, the protagonist regales his daughter with nighttime tales of his childhood dog. When his mother hears her granddaughter refer to “the Great Dog Chippie,” she is puzzled.
“Chippie was a mutt. A stray.”
Duffy was neither a mutt nor a stray, but he has probably been elevated in status in my mind. Which is fine; we do that with the animals that give us solace. In my current residence there is a “great dog,” an American Bulldog. Roxy cares little about who keys the lock on the front door, but is ferocious in her response to a knock. Sometimes her internal inventory of the home’s occupants will include me when I am not inside. On those occasions, she will bark me up, even after she has recognized me. A girl has to keep up appearances.
The Mighty Maltese Max has no appearances to maintain: he is a certified six-pound bad butt. When he goes out to bark at the dark, he is carrying the standard for all watchdogs, great and small. And my buddies, the dogs who mark my passage, would probably lick my hand and romp with me, should I come close enough to allow that play. But they have work to do, and I must give them their due.
They are the “Keepers Of The Community, Watchers Of The World.”