My son-in-love called to tell me that my daughter cited me for the behavior she exhibited. “She closed my mouth and stroked my throat,” he said, laughing, “to help me swallow my beer. She said you used to do that for Duffy Dog.” We had a good laugh about that, and I thought about the red dog of her childhood. The next morning, I leaned to the left in my chair and reached to lift the window covering so that I could see outside, and remembered Duffy Dog, again.
When Lisa’s mother and I decided to get a dog, I convinced her that the only dog worthy of the family was an Irish setter. When we got the dog from the breeder, we were told that his “kennel name” was “Duffy.” (I did not connect “Duffy” to “Irish” until I met an Irishman named Duffy.) I trained him to lie down, sit, stay, come, speak, and run-away-as-soon-as-you-get-beyond-reach. (He was really good at the last one.) I told my editor that the dog was not allowed on the furniture, and she snorted. She was right to do so: I caught the red dog sliding guiltily off the couch many times. When I came into the formal living room where he apparently snoozed on the antique couch, I often found him with his snout poked into the edge of the curtains. He would brush aside the curtains so he could check the action on the street.
I do not know why I am a lover of dogs; there were few dogs in my childhood. I have a vague memory of a family dog that the landlord said must be removed. I believe that he told my mother to take the dog into the back yard and shoot it in the head. This did not happen, but I don’t know what happened to the dog. Cathy, my best friend in high school, had a white German shepherd named “Shy,” and I loved that dog, but her sister and brother-in-law had a Rottweiler that liked to eat people, and that dog was not my favorite. By the time I had married my high school friend and had a daughter, I had somehow become enamored of the idea of having a dog, an Irish setter.
The Duffer was born in Madera, California, and died in Clarksville, Indiana, and in the space between those two events, he flew in the cargo hold of an airplane and saved his family from bandits. He showed a preference for the lady of the house and the child, though neither of those people fed and walked him. (I am not bitter.) The child remembers that the dog was trained to be quiet in the backyard of the California house and to leave the kitchen when the family sat down to eat, but she may not remember how those behaviors were achieved. She does remember how the Duffy dog was induced to swallow pills. And she wants me to train the dog she would like to get for her family.
I have tried to make my eldest child — my grandchild delivery device — understand that the care and feeding of a dog is much like the care and feeding of a kid, except that the dog does not do diapers. “Do you want another kid?” She does not, but she wants me to move to New Jersey to train the dog they plan to get when I move to New Jersey. I have not planned to move to New Jersey, though.
But I do love dogs, and sometimes, still, I miss the Duffy dog.