excerpt from  - Observer On A Small Planet


_______HOW ABOUT DOGS_______


There is reports
that wolves are telepathic.
This though this may be, dogs, their
cousins are consciousness enough to constitute
beings in the greater scheme of things. Witness pleasant
Luke, a Bijingi so true to form Luke did not bark not one growl
no bark Luke was a soundless dog. But love Luke this is a dog who
got left behind in Stanley Park when it was time to leave
the picnic and no Luke anywhere, regretfully but not
dismayed they left the park and sure enough
two days later five miles away there
is Luke strutting in the front
door as pleased by the wide
dog grin as if Luke had
never been left behind
in a park on the other
side of town. One day
Luke comes to me urgently
looking and I get the message
something is up Luke and me we head out
the front door Luke leading but not fast enough that
I can't follow. We head down the slopes two blocks into a large
vacant field where something has worn a circle in the middle of the
weeds and grass, just like a path except this one is a circle. There in
the circle are twelve dogs of every description walking nose to tail in
a slow motion circle around the circle each dog perfectly in place in
a continuous string and since so many breeds and mongrels I simply
cannot report as to kind or size except no miniature Mexican
Chawawas were in this dog circle. Luke and I stood
at the edge of the circle me in awe watching
the dogs solomely pass orbiting the
marked out ring in the tall
grass. I have no way of
interpreting this. Is
this a ring pagans
use at midnight
to screech
thoughts
to the moon.
Is this a ring
left behind by a UFO
staging a secret visit. Is
this a ring magicians use to transform
homely women into cats for a few hours, I do not
know all I know is Luke came and got me and took me to it
and there I stood mid afternoon long hair blowing in the slight breezes
wondering what it is we humans do not know yet about dogs when 12 are
silently solomely parading around in a circle in the middle of a
field around a path either made indended by dogs, or humans,
I did not know and never saw dogs again going around
in the circle they made of themselves, nose to
tail, silently. The other side of dogs
came into notice the very next day,
Luke and me cruising the nearby
main street me on the way to
the butcher shop to see
if there were any
bones for Luke
and out of
nowhere
strikes
a much larger
dog seeming part german
sheppard no warning no sound no bark
or growl the biggie struck straight at Luke's nuts gottem
one bite big noise the dog driven off by me Luke sitting squat on
the pavement not moving an inch I finally got the message and opened my arms
in welcome Luke sailed straight up into them in one silent gliding motion
as if teleporting and I carried Luke the mile home as carefully and
gently as I could, for days after Luke spent little but lie on
the floor and raise a leg to lick the balls once again I do
not know if the dogbite had got Luke beyond the point of
ever having puppies but I do know that the day after
the circle of 12 dogs Luke nearly lost his jollies
to another kind of dog that struck once, struck
fast, struck straight to the target, Luke's
nuts. On all scales Luke was one of the
most conscious dogs I ever knew. He
an me, (Luke and I) used to like
heading down to the hippy
district, hitchhiking,
any one stopping
knowing there
was going
to be me and
Luke leaping into the
car. So here we are at the big table
at the hippy coffee house, a hippy, girl, guy, girl,
girl, guy, Luke, girl, me, guy, guy, girl, all sitting upright
around the long table drinking coffee and eating niblets shriek a hippy
girl thinks she is having an lsd hallucination but it is not that it is
Luke who is sitting totally upright squeezed between two humans on
the bench at the table along with the humans, nibbling snacks at
exactly the same pace as all of us humans at that table.
Talk about well integrated, Luke fit right in and
was even able, for a few minutes, to pass
himself off as a human until the poor
semi stoned hippy girl saw fur.

Luke had class, a hippy house
we all lived in back then
little or no money the
common status the
cat had kittens.
This created
a problem
because
there
was
little
no money
for extra food so
anything that could be passed
onto the cat, was. One day however even
the most careful scrape did not come up with much
food except for a small plate put down on the kitchen floor
for Luke. As Luke stood studying the plate of strange macro biotic
orange carrots and brown rice the scrawny cat started creeping straight
toward the plate legs flattened to the floor, moving. It did not take
long for inevitables to happen, as the cat approached the edge of
the plate Luke took one small nibble, then one more, then
nudged the plate straight to the cat the lip
of the plate coming to a stop under the
cat's chin. Luke stood back and
watched as the cat downed
the whole thing, then
with a strong
meweow directed
at Luke took off for
the stash of kittens. The
thing that was so awing about this
interspecies sharing is that food had been
a touch spot for several days it was mostly brown
rice and soybeans at that time a few carrots and nothing
else so Luke had been getting a soft touch in the way of dog's
food practically none and we all knew Luke was temporarily
hungry like the rest of us. Now 15 years later something
similar happened again, a tabby cat in the next door
condo had kittens and was not getting enough
because she was coming into my place
several times a day prowling
around for whatever she
could coax or find.
Quasar - a part
Bijinge who
barked -
always aware
of the cat prowling,
kept a wary eye only on his
Gains Burgers which Quasar typically
nibbled off and on rather than downing the
whole thing in one gulp. One day some money had
come in, meaning a pizza blowout, two giant large with
extra cheese and more toppings. Quasar's share was cut into
small squares on a plate on the living room floor, because Quasar
would not tackle a whole slice unless it was cut into the right
size chunks. As Quasar did one chunk of pizza, then another,
in came the tabby through the door on a slow slink
toward the plate. Oohoo thought I a bit
alarmed since Quasar and the tabby
you could not say were the best
of friends, she always waved
a broom rake made of claws
whenever she wanted to
move Quasar out of
the way. She
came over ever
so slowly toward the
edge of the plate, a motion
of Quasar's snout so slight to be hardly
seen, wait a minute, a chunk of pizza had just
glided across the plate to the opposite side where the
cat looking like Garfield ears straight forward was coming to a
stop. The moment the first chunk of pizza went down the cat a
second came skidding to a stop from across the plate where
Quasar had just again used his nose. The cat had three
chunks which seemed enough and departed very much
in business to get back to the basketful
next door, Quasar finishing off the
last chunks left and that is how
Quasar helped feed the kittens.
Please note dogs like this
had never been ordered,
commanded, demanded
to obey, hit with
a roll of newspaper
or on the snout, not a single
act of hostility or harm had ever been directed
to either dog. Luke was before the era of leashes. Quasar
was in the early days of leash-em-up but had not ever been on the
rope until about 6 years old when others at the condo complex
began wondering why Quasar was not noosed when their dogs
were at all times. It was a question of complying
with the bylaw, a warning, then a fine, then
another, then extreme threat of $3,500
and or a half year in jail resulted
in the rope. On day one whenever
Quasar wanted to go out on
calls I paused him
and on went the 48
foot rope around his neck.
On day two it was completely
different me in the chair watching
TV suddenly there is Quasar standing in front
of me the rope dangling from his teeth, thereafter whenever
Quasar wanted to go out the open patio door to the great nearby beyond
he would go outside get the rope first and bring it to me, the rope more
than long enough for Quasar to get out to the great cedar trees
beyond the missing gate to check out the overnight
rainshower of new calling cards left by dogs
whizzing by. The rope worked just fine, as
long as Quasar was happy. The plain fact
is this dog's neck was just too thick.
Head down, one paw on the rope and
Quasar was trotting away free
whenever this thinker wanted
to tag onto another dog or
one of the nearby humans
who was one of his many
friends. Then, believe
it or not in he would
come carrying the
rope so I could
slip it over
his neck
again.
Back out
he would go
playing the rope
to its 48 foot end then soon
enough back in for nap time, the rope lying out in the yard.