...sidney...
...the ballad of footeastman [part six part II]...
“You can't pee like a puppy if you wanna run with the big dogs.”
-Nikki Sixx-
The problem with raising a puppy from birth is that you are setting high expectations for the partnership. Over the first 12 months of Minnesota’s life, whether because of crate and potty training, or the desire to be smooched by a smoosh, my partner Sarina & I barely took more than an hour or two away from our good boy. He would accompany us to the local pubs and DJ parties and then sneak into bad gothic horror movies starring Harry Potter and lap smuggled stout with us. He grew from hand size to backpack size, and spent most of his waking moments on our laps or shoulders.
As he dogged into dogmanhood our windows of full time puppery shrank and the need to leave him lonely for longer periods of time grew. I’m sure some psychiatrist somewhere has written how the loss of any amount of attentive love can create anxiety and dread. I think it is called the suckling effect, as in when a baby instinctually cries when the nipple is drawn away from its hoovering lips. Sota was suckling every time we went to work. Squeals and squeaks, chewed pillows and sweat. It was clear that our inability to be near was giving him the fear.
When raising a child, the cure for a baby's crying is to ignore it. Let the child cry itself to sleep and it will figure its way out of its own existential dread. To most first time parents this seems cruel and unusual. The howl of a life form you created after a romantic dinner at Red Lobster can be too much to ignore even for the most stoically viking and metal amongst us. The parents will move the crib into the bedroom, the baby into the bed, and eventually the father into the guest room to fall asleep watching Benny Hill reruns.
Our solution to our baby's [dog’s] tears was to start looking for a second child [dog]. This is not a parental decision most families make. Sure parents go back to Red Lobster and fool around in the bathroom just enough to broaden their litters all the time, but I don’t think anyone is having sex inside of a family seafood restaurant with the intention of making their first born cry less. But dog parents are different. We have sex in the backyard of T.G.I. Friday’s when it is closed on Mondays. And the solution to our baby’s [dog’s] sadness is to add more baby [dog].
There are over 70 million homeless dogs in the world, and in the US about 6-7 million of those dogs will make it into a local animal shelter every year.1 Of those about 1 in 6 end up being euthanized for lack of adoption, space and financial maintenance. With that brutal reality in mind we chose to adopt, rather than purchase Minnesota’s surprise companion friend.
Rescuing a dog is like zillowing without realtor cold calls. You go online and survey the sweet furry faces of your future friend, fantasizing on the fun you might have flopping frisbees for them. We settled on meeting a young dude named Boddington. Sota liked nothing more at the dog park than sniffing old man dog wang and running around nuzzling the jaws of his fellow puppy boys, and with a name like Boddington, this was likely to be a puppy with an old man dog wang [possibly wearing a spectacle].
Upon arrival at the rescue center however it was clear that having a brother would not be in the cards. Teeth bared and ready to bite, Boddington whimpered himself to the far side of the yard and for a moment we considered that Sota might not need another dog friend at all.
But our rescue ranger, a longtime employee named Angie, had other plans in mind. She had just found a seven month old heeler mutt roaming the streets of East Oakland, and something about ours and Sota’s demeanor felt right for an introduction. She went inside the building and emerged with a tiny speckled white black and brown coyote dingo racoon.
Her pound name was Ada, and as she nuzzled onto our knee and shared multiple crotch focused sniff rounds with Sota, we knew we had found the latest member of our family. Ada was an interesting dog name, title to a novel by Nabokov, and inventor of one of the earliest computers.2
But the name was one we didn’t feel compelled to keep. It sounded like a toothpaste brand, or a buttcrack cream (apologies Aunt Ada …I will return the cream). Having chosen one location to name our first pup Minnesota, we repeated the process and Sidney walked home with us, named for a small southwestern Nebraska town that Sarina, my ladyfriend, had grown up in.
Sidney’s name grew just as Sota’s had before her. Following a sheep farm escape to chase goats and cows through a catdoor, and repeated attempts to eat and sniff our hair, MinneSota Pops McFatsaroni Penguin Gravy RaceCar Soy Sauce Zig Zag Marshmallow Sticks now had a sister named Sidney LemonAda Catdoor PuedoWeebie.
If you are wondering what a PuedoWeebie is I’ll do my best to explain. Apparently in Italy there is a type of village troll that goes around sniffing and eating women’s hair at cafes. I had an Italian friend who told me this once, and two Italian coworkers who quit talking to me for insisting it was a real thing. Nowhere online can I verify this legend, but I think that makes it all the more legendary. The greatest legends are likely the ones nobody even knows yet. Imagine some unimaginable story so unimaginable you can’t imagine it. Now you are a legend.
The differences between raising a dog from scratch, and teaching one plucked from the streets, is that in the lost history of the upbringing you miss certain habits they gained along the way. With Sota we knew that he talked through toys, and snuggled deep at the foot of any blanket, because we had watched him learn and grow into those patterns. But Sidney immediately had traits foreign and unexplainable to us.
On our first trip to the Bay she dove in the water and swam nearly a mile away, only to return to us and never swim again. Her food of choice is half eaten tennis ball, followed by cat shit, followed by goose shit, followed by hobo shit.
If Sota is a dog, Sidney is a cat. She growls, and meows, and talks like a bundle of escaped nerves trying to fizzle their way back to a burnt out spinal cord. On hikes she walks like she is 90 years old, but on sight of any other living creature she runs a 100 meter dash at 1000mph. She had a double gopher kill day that she ended by eating a different dead gopher’s skull. She got skunked on and then walked ten yards and bathed on a dead rat to get the smell off.
She chases cars like they’re cats, chases cats like they’re rats, and chases dogs like she’s a cat. She hasn’t met a fence she wouldn’t fight. She is don quixote…dog quixote…dog coyote.
“Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title.”
-Thomas Paine-
The nickname originated from the old english ekename, "a familiar or diminutive name," especially one given in derision or reproach, literally "an additional name”. So nickname is a nickname itself. I think ekename is a better nickname than nickname, so sorry Nicks of the world, but we’re calling you Eke.3
Nicknames are what help the Jim, Bobs and Billys of the world become Jimbo, Bobby Boy and The Tank while they hang out fishing at the pond. When Sidney is chaos we call her Deen. When she turns her chaos into cute terror we call her Gean, and when all manner of destruction has subsided she becomes our little Bean. These photos should help show the differences.
Sidney told me one night in a dream that she was an Egyptian princess. When I woke up in the morning she was licking her butthole and staring at me. I am guessing communication was different in her ancient era. As with the spots that splotch her thick sheddy fur, Sidney carries with her a strong ying yang beavis & butthead duality. From Bean to Deen she fluctuates from a cute angry enough to snap at your nose, to a cuter cuddly enough to beg up for a four armed hug while she rests her head on your shoulder.
The duality of Sidney met its peak on a sun filled summer afternoon. At dinner time I poured the food as I usually do and Sidney, as she usually did, barked and spun and barked and spun. As I laid the bowl down Sidney staggered briefly, and then full froze. She convulsed multiple rounds of frothing and her body stood still and fell flat on the floor in front of me, cold and unmoving. No barking, panting or breath.
The cry of a million tears knocked my balls into my brain and suffocating beneath the dread of what I was witnessing I felt action take over. Carless I began dialing numbers while performing some sort of sophomoric dog CPR, running my finger through her mouth to find a choking object and blowing breaths into her snout. Her heart beat while she still rested unmoving and all dials returned unanswered. What was only a minute felt like two centuries and here I was in Egypt, my princess on the side of the pyramid about to throw herself down the steps.
And then she awoke.
A fury in her eyes and full scale Deen mode, Sidney ran for the door and out into the backyard. Scared, alone, and instinctually back to her burgeoning years living alone on the streets of East Oakland trying to survive. Her fear and confusion lasted for a handful of minutes and I dried the tears of amazement from mine and Sota’s eyes (I know dogs don’t cry at stuff like this, but come on live a little). She settled back into the moment and after a while it was as though nothing had happened. Back on the couch she cuddled, back to sniffing Sota’s butt, back to eating my hair and growling.
Sidney has epilepsy, and to the untrained eye this can look like life and death. But like a lot of things in life, you can give it drugs and it will get better. In the trauma of that experience Sidney had brought me to a mental moment I hadn’t considered before diving into all this dog business. What if I wasn’t cut out for this. I can barely raise myself, who am I to take management of these lives? But then I gave her drugs, and she gave me snugs.
Inside of each of us we carry light and dark, good and bad, salty and sweet, Friends and Seinfeld. The other day Sidney ate raw lamb at a dog park. Not like raw lamb dog food, but an actual lamb carcass some serial killer left in a trash bag. And still when she came home I let her kiss my face and Sota and I took turns cuddling her on the couch. We are not ourselves at our worst moments, we are ourselves at all moments.
Sidney is a mutt and a puedoweebie. She is an egyptian princess, an epileptic and a rabblerousing dead animal eating bean girl. She is a dog sequel without equal, my buddy Minnesota’s sister, and true to her breed, she is a healer (well, it is spelt heeler, but you get the point).
“It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.”
-Mark Twain-
FOOTENOTES
https://www.aspca.org/helping-people-pets/shelter-intake-and-surrender/pet-statistics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace
https://www.etymonline.com/word/nickname
Gosh, I wish I could add a picture to this comment. If I that were possible you could meet my Heeler/Pit rescue Sheena H. Trotterton Trot Trot. Or, Stinkarius (given her penchant for rolling in death). Right now though she’ Bean. My princess, baby, angel and were cuddled up in the couch. Great ode to dog ownership. Loved this muchly.
Ha this was awesome CansaFis - thinking about getting my own dog yesterday so super interesting dog users manual & loved the pics