Well, Hooper had a long day, but he’s home, he’s sleeping, and he’s minus one tooth. The remains of one of his upper incisors were removed—in pieces—from Hooper’s skull, and he now has “character” in the form of a gap in his toothy facade.

He wobbled around the living room and made us all nervous on the stairs, but he quickly flopped on his bed and slept while I read a biology textbook. It’s been pretty amazing to watch him be so mellow, and no one is more intrigued than Ellie, our cat. At long last, Ellie could inspect this odd creature with impunity, and she took full advantage.

I hand-fed him his entire dinner, and I think at this point he forgives me for taking him to that horrible place this morning. As I type this, Hooper is sleeping soundly and all is right with the world.

Tonight in my biology class, I got my first test results back. Ace. My instructor even wrote on my quiz: “Good; I think this vet thing might be doable”, and encouraged me to take a chemistry class as soon as possible. Then I got a text message from Brenda, asking me to come home right after class because Hooper broke his tooth playing at the ballfield.

When you study stuff like this, sometimes it’s hard to see the real world relevance to your work. But tonight, Hooper reminded me of why I’m doing this. And so as soon as I could, I drove home and we all rode over to the 24-hour animal hospital. Sure enough, one of Hoop’s incisors is sheared off right at the gum line and will need to be extracted. Apparently, Hooper and Monty—the two most ball-focused dogs in our neighborhood’s play group—turned to chase a thrown ball at the same time, and turned right into each other, and Hoop just got the losing hand in that deal. The vet sent us home with antibiotics and painkillers (for Hooper), and we will make an appointment tomorrow morning with our vet for the remains of the tooth to be extracted. The upshot of all of this is that I have been trying to schedule a time to shadow my vet as she does day-to-day activities, including surgeries, and so it may just work out that Hooper provides me with the impetus (and the patient) for finally doing it.

The pain meds seem to be helping, but every once in a while Hooper lets out a single, loud, bark, as if to say “god DAMN, this hurts!”. I hope we can get him in tomorrow for the extraction. Stay tuned.

Ahh, Boulder. Scott Carpenter Park, just around the corner from our house, has a public municipal swimming pool that keeps the kids cool all summer. Now that summer is over, the pool is officially closed for the season—to people. Boulder being dog-crazy Boulder, that does not mean the pool is yet closed for good to all creatures, though. No, after a de-clorination process last week, the pool was officially open to dogs starting this weekend and extending to next weekend. Yeah (woof)!

Naturally, upon hearing of this insanity, we made plans to participate.

We arrived at the pool parking lot Saturday afternoon—surrounded by vehicles with filthy pickup beds and festooned with decals like “my Border Collie is smarter than your honors high school student”—and headed into the melee. Once inside the gate, we paid our five bucks, took Hoop’s leash off, and the games began. Now, Hooper loves to swim in the reservoir by the East Boulder Dog Park, but that has a sandy beach and a nice gradual slope into the water; this is where he learned to swim. But this pool business, all concrete and with an abrupt transition from land to water, well, this took a second to adjust to. Seriously, like, a second.

Watching the dynamics involved with roughly forty dogs running around, all overloaded with the sensory stimuli of having an entire human public pool at their disposal, was thrilling, amusing and hysterical. A co-worker appeared, with his wife and their dog Winnie. They were trying to get Winnie to get over her fear of jumping into the water. With Hooper obviously over his fear of jumping off the pool coping, we decided to see if we could tackle the diving boards.

There were a couple of dogs over by the diving boards who were seemingly chanelling Greg Lougainis, showing no fear of the bobbing board or of leaping off the end. One dog actually pushed off the end of the board so well that he managed to get the board to bounce a few times after he departed. It sounded really professional, the “boing—splash, boing, boing”. I figured Hooper would be a natural, but he displayed a lot of anxiety about jumping off the end. He happily jumped up on the board, and would follow me out to the edge if I showed him the ball, but no matter how I threw the ball into the pool, he just couldn’t be enticed to jump off the end. You ask me, he’s just showing everyone how smart he is. But the pool is open for dog swims next weekend too, and I think I’m gonna bring him back for one more try at diving before winter arrives. All in all, it was a great day and it was fun to watch Hooper take in the newness of the entire experience.

I finished reading Merle’s Door last night; I cried like a baby through the last forty pages.

At this point, since bringing Hooper home, I have read about a dozen or more books about dogs: dog training, dog breeds, dog behavior, dog health care, dogs; the last category includes your typical dog memoir or reflection on living pets, and so far Ted Kerasote’s book totally nails it. Granted, Merle is a fantastic dog, living in fantastic conditions, but the story is still a real rags to riches story, rife with dog care and training tips—and, what I feel is one of the most important skills required of any dog owner, observational tips.

Ethologists will piss all over this book as a 400-page homage to anthropomorphism. And while I admit there is a lot of the author inserting plain-english words into his dog’s inner monologue, we all do that. Every dog owner out there knows they’re guilty of making up Fido’s inner thoughts while out for a play session in the dog park, and you know it.

So, getting past that, you have a wonderful story of a man who takes in a stray dog and together they teach EACH OTHER many important lessons of life. These are lessons I’m learning now, taught by Hooper, and having read “Merle’s Door” are lessons I’m absorbing and cherishing much more deeply, knowing Merle’s—and all dogs’—ultimate fate. And I guess that’s lesson number one that dogs teach us, is that life’s too short to sweat the small stuff.

I loved this book.

Brenda, Hooper & I all piled into the car today for a drive to Denver, to attend a birthday party for some friends of ours. Partners Greg & Ted share birthdays a day apart. Greg aged a year today, and Ted did the same yesterday. And so a joint birthday picnic/barbecue in the park near the Denver Zoo was in order, with dogs.

Greg & Ted have a pair of winning canines; Guinness the Pug, and Lucy the Mutt (I used to threaten to kidnap Lucy and take her home with us from their parties ever since we moved to Boulder; she is adorable and built just like Hooper). Many of their other friends have dogs as well, and so dogs were invited to the birthday soirée.

And so it was that we loaded a backpack with Nalgenes of water and a Tupperware container to act as a bowl, poop bags, dog treats and a couple of tennis balls, and rolled out towards Denver. We also had a secret weapon. We brought the basketball.

You see, Hooper is quite the ‘baller. He has an uncanny ability to dribble a ball around a field using his muzzle and his front paws, and this is a skill that he demonstrated the very first time I produced a bright yellow utility ball on one of our walks back in November of 2007. Hooper took to that ball like Pele, coaxing it around the field under the moonlight for over an hour, managing to steer the ball back to my feet every once in a while so I could try to kick the ball past him (which rarely happened). But suddenly, a pop and a hiss was heard, and the fun ended.

A regulation basketball is 30 inches in circumference, and comprised of a tough leather cover that can resist a dog’s attempts to bite through it, and we have one of these objects. And today, we felt that if Hooper was to be allowed to roam free on the grass of the Denver Zoo Park—with heavily trafficked roads bordering us—we wanted a reliable distraction to keep him close, hence the basketball.

When we arrived, we rolled the ball out onto the grass and Hooper immediately began working the field with the ball. People immediately inquired about how we “taught” him to do this. Shrugged shoulders and allusions to that cold November night followed. Hooper spent the next several hours rolling that basketball around, beckoning me and anyone else who was interested to kick the ball around, and to engage him in some goalie practice.

Brenda had mentioned to me that a couple of the small children present at the party were terrified of dogs, and that we needed to make sure Hooper steered clear of them, and I was paying strict attention to his movements around the guests. But at one point, a couple of kids showed up with Hooper’s basketball, and they were fighting amongst themselves over who should be the one who kicks the ball toward Hooper. I watched with great interest and joy, as Hooper adapted to the kids’ erratic movements and gestures.

This one kid was literally pushing his friend out of the way, directing the action. He was moving the ball around and gleefully watching Hooper’s attentiveness and reactions to his direction. I had a great time watching Hooper play with the kids, but when I heard on the ride home that the one kid was one of those “afraid of dogs” kids, I just beamed.

Hooper is turning into quite a gentleman, and an ambassador. A saint.

One year ago today, Brenda & I brought Hooper home from the Boulder Humane Society. What a year it’s been.

Freshly grieving over the loss of our cat Emma, we both fell in love with this little, black Labradorish-looking puppy, and brought him home with us. He was afraid of his own shadow, afraid to get into the car, hopping on all the furniture. A couple days later, he (we) learned his first command, “sit”. I went on a streak of dog book purchasing, which continues to this day. We purchased dog toys and treats like they were crack, and the high of watching our dog take to these things with varying degrees of interest was equally addictive. We discovered the baseball fields behind our house serve as an excellent local gathering place for the neighborhood dogs and their owners; we’ve made new friends, as has Hooper. I’ve learned to bake, to bake dog treats. I have considered becoming a veterinarian. I read about dogs all the time. I think about Hooper whenever we are apart. I bring him to work with me. I started a Facebook group so fellow Boulder dog lovers could share hike ideas and dog treat recipes. We’ve had Hooper’s DNA tested so we could know exactly what he was made up of—not that it mattered, but we were curious. I’d say Hooper has had quite an effect on my life.

This past weekend, Brenda & I celebrated our eighteen year anniversary as a couple, and we brought Hooper with us. He’s an inseparable member of our family, our pack.

I can’t imagine life without a dog now. He’s my buddy. I had some dogs as a kid, but they were always transients, except, unfortunately, for the stupid, barky, nippy, West Highland White Terrier that I hated (hated!) when I was little. I always wanted a big black dog that would fetch and roll over and be goofy, and now, at forty, I finally have one, and some mornings, when Hooper is running around with his tongue hanging out, a tennis ball jauntily carried in the side of his mouth, I feel like I’m ten years old again.

Hooper has a ways to go. He pulls on his lead, he still jumps up on people, he barks when he shouldn’t. But that’s just standards. That’s me being picky. Really, he’s just perfect, and I’m looking forward to many more years of friendship with this strange little creature who seems to trust me, to like me, to love me. When you have a bond like this with no words, just actions, it’s hard to, well, put into words. I’m just happy, and I think Hooper is too.

So, now we know.

Through the wonders of science and marketing, I was recently able to get the final word on Hooper’s genetic makeup. Two weeks ago, I had to take Hooper to the vet for his rabies and distemper shots, and I seized the opportunity to have them also draw blood for the Wisdom Panel DNA test. This test, a fairly new offering in the veterinary community, can identify the genetic markers of 134 AKC-recognized dog breeds from a blood sample. The price has dropped somewhat, to a still-expensive $120, but I thought it would be fun to know exactly what’s goin’ on there in Hooper’s genetic makeup. So I said what the hell.

The test consists of drawing blood from the dog in question, and sending it off to the Wisdom Panel People for analysis. They are supposed to send you a full report in the mail, but so far that has not arrived. The veterinarian did get the results however, and they called us on Friday and left a voice mail message with the results. I waited for Brenda to get home from work before playing the second half of the message, so we could find out together. As we played the message, Hooper sat beside us, head tilted to the side, as we strained to listen to the message on the speakerphone; he could sense this news was important.

And so, according to the DNA analysis, Hooper is a slightly tainted Labrador Retriever. It’s no shock to anyone who has seen him that he’s a dog built on a Lab foundation, but just what the heck are the rest of the bits, this is what I paid my $120 to find out. The Humane Society we adopted him from guessed Border Collie, which I could believe from his smaller size, fringier tail and intense herding instinct. But it turns out, there’s no Border Collie in there. Close, though…

Hooper Primo Avery Guglielmetti-King is a Labrador Retriever, with traces of Airedale Terrier, Bearded Collie, and—get this: Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

So, yeah. Now we know.

The results spawned another round of dog breed research on my part, since all three of these trace breeds are breeds I hadn’t previously had an interest in. The Bearded Collie, it turns out, is the progenitor of the Border Collie we thought Hooper was partly comprised of. So, that sorta makes sense. It’s another herding breed, like the Border Collie, which helps explain Hooper’s endless reserve of energy:

Bearded Collies are a very high energy breed, originally bred to work in the Scottish Highlands herding sheep. Beardies also excel at dog agility trials. They also prefer to be kept indoors with their families.

The Airedale Terrier threw me for a loop, as I have not really seen terrier-ish traits in Hoop (except maybe for his propensity for annoying bark fests). But the Airedale Terrier, as more of a working dog than a squirrel chaser as most terriers are, does make sense when you look at Hooper’s behavior and interests:

The Airedale can be used as a working dog and also as a hunter. Airedales exhibit some herding characteristics as well, and have a propensity to chase animals. They have no problem working with cattle and livestock.

...explains Hooper’s insistence on chasing Ellie all over the house…

The Airedale is also a stoic, able to withstand pain and injury, the Airedale’s hurts and illnesses often go unnoticed until they become severe and require veterinary attention.

...explains the negligible reaction when I cut Hooper’s nail to the quick and he bled all over the living room without so much as a yelp or a whimper…

The breed has also been called the Waterside Terrier, because it was bred originally to hunt otters in and around the valleys of the River Aire from whence it gets its name.

...explains his love for the water as much as his Lab foundation does.

Now, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Shit. A fucking toy breed, god dammit. At least, that was my first reaction. But the smaller size of that breed explains Hooper’s topping out at 50lbs for a MostlyLab, instead of the more usual 85lbs for a purebred Lab. After some research, some other aspects of his personality can be traced back to this breed:

The breed is highly affectionate… Most dogs of the breed are playful, extremely patient and eager to please. A well-socialized Cavalier will not be shy about socializing with much larger dogs. (However, on occasion, this tendency can be dangerous, as many cavaliers will presume all other dogs to be equally friendly, and may attempt to greet and play with aggressive dogs.)

As I usually reply to strangers I encounter on the paths when they ask “Is your dog friendly?”, “to a fault.”. Unfortunately, Cavalier King Charles Spaniels also suffer from a long list of serious genetic defects (Royal Family, are you paying attention?), so we’ll just have to hope that the traces Hooper got are just the good traces.

So it does seem that I can find personality and behavior markers in Hooper that match up quite well with the genetic markers they found in his blood. Was it worth it? I guess so. I do find the whole thing fascinating; ever since bringing Hooper home I have read quite a lot on dogs, dog breeds and canine natural history/evolution. So this was a fun little lab(oratory) experiment for me. Really, anything that gives one an insight into the history of their stray dog is worth a lot, if you ask me. I mean, how does a dog composed of a breed from Newfoundland and bits of three other breeds all from the United Kingdom end up on the street in Vernal, Utah?

When Hooper leaps into the water at the East Boulder Dog Park, and swims out to the ball like a nuclear submarine at full power, this genetic exercise helps refine the scene that I’m watching. But at the same time, none of it matters. Hooper is Hooper. He loves me, he loves the water, he loves to eat, play, and sleep. He’s a dog, a great dog, and that’s really all that matters.

This shit makes me crazy. The local paper ran an article today about the booming pet care business, especially in dog-crazy Boulder. Here in Boulder, there is a “law” that encourages Boulder pet owners to refer to themselves as their pet’s “guardians”, not “owners”. You know how I feel about this one; I have a receipt. But it gives you an idea of the mentality Boulder residents have towards their pets, and in general I think it’s great. Here, our dogs are our kids. They hike (off-leash) with us, they frolic in the many dog parks, they are welcome in many businesses, not just the multitude of pet stores and pet bakeries (yes, pet bakeries), and they are everywhere. In an attempt to appear balanced, the author obtained some dissenting views, views on people who pour themselves into the care of their animals; views I have had to put up with from many co-workers over the years and even my own family members. The one they chose to print was a doozy:

“They either need to have children or get the Internet.”

This scholar was quoted while standing in the most overpriced petstore in Boulder with her Australian Shepherd at her side. I feel sorry for that Aussie. She has a dog, but clearly it’s “just a dog”. No massage, no cancer therapy, no quality dog food for this guy, oh no; it’s just a dog.

Where do we begin? First off, we can’t all have kids (you stupid bitch). Some of us don’t want to have kids (you myopic wench). And besides, the internet is a global computer network infrastructure that is owned by no one and utilized by many. You don’t “get” the internet, just like Al Gore didn’t “invent” it. And if you equate the responsibility of raising kids with a monthly cable internet subscription plan, I feel sorry for your kids as well as your Aussie (you sick cunt).

Emma, our dear departed cat and companion of 16 years, was my child and I loved her. When she died I struggled with my feelings of loss and attachment and was alternately devastated and frustrated—by my immense sorrow on the one hand, and the I-should-just-get-over-it-already-vibe I felt from some of my child rearing friends and family members.

Some people just don’t get it. As I type this, Hooper lies at my feet looking content and I get a warm feeling knowing that Brenda & I are responsible for this. A domestic dog living in a city is as dependent on us as any child. They can’t talk, they live much shorter lives, they have no opposable thumbs and they eat cat poo, but does that mean they don’t deserve to have someone take care of them and raise them? They didn’t ask to be born on the street, and they certainly seem to enjoy the spoils of good dog ownership: Hooper has a comfy bed and eats like a king, a diet of raw food and grain-free dry food that is supplemented with fish oil and other supplements. He is engaged in learning new “tricks” and goes to the park every single day. Is this indulgent? I don’t think so; he is canis familiaris, not canis lupus. He is descended from the wolf, but he is something else, an evolved species that owes its existence to the fact that it figured out 15,000 years ago that maybe these humans could work together with them to make a greater existence for us both, and we have. And now that we are all in a better situation than our ancestors of 15,000 years past (hey, we even have Internet!), are we supposed to simply treat these animals like some barely-alive, barely-feeling entity? What the hell is the point in that? Look, if you want to have kids, great. But bear in mind that you are engaging in the least sustainable practice possible in the world today, and an overwhelming number of you are doing a shitty job of raising your progeny, to boot. So get the fuck over yourselves. Your kids consume more than any dog, and most of them are rude, snotty and grow up with an overwhelming sense of entitlement. How does that validate what you do? I’ll tell you: it doesn’t.

So let me and my people raise our dogs and cats, naming them and petting them and feeding them and massaging them and playing with them and training them and loving them, worrying about them, caring about them, putting up with them when they are being assholes and just connecting with them. You do what you feel you need to do, I won’t implore you to get an internet of your own, but if your kid comes up to me and tries to talk to me in a restaurant while you bury your head in a burger, I’m telling it it’s an asshole, and I don’t care how young it is, capiche?

And this leads me to my latest announcement: I’m thinking about my third of fourth career change (depending on how you quantify a career): I have been thinking of becoming a veterinarian for a little while now (fleeting thoughts go back decades, but serious thought has occupied the last months or so), and I’m really starting to look into it. It’s past the “idea stage” of many of my hare-brained schemes and more into the active planning stage. More on this later.

This:

Plus this:

Equals this:

Yeah, that’s right, I sprained my ankle dismounting from my longboard at high speed yesterday afternoon. Hoop & I have been getting used to having him pull me around on the board, something I thought he’d enjoy and possibly a fun way to help him burn off some energy. We’ve been practicing on a stretch of bike path that’s nestled between a highway retaining wall and some backyard fences, so it’s impossible for Hooper to run off into the street if I have to let go. Another thing we have been practicing is waiting at crosswalks before entering the street. As we approach a curb cut on one of our walks, a simple, firm “wait” generally halts Hooper in his tracks and he waits for me to give the OK to cross. So yesterday I had the bright idea that we would cruise on the longboard and test his ability to wait while pulling. Didn’t go so well.

When I plopped the board down, Hooper took off in a full run; this was fun at first, as he clawed for more, ears flapping, and we mushed down the path like an Iditarod team on crack. But quickly I could see he was in another zone, one that only knows “RUN”, and not “WAIT”. This was confirmed as I started yelling “wait”, “Wait”, “WAIT!” as the street got closer. At this point we were going too fast for me to be able to stop the board and hold onto the leash, so I made sure the street was clear, let go of the leash and jumped off the board. Unfortunately for me, I landed on my left foot slightly turned, which promptly rolled over far more than it should have. I rolled into the grass, and Hooper stood across the street, tail wagging, watching the now-pilotless longboard roll up next to him. He looked at me quizzically as I laid there in the grass, as if to say “Yo Rob, the board’s over here! Come on!”

I collected myself, the board and the dog and we hobbled home, and by the time I got home I realized I had probably done something bad. I was walking on it, so I was pretty sure it wasn’t broken, but my ankle was now swelling by the minute. Brenda was at work (with the car), so I called a friend to drive me over to the hospital to get this checked out while Hooper lamented his sled-dog lesson cut short.

X-rays proved there is no broken bone in there, but my left ankle is swollen to about the size of a softball. I don’t see myself doing much longboarding or much of anything for a while. Bummer.

Hooper is a licker.

In recent days, the temperatures have soared to the point where I wore shorts to work today. Never mind that it is supposed to snow here tomorrow, in April you take advantage of the warm sunny days. So I wore shorts today, and that means Hooper was licking my legs (and up my shorts) whenever I was in the vicinity. With our dear friends Dierdre and Evan coming this weekend with their three kids in tow, I started thinking it might might be a good time to teach Hooper that the vigorous licking, while appreciated, is not always appropriate.

And so we have embarked on our latest “trick”, the training of “stop licking”. Brenda & I decided it would be cool to teach Hooper some Italian while we were at it, so we selected the term “basta” as the “leave me alone” term, which is Italian for “enough”. He’s getting it.

How cool is it to have a bilingual Lab?