I have always had at least one dog since I was eight years old. I can’t imagine living without a dog in my life. Think of what would be missing if there was no cold muzzle to wake you up before the alarm or no tongue lolling out of the side that same muzzle smiling with satisfaction after dropping the fetched ball at your feet.

Having had dogs at all stages of my life means that I have a large assortment of dog tales that come in handy at events where the conversation hits a speed bump in the socializing road.  And one of the best stories is about the dog most unlikely to be remarkable in that parade of canine companions

Piggy was a mistake

I never intended to have a Yorkshire terrier. I liked big dogs with deep barks who were tough enough to wrestle with my sons and each other. I liked dogs that rode in the car with the windows down and stuck their heads outside even though my windows had caked drool etchings. I liked dogs that I could walk through the woods or down dark city streets and feel safe with.

Yorkies did not fit those criteria, but I ended up with Piggy after sipping wine with a friend who had just one puppy left, a precious little bundle of fur with bright eyes that stared into my heart.

My husband was not particularly enthusiastic when I brought Piggy home because we had already been suckered into taking a “reject” Yorkie pup from the same friend a year before--Sir Winston Churchill--who never weighed more than 2.5 pounds and had a cleft palette so his tongue stuck out sideways. Piggy’s exceptionality was not so exotic; he was just dumber than dirt.

Piggy Discovers a Delicacy

We moved from the city to a small cottage on the coast right on the water in a small fishing community.  We transplanted our two Yorkies, Standard Poodle, and seventeen year old cat from a fenced in city yard to the wide open edge of a small finger of the sound.. Marsh grass and oyster shells were the only fence that limited our dogs out back except the timidness caused by the move.

A small dock stretched out over the marsh grass and oysters and that became Piggy’s second home. When we opened the porch door he would run as fast as three-inch legs could go for the dock and his favorite dining delicacy – sea gull droppings that littered the wood planks. Even after dark, Piggy would run for the dock, wearing the kid’s trick-or- treat safety light my husband had attached to his collar so we could keep an eye on Piggy.  He'd run blinking down the dock as he grazed his way to the end of his snack.

Piggy's Gone

One windy November evening when I pulled up the drive after dark, my husband was at the edge of the water waving his arms and yelling as I opened the car door.

His voice carried over the wind, “Piggy just blew off the dock.  I saw his light hit the water.”

I ran through the marsh grass into the cold, choppy, waist-high water and frantically called Piggy’s name, looking for the small blink of the orange light.

I trudged through the water, my shoes sucked into the muddy bottom, trying to find Piggy for an hour, and then scoured the marsh grass along the shore in tears trying to at least find his body. My husband held my hand as we moved up and down through the grass with a flashlight.

Finally my teeth chattered so hard and I shook so much that I realized I had to get something warm in my body before I could continue. I walked out of the water and crossed the yard to the flagstone terrace by the back porch.

I was crying and shaking with my head down in the wind when I looked at the flagstones and saw small wet circles in a staggered line across the terrace. I followed the circles to the picket fence that enclosed the front yard and opened the gate. I stood for a second, numb and not really understanding what I was looking for; then I started up the front porch steps to go inside to get a cup of tea. As I reached for the doorknob, I looked down in the pool of yellow from the porch light and saw Piggy, wet and shivering, looking up with an express that clearly said, “Open the damn door. I am wet and cold.”

We will never know exactly how Piggy survived being tossed back on shore and just how he made his way to the front porch. I never saw him swim, and he never made it through the gap between pickets again, but I don’t care. He just did.

About Les: Les grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, the child of two university professors. With a master's degree in English-Composition and Rhetoric and teaching credentials for early childhood – high school as well as media specialist – Les has taught at university and high school. Now she divides her time as a poet, writer, avid reader, librarian, and photographer. She lives in down east North Carolina with her husband, a small armada of boats in various states of disrepair, one standard poodle, and a white cat.

Please take me for a walk

There may be something more enjoyable than walking down a woodland path with a couple of dogs, but if there is, I've not yet discovered what that might be.

Two dog faces, four eyes and four ears intensely regard my every move as I tie the laces of my shoes. Their eyes follow me as I move to the door and tug it open.  “Okay, guys, let's go!”

With a bark and a bound, the two streak from the house and gambol about my feet, tails a blur of wags. We set off down the gravel lane, and turn onto a narrow side trail through the woods. How delightful is this dog-sitting job for friends. Their black lab is a charmer and my Whippet-mix loves to visit his friend. And all three of us love to wander their thirty acres of riverfront, marsh and woods.

The two dogs' waving tails lead the way as they trot in front of me. The air is fresh with morning. Lit by the sun, dew still sparkles on the grass and leaves. Bird song accompanies our walk. The two dogs, one midnight-black and the other white and black-spotted like a Holstein cow, stop and interpret the bushes and trees, checking for messages on the wooded bulletin board.

If only I'd been gifted with their sense of smell. They knew, but I didn't, what animals, birds, reptiles or people had passed this way during the night. A fox? A skunk? A rabbit? A neighbor's dog? Only they knew, and they had no way to communicate their knowledge. But from their busy noses, I could tell whatever scent had been left behind was of exceeding interest. And so we wander. Sometimes they led; sometimes they lagged behind, lingering over a scent that merited a long sniff.

Regal, my Whippet-mix, ran as a wisp of wind-blown smoke, his paws barely touching the ground. He stretched out, flying down the trail, free to run—his heritage. The dog on the Greyhound bus could have been Regal. Onward he flew, galloping like a little race horse aiming for the finish line.

My friends' black Lab, Boone, was more a dog of the earth; she ran more heavily and sounded like an express train coming down the trail. But she was fast. I always expected her to plow into me, but for all her bulk of body, she brushed by me with ease.

It was Regal, the fleet, who sometimes collided, his legs faster than his braking power. I learned to step to the side of the trail to avoid Regal's wayward flight.

We found our way to a small meadow, encircled by trees. It seemed a secret room, quite enchanted with woodland spirits.  Here I was wont to pause. A canvas camp chair sat in the clearing. Sitting still, I would see what I could see.

This morning brought a quick flash of buzzing, iridescent green. I flinched a bit, thinking wasp, but no, it's a darting, hummingbird, busy on his rounds of taking in enough fuel to power his jet propulsion flights. He perches on a small branch for a moment to regard me. I regard him. We regard one another. He flies. I sit.

I spy a spiderweb festooned with dew, the sunlight turning the drops into diamonds. My eyes trace the ornate weaving of strength and delicacy.

Here are the dogs. They've returned from their sniffing-fest and sit beside me, one on each side — doggy bookends. As long as I pet, they stay, leaning into me, noses lifted into the breeze, filtering out questions and answers from the air.

A Great Blue Heron flies overhead, looking primeval in flight, a bit ungainly until the powerful wings take hold of the air. Another heron launches from a nearby Loblolly pine. Were they a mated pair, building a nest there? Did these majestic birds nest in trees? I don't know. I'll have to find out. Or had the two herons been resting, making bird love, or observing the water flowing into the nearby tidal pool and hoping for a silver glint of a fish for breakfast?

I ask the dogs, but they just cock their heads and gave me canine smiles, they're not telling. When I bend over Boone to whisper a secret into her ear (how lovely she was with the sunlight glinting off her ebony coat), she gives me a lick on the face. Black Labs have large tongues. I wipe away her moist kiss with the back of my sleeve.

We sit, dogs and human, alone and quiet in the clearing, encircled by trees, for a few more precious moments. I could feel, under my stroking hands, the dogs' growing impatience to be off. More messages to check, no doubt.  So I stop petting, and they, released from human contact, go rocketing down the trail.

Slowly, I rise to my feet. It's hard to break the spell that's been cast upon me by this place. But soothed by the wind singing in the pines, grateful for the company of the hummingbird, appreciative of the architecture of the spider web, I give thanks for this moment away in the natural world. Feeling at peace, I follow the two wagging tails down the trail toward home.

I wished I had a tail to wag, too. That's just how happy I was.

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