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"But
I guess there was something else haunting me about Shadow’s death. Not
just that I felt I had failed him, somehow, in his battle with the
copperhead and his lonely death. It’s that there was nothing there to
fill that vast emptiness, and I didn’t want anything to. I waded
through his sudden absence like self-flagellation."
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Fleeting
Shadows
By Roger Emile
Stouff
He
is my other eyes that can see above the clouds; my other ears that hear
above the winds. He is the part of me that can reach out into the sea.
He has told me a thousand times over that I am his reason for being; by
the way he rests against my leg; by the way he thumps his tail at my
smallest smile; by the way he shows his hurt when I leave without taking
him. (I think it makes him sick with worry when he is not along to care
for me.) When I am wrong, he is delighted to forgive. When I am angry,
he clowns to make me smile. When I am happy, he is joy unbounded. When I
am a fool, he ignores it. When I succeed, he brags. Without him, I am
only another man. With him, I am all-powerful. He is loyalty itself. He
has taught me the meaning of devotion. With him, I know a secret comfort
and a private peace. He has brought me understanding where before I was
ignorant. His head on my knee can heal my human hurts. His presence by
my side is protection against my fears of dark and unknown things. He
has promised to wait for me – whenever, wherever –- in case I need
him. And I expect I will – as I always have. – Gene
Hill
The
measure by which all dogs are considered has long been my beloved
Shadow.
An
English springer spaniel of estimable character, boundless energy and
daredevil bravery, Shadow came from a pet store in Lafayette. He was a
bundle of liver-and-white fur, so sad and lonely in the display window,
he had to come home with me. He just had to.
Shadow
grew into an amazing dog. Cunning and clever, he was everything the
canine breed strives to be. Regrettably, he met his demise at age four
to a mama copperhead snake when he got into her nest of young ‘uns,
that insatiable curiosity his undoing.
I
wasn’t home when it happened. She must have struck him multiple times.
I belatedly found the nest and dispatched the whole family. I was
heartbroken beyond words: My friend and ally, my faithful companion, had
died there in the yard, alone, pumped full of agonizing venom. I
probably could not have saved him even if I had been there, even if had
I rushed him to medical help, but at least he wouldn’t have faced
death alone.
When
I’d take him out to the pasture, and while Chance -- his buddy, a
cocker spaniel – would bound here and there, stopping to smell
everything, Shadow would run.
That
dog could fly. He would wait, impatient but still, until I gave him
leave: "Run, Shadow."
Then
he’d leap into motion, belly low, legs pumping and ears flapping
behind him, and he’d run like lightning across the pasture. I have
never had a dog that fast, don’t think I’ll ever see a dog that fast
again. Perhaps it’s just idealistic bias, but I’d have put Shadow up
against any greyhound around.
He
had seen me through a divorce; relocated with me twice until I finally
settled into the home I’m in now, the old family place. It was odd:
He’d always walk without being taught, on my left side. That’s my
bad eye, the one that never really worked since I was born, and I have
very limited vision in it. It was like Shadow knew this, somehow, and
took up sentry there on that side as we strolled down path and trail.
I
never knew if anything I had done had made him such a good dog, or if he
was just born with the spirit. These many years later, I think it was
both.
Long
after he was gone, my girlfriend’s black Lab came to stay with me.
Already of considerable age, the dog became my fishing pal and bayouside-browsing
pal. I had gone through that common denial: That "I don’t want
another dog for as long as I live" phase, but Daisy panted and
grinned her way into my heart in no time at all. She’s grown pained of
joint and slow now, but her tail still has the energy of a pup, and when
she smiles at me – yes, she does smile – my heart still melts
for the ol’ girl.
But
I guess there was something else haunting me about Shadow’s death. Not
just that I felt I had failed him, somehow, in his battle with the
copperhead and his lonely death. It’s that there was nothing there to
fill that vast emptiness, and I didn’t want anything to. I waded
through his sudden absence like self-flagellation.
I
dug a hole in the backyard. Over so many decades, the number of pets
that have been buried in that yard totals dozens. I dug, and I cried,
and when it was done, I lowered Shadow into it, and just before I
covered him up, I noticed that he was curled up in a ball, legs tucked
under him, nose hidden under his front leg. Almost exactly the way he
was when the store attendant handed him to me four years before.
It
may not have been appropriate. I don’t know the ways of my ancestors
well enough for so much has been lost. But I placed tobacco and cedar in
the grave with Shadow, and a small feather. I also placed a dog snack
there to sustain him on the journey. This is the way of my people, and
perhaps it wasn’t done that way for a dog, but it was done that way
for my dog.
The
other night I was reading For the Love of a Dog by Patricia B.
McConnell, and a comment by one of the author’s clients struck me as
amazingly apt:
"He’s
my best friend," the client said, "and I don’t know a thing
about him."
It
was, after all, why I picked up McConnell’s book, and a handful of
others. I just hadn’t quite defined it like that. It’s when I
started realizing that I am still haunted by Shadow. What, after all,
did I know about his overwhelming desire to chase and confront
everything that moved? Springers were bred for hunting. He would leap
four feet to snap dragonflies and carpenter bees out of the air. He
chased and ate more tree leaves than a Snapper mower. But did I ever
stop to consider why? Why he spun circles in unequaled joy when I opened
the door of the truck for him to get in? Why he ran like a bolt of
liver-and-white lightning in wide, spiraling orbits for absolutely no
reason I could fathom, running and running so fast until he seemed to
just wear himself out? But after only the briefest respite he would
strike out again, a djin unleashed. More: Why he would sit, sometimes,
and stare deep into my eyes, probing, and I could sense there an
intelligence that perhaps wasn’t vocal or devised language, didn’t
have an opposable thumb or use tools, but at some level stretched far,
far deeper than mine.
Oh,
I read and reread the dog training books when our Lab pup Bogie came to
stay with us, a six-inch long bundle of soft yellow fur. But when I
began probing the psychology of dogs, along with the physiology, I began
to get a tiny clue about them. About my friends present and past.
McConnell
suggests we can learn a lot about our dogs by their facial expressions,
and I believe she is correct. I knew, from my own experiences, half of
what she described already. But I never wondered why a dog sidled up to
me with tail wagging or why he’d look at me sometimes, body turned
away but head half-slanted at me, and eyes showing the whites as he
looked me in the face. McConnell suggests many answers to such things
and as I looked and watched and listened, I realized there’s no way to
truly know for sure but I suspect she’s pretty much on target.
Yet
what I also learned from McConnell and others is that what we’ve done
is made Bogie secure or as Cesar Milan calls it, balanced. From the day
he came home with us at seven weeks of age, we have made him secure and
balanced, just by instinct, I guess. I spend as much time as I can with
him. I spoil him rotten in some regards but expect manners, abiding by
rules and behavior. Suzie tells me if I leave the house or just move out
of his sight, he goes frantic looking for me, whining and searching. And
when she drives up in the yard, he races to the door and stands waiting,
behind wiggling, tail helicoptering.
All
I intended was a dog who would mind his manners, do some bird hunting
and be a good companion for the family. But when he was tiny, fluffy and
pudgy, I would lay on the floor of the workshop with him and let him
climb all over me and tumble off; I played with his toes and made him
nip and giggle; I didn’t comfort him when the storms came with thunder
and rain but I assured him with my stance that he had nothing to fear,
and I let him know he was safe when he heard strange sounds in the
night. All the things I did with Shadow. And I’ve ended up with a dog
that’s, by all accounts, content and unafraid. He harbors neither
anxiety nor suspicion. Certainly, he has his stubborn moments, like any
teen. He pushes envelopes, challenges authority. He hates his baths and
his flea spray. But in his security, he needs no reassurances from me
from moment to moment, knows that though I may leave I always return
and, most of all, that I will not let him down.
But
I tend to be overprotective. I worry too much. It’s hard to let him be
a puppy sometimes, and when he gets himself in a bind it’s even harder
not to intervene unless he really needs me. To let him work it out on
his own. Perhaps I’m not as convinced as he that I won’t fail him
somehow.
I
suppose I am as great a mystery to him. The things I do, the noises I
make, especially when I sneeze, which makes him go crazy.
I
still think of Shadow, talk of him often, and there’ll always be a
part of my heart reserved just for Shadow. He has worthy successors in
Daisy and Bogie. Still, sometimes, when Bogie and I are out in the
fields, walking trails and he’s searching happily for bugs or insects
or birds, I detect the slightest of movement on the peripheral of my
vision, out the corner of my bad eye, the side he always walked with me
on.
The
rational part of me claims it’s only the wind, but I whisper softly,
just to be sure: "Run, Shadow."
And
in those times, I think of a verse by Beulah Ferguson Smith, and wish my
old friend a happy journey wherever he was bound as he brushed by my
side:
We have a secret you and I,
That no one else shall know,
For who but I can see you lie,
Each night, in fireglow?
And who but I can reach my hand
Before I go to bed,
And feel the living warmth of you,
And touch your silken head?
And only I walk woodland paths,
And see ahead of me,
Your small form racing with the wind,
So young again, and free!
And only I can see you swim,
In every brook I pass. . .
And, when I call, no one but I
Can see the bending grass. . .
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About the Author:
 Roger
Emile Stouff is the son of Nicholas Leonard Stouff Jr., last chief of
the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana, and Lydia Marie Gaudet Stouff, a
Cajun belle. He has been a journalist for 25 years and author of the
award-winning column "From the Other Side" in the St. Mary
and Franklin Banner-Tribune. He is the author of Native Waters: A
Few Moments In A Small Wooden Boat, a memoir, and Chasing
Thunderbirds, a collection of short fiction. He has been featured on
"Fly Fishing America" in 2006. He currently resides on the
Chitimacha reservation. |
