A good friend.

“Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.”

~Roger Caras






its about 12:30 AM, or a bit past mid-night. I am working on my thesis, the last major document that shall be used against me... at least for a while. It causes me a great deal of stress, which I funnel into massive amounts of time sitting here at this machine, staring blankly at the monitor during the hours most people are sleeping (at least in my time-zone). It could seem like a lonely time, but I have a great friend. Her name is Cappie (or a zillion other things depending on when you are nearby), and she is an Aussie-Shepherd/Lab/Dalmation mutt. She is beautiful and smart and fun. Everything a... DOG... should be.

She follows me everywhere, and I joke that she is my dog-shaped shadow. She hates it when I leave, she loves it when I come home. Granted, you could say that about most people and this dog. She loves to love people. But she and I have a very special bond. It started when Jan and I were just dating, and dog needed a place to live, so I took her home with me every day and let her live in my apartment. The bond intensified when I took her with me for 6 months to far eastern Colorado to do oil and gas work. There she took on the role as "running partner dog". It is where we sorted out who was boss (clearly not me). I took her running on the country roads that stretched out for as far as I could see. Here, she was let free from the leash and would run through the corn fields with reckless abandon. I sometimes wouldn't see her for 10 to 15 minutes, but then, out of nowhere, a dark streak would come tear-assing down the road, right at me, tongue lolling about in sheer delight.

I started running marathons and Cappie become marathon-training dog. She would get tired and fall back to the very end of the leash and look at me, pleadingly, to stop so she could sniff every individual blade of grass--again.

At the lake she is lake swimming-dog. She sometimes gets into the water on warm days and just swims because she can. It is the most delightfully graceful and relaxing motion I have ever watched. Except when she inhales some water.

At the dog-park she is Icky-dog. She likes to be confrontational, but I don't know where she gets that...

She is getting older, and although a lot of the time you can't tell, and Jan would kill me for putting it into the "permanence" of writing, she has lost a few steps. She is 9 years old in human years. Her attitude is still puppy-like, but her body can't keep up, albeit not for lack of trying.

She can sleep 18 of the 24 hours in a day without a second shake. And a lot of this time is spent downstairs at the desk with me, while I write my thesis. Hours and hours and hours, she sleeps at my feet, occasionally giving my arm a very labrador-induced flip with the snout that means "scratch my butt". Heck, its the least I could do for a creature that spends every moment I am home at my side. Who I can leave for hours in a garage every day, and still loves me when I come back.

She is now "Thesis-Writing dog" and I will put her in my acknowledgements.




“A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.”

~Josh Billings