High Saturation

Great Uncle Carter was the first of our dog family, now spanning 42 years. Carter, named for Carter Stanley, the bluegrass musician, had an affinity for the mailman and meter reader, and more than once he broke out through storm doors in Buffalo leaving me in bare feet to deal with the broken glass. He was a real liability.

When I found Ralph, a half starved freezing cold nearly hairless Irish setter, and brought him home, we found that he was indeed a canine of the ‘60s: he had hallucinogenic dreams and thought he could fly, from second story windows.  He and Carter made great barking music together.

Next was a biter, Celeste, and we had to hide her from the front door because she would great visitors with a cute expression and wagging tail,  and then chomp.  Celeste was named for Queen Celeste in the Babar books, but she wasn’t regal at all.

She was followed by Porter (Wagoner) and Dolly (Parton), another stray. Porter liked to break out through the front door, and it was said that he was the creator of a cute litter of puppies in the next neighborhood. Dolly was a lovely golden with a wonderful personality, but poor dog, she suffered from seizures her whole life with us.

It was in summer of 1999 that we found Lester (Flatt) in Davidson Country (home of the infamous Sheriff Hege, of the pink jails). A wise friend told us to pick a pup from the litter with a laid back personality, and not the friendliest and most aggressive one. North Carolina summers are hot, and Lester, 6 week old pup that he was, was sleeping in a cinderblock. Literally, in the hole. We knew he had to be ours.

As a youngster, Lester loved Shark, our grand dog who often came to visit. Lester would try to clamp onto Shark’s chocolate lab side, much to our chagrin. We took Lester to obedience school, where he was trained with a very well behaved pit bull. Lester would attack the pit bull with great energy, while I hid my eyes and my heart pounded! After I got over my fear of this strange training, I realized that teaching Lester not to jump was hopeless.

And jump he did, mostly into his beloved swimming pool, as many times in a day as we would throw the ball. Lester and Earl lived to swim.  They would let the grandes climb on their backs and travel, like dolphins, to the other end of the pool. Over and over and over.

A very young Vivi and Lester, engaged in a ball game

Swimming with dogs

Tennis, anyone?

Pearly gates are calling

Lester at his best

We knew as summer waned that Lester was hurting, but as long as he could swim, he was enthusiastic. How we dreaded autumn!

If you go back in this blog to last February, I wrote the love story of Lester and Earl (the girl).

November is a cruel month. Yesterday, after 11 and a half years of energy, bliss and joy, Lester left this earth, but only after surveying his yard one more time and his beloved swimming pool.

Winter has struck this household early.

As a school teacher, I have plenty of children right at hand. Watermelon wine doesn’t sound too appealing; I tried pomegranate wine once and it was unmemorable. But…old dogs is my specialty. Boy, do we ever have old dogs! Two goofy golden retrievers, each with nagging physical problems.

Lester is 11, and Earl (the girl) is 10. Lester came to us first. He’s named for Lester Flatt. Earl was next, and we overlooked, as much as we could, the fact that she’s a girl! She’s named for Earl Scruggs. Yes, bluegrass is, or used to be a huge part of our collective lives. Her name was obvious to us even before we bought her.

Lester has a very strange skin problem, called granuloma. Granuloma happens when a neurotic dog licks himself incessantly…usually in the middle of the night, preferably while he’s lying on your bed. If you want to be enlightened, do a google search of granuloma. It’s not a cause, but rather,  an affectation. A bad one. Poor Lester used to have the best fur in town. Now he has very little,  and parts of him look like hamburger. It isn’t pretty.

Earl is way too fat. In the summer she’s a total jock, and will swim for hours on end. Last summer, she lost 6 pounds just through athletic pursuits. This winter she’s bulked up with our frozen environment here in North Carolina, and from finishing Lester’s food, which he abandons in preference to licking himself. Earl has $900 designer dog fur. After listening to her pant at night from under her furry self- blanket (while Lester was licking) we decided a week ago to have her shorn, so she now looks like a lab, not a golden. Then we noticed that she had a giant bulge on her under side, a scary sight. A trip to the vet assured us that she isn’t dying, just has a fatty area. The vet said she could have liposuction, for $500, and then a tummy tuck! It isn’t likely. Seriously.

A week ago I had a big photography assignment, and I had lofty ideas of going out and photographing a beautiful red barn in the snow. Problem was, I was tired after Lester’s licking all night and there were accumulated snowflakes. Driving was more treacherous than I could have imagined. All those years living in Buffalo gave me an inflated ego about my snow driving capabilities. It was a day off from school, and I had an idea that the red barn would be perfect with that new blanket of snow. Bad idea. I got stuck at a busy intersection and after 10 minutes of trying to free myself, I crept home, feeling humiliated. It was only 7 AM.

A Family Portrait

For the next 2 days I took pictures of Lester and Earl. Here are just a few. Notice their wonderful masks of white on their muzzles. A man who replaces watch batteries at the mall told me  never to bring all my watches in at the same time. Seems that the batteries will all expire again at about the same time two years later. I worry that both dogs are ageing out at the same rate, and I am already getting sad, but both dogs have had a momentary reprieve. Let summer come!