An Ugly Fight

That fraud.  The dirty, stinking fraud.

The odiferous part was my fault for not bathing him, of course, but Duke came up with the deception all on his own.  Since we left Georgia, Duke has refused to “loadup” into the passenger side of my truck.  “Loadup” is a command he knows well – if you say it to him while he’s standing behind a truck with the tailgate down, he knows to jump into the bed.  And he can catch air for a short-legged dog – Duke can loadup into a the bed of F-250 four-by-four; I’ve seen him do it.  But he won’t load up into the passenger door of my truck.  Maybe, I thought obligingly, the floorboard is different.  Although the floorboard is lower than the tailgate, there’s not as much “landing space” in the floorboard for Duke to lose the momentum from his leap.  So maybe, I thought, when I said “loadup” and he placed his front paws on the floorboard and looked at me with sorrowfully, it was because he really couldn’t make the leap.

What a sucker.

Duke and I were playing fetch by the ruins of a couple old railroad buildings.  Sagebrush had long since retaken the terrain, and all that remained of the buildings were their concrete foundation walls, standing three or four feet above the dust.  The walls were higher than the floorboard of my truck.  I threw the tennis ball into the middle of the foundation and sent Duke after it.  He sprinted for the wall and cleared the wall without touching it, front paws folded under him like a deer leaping a barbed wire fence.  Effortlessly.  On the way out he did it again.  I threw the ball in a second time.  Same result.  I threw the ball in a third time.  Tired now, Duke placed a foot on the wall as he jumped over it.  He cleared it without running so fast as to build up unmanageable momentum.  Still cleared it with no problem.

Busted.



I should have anticipated this.  Duke has a history of deception.  One frosty morning after hunting wood ducks in south Georgia, Duke and his kennelmate, Sly, were charged with picking up the downed ducks for four of five hunters.  Dad circled the pond with Sly, an energetic if unintelligent American lab who bounded into the water and crashed through briers to bring back ducks that we hunters couldn’t see.  Duke followed the circumambulation of the pond, but did not follow Sly’s brier-bucking example.  He stayed at Dad’s heels.  After rounding the pond, Dad piled the ducks that Sly had recovered under a pine tree and walked him to the water’s edge.  He sent Sly after a duck floating belly-up near the center of the pond.  Sly sprinted to the edge, leaped, bellyflopped with his front paws outstretched, and swam snorting and grunting after the duck.  Duke walked back into the woods.  As Dad and I watched Sly swim, Duke emerged at Dad’s heel with a duck.

“Good boy, Duke,” Dad said.  He showed me the duck.  “Where the hell did this come from?”

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I didn’t think any fell over here.”

Dad patted Duke on the head and we turned back to Sly, who had the floating duck in his mouth and was swimming back toward us.  But before Sly reached the shore, Duke arrived at Dad’s heel again, his tail wagging slowly, another duck in his mouth.  Dad took the duck from Duke and scratched his head, but now his eyes were suspicious.  Dad made a show of turning back toward the pond, but he watched Duke over his shoulder.

As Sly dutifully churned through the frigid duck pond, paws splashing, eyes blinking, wet duck in mouth, Duke trotted back into the woods.  Duke retraced our steps to the pine tree where Dad had deposited Sly’s pile of ducks.  As Sly climbed out of the water, dripping and panting, Duke picked up a duck from the pile and trotted toward us.

A damned con-artist, Dad calls him affectionately.  By the time we discovered that Duke and Sly had the wrong names, it was too late to change them.

I know that duck-pile story, have told it several times, and have heard it told several more.  Yet for this whole trip, I had been picking Duke up – all seventy-odd pounds of him – and lifting him into the front seat of my truck.  No more.  I put the tennis ball in my pocket and walked Duke back to the truck.  I opened the passenger door and pointed.  “Loadup,” I said.

Duke looked at me sorrowfully.

I patted the passenger’s floorboard.  “Loadup,” I said more forcefully.  Duke hung his head.

“Bullshit,” I said.  “Loadup!”  I took off my cap and swatted Duke across the face.  He cringed, but did not move.

“Loadup,” I said.  I grabbed Duke by the collar and dragged him toward the door, expecting him to make at least a halfhearted leap as I hauled him toward the doorframe, but he didn’t.  Dead weight.  I stopped before I banged his head into the truck.  He shrank to his stomach in the dust.

“Loadup!” I told him again.  I grabbed his collar in one hand and some loose skin over his hindquarters with the other and threw him into the truck.  He hit the glove compartment with a bang and thudded to the floor.  He stayed in the floorboard, his head turned away from me.  I shut the door and circled to my side.  When I got in and cranked the truck, Duke still wouldn’t look at me.  We drove down the dirt road, not talking.

I hate doing shit like this.  Maybe Duke didn’t know what loadup meant, or maybe he didn’t know to apply it to doors instead of tailgates, or maybe he really couldn’t make the jump.  Maybe I was berating and hitting Duke, who was unfailingly loyal and loving to me, for reasons he didn’t understand.  Or maybe for not doing something he wasn’t capable of doing.  Duke, who would never harm me in a thousand years, even if when I poked his aching feet or crammed pills down his throat or hit him for not jumping into my pickup.  It was a black guilt, the gut-gnawing guilt that makes you want to throw up then climb into a ring with Muhammed Ali to serve your penance.  But you know that even that wouldn’t make things right and you just wish, wish, wish that you had been the victim instead of the perpetrator because no amount of pain could be worse than this but you know that no amount of wishing will make it so and you’ve got to live with that.  I looked out the window and swallowed.

No, the rational side of me said.  Duke knew enough to place his front feet on the floorboard when told to loadup.  He was able to jump to higher places than the floor of my truck.  Refusing to loadup was willful disobedience, and it would only get harder to fix the longer I ignored it.  A responsible dog owner must be willing to impose discipline.  Otherwise you end up with a little yapping piece of shit that isn’t happy and makes everyone else miserable.

Let’s get it over with.

I pulled over to the side of the road next to an embankment so the passenger’s floorboard was close to the ground.  No question about Duke’s ability now.  I opened Duke’s door and looked at him.  He looked at me then looked away.  I stepped back and took a deep breath.

“Here,” I said.

Duke stayed in his seat.

“Here!”

No movement.  Duke knows this command; he’s executed it before.  I grabbed him by his collar and jerked him out of the truck.  I walked him in a circle, then back to the door.

“Loadup.”  He looked away.

“Loadup!”

I grabbed Duke and threw him to the floorboard as I spoke the command again.  He climbed into the passenger’s seat and faced the other way.  I took a few steps back from the truck.

“Here.”  Duke looked at me but didn’t move.

“Here!”  Duke looked away.

Again I jerked him down by his collar, and again I walked him in a circle, and again I told him to loadup, and again he obeyed none of the commands.  I threw him into the truck by his collar and loose skin.  I stepped back.

“Here,” I said.  No movement.

“Here!” I jerked him out by the collar.  He landed nose-first in the dirt, getting sand all over his face.  I walked him in a circle and back to the truck.  He knew what was coming.  He cowered.

“Loadup.”  He shrank from me.

“Loadup!”  He sank to his stomach.  Again I flung him into the floorboard.  I took a few steps back.

We repeated the process.  Again Duke wouldn’t leave the truck when I called; again he wouldn’t loadup.  Again I pulled him bodily off the seat; again I threw him bodily back into the truck.  Now Duke climbed the passenger’s seat and thrust his head into the pile of gear stacked in the back of the cab.  He lay down.  His flanks were trembling.  I felt like shit.  Goddam, Jeb, I thought, you had better be right.  I wanted to puke.  I took a few steps away from the truck.

“Here,” I said.

Nothing.  I reached in the truck for Duke’s collar and before I grabbed it – I had only just touched his fur – Duke turned around and put his paws on the edge of the seat as if to jump down.  I moved my hand away from him and backed up.  “Here,” I said again.  He stayed put.  “Here!” I shouted.

He didn’t move, but now I knew beyond any doubt that he got the message.  Now it was just a contest of wills, and if you’re going to keep a dog, you have got to win these.  I pinched Duke’s ear.  “We are going to do this over and over and over again,” I told him, “until we get it right.”  I pulled him out of the truck.  We did it again and again and again.  And again and again.  Painful round after painful round.

I think Duke was startled when, after he finally loaded up on his own, I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my face against his shoulder.  “Good boy!” I murmured into his fur.  A part of me wanted to cry.  I patted his head and ears and face for about a full minute.  We did it flawlessly six times in a row – getting down from the seat on command, walking the circle, and loading up on command – and the last two times I gave him chunks of Oscar Meyer franks for completing each stage.  By the end Duke was wagging his tail at the easy treat-collecting.

It was over.  As we drove away I lifted the center console and let him rest his head in my lap.  His tail swished back and forth across the passenger’s seat.  If there is a god and he made dogs, then I believe in his benevolence.