Written by regarded raconteur Rick Rubin, “I Have Been Thinking Of Little Dog” appeared in Wild Dog #6: Letting Go. (June 1994) – JDW
I have been thinking of Little Dog since Larue got killed by a car.
Little Dog was a free roamer who volunteered his services back in the ’70s when I had a different family. Came up on the porch, tail wagging and gleeful, and hung around the house, waiting for the door to magically open.
We petted Little Dog, we romped with Little Dog. But, when we went in, we left Little Dog outside. We already had a dog. We had Maxi.
Even so, Little Dog hung around for several days. A wiry diminutive white, black-spotted shorthair mutt, not distinguished-looking but perky and full of life. About half Maxi’s size. We all liked Little Dog. Maybe we even liked him better than Maxi, who was becoming a stodgy old thing by then. An animal of Little Dog’s stature wouldn’t eat much. But we kept closing the door between him and us, and after a few days he continued on his way, leaving behind nothing but a persistent memory.
Little Dog is history now, wherever he ended up. I thought of him after Larue got hit. Larue originally belonged to Linnea and her mother Carlyn. Linnea soon lost interest and Carlyn awarded Larue to me, because, she said, Larue needed someone around in the daytime and I worked at home. The dog’s name came from Lash Larue, a cowboy mythic figure, adept with a bullwhip.
I was Larue’s third owner and she was my third dog. She was a Skyline Road Sheep Dog, from Dexter Bacon’s pack, up on the ragged forested edge of the city where the coyotes roam. A brown creature, but with a shaggy black fur blanket thrown over her, so only her legs and the round spots over her eyes showed her reddish-brown. In some angles of sunlight the red shone through the black.
Larue was a slight part coyote herself, as were all the pack up there. It came out in song. She would howl of delight whenever she encountered either Linnea or Carlyn.
I had the feeling sometimes she only tolerated me. Sheep dogs form an unshakable loyalty to their first owners.
Eleven years she lived in my house, but I was still slightly suspect.
Larue was a well known neighborhood dog. I never bothered to even carry a leash when she and I took our walks to Thriftee Thriftway or Freddy’s One-Stop Shopping.
I would tell her “sit,” and she would hunker down, and when I came back out she would be there still. People who knew her patted her head.
Her favored game was “my stick.” That’s the one where you throw the stick and the dog runs to get it, but won’t give it back. Instead, the dog runs around and around, growling “my stick” and dares you to try to take it away.
From a canine exercise standpoint this is inferior to “fetch,” where you can just stand there and the dog will run back and forth. In “my stick” you have to chase the dog, and it is much easier for the dog to get away than it is for you to get the stick. After a while the human player gets bored or exhausted while the dog remains fresh.
As she grew older and thicker-bodied, as her muzzle whitened, Larue took less and less interest in sticks. So, the walks were all she had in the way of exercise and it was not enough. Thick begets thicker and the walks became strolls.
By then I had her on a leash, because the neighborhood had tightened up and people now required such restraints. Once, when I left her outside the store, a woman carried her off. Seeing no leash. she assumed Larue was a stray, though she later called the number on the tag and we got Larue back.
The leash helped speed her up. The strolls became pulls.
Her eyes were failing and she couldn’t hear much. Her nose, however, was still strong to smell and a walk in the city is rich in the pee of other dogs.
I also needed the leash because she would walk out in front of onrushing cars without a fear. Larue had actually been backed over by a car when a pup, which broke her thigh and must have hurt a lot.
She learned nothing from the experience. She was a dozen years old and weighed twice as much as when I first met her.
Mostly Larue slept.
Larue was losing the use of her hindquarters. She had trouble getting up stairs, particularly the steep steps from the backyard, which she loved. She would stand and whimper at the bottom. I realized later her distress was not about any fear she couldn’t make the climb, it was fear of the pain that would come shooting out from her hips and the old break. She loved the destination but feared the return trip.
The first of October was toasty and sun-filled, so we were outside in front of the house, and Larue was with us. We were inattentive and she wandered off. Up at the next corner she ambled in front of a car.
Our telephone rang. The car’s driver was calling to tell us he’d killed our dog. He’d got our number from the tag on her collar. He’d done the gentlemanly thing.
We hurried up, shocked. Lane lay still, a black dog on black macadam. No red fur shining now. The driver was terribly contrite. I had to soothe him, tell him it was alright, that she was mostly blind and didn’t know about cars and it wasn’t his fault.
Maybe he was driving too fast, who knows? Any speed is too fast for a dog as old and dumb as that. Charlotte and I carried her down the sad street and put her in the beloved backyard.
We cried some, yet felt relieved as well. I would have found it awfully hard to ever have her “put to sleep.”
Even sleeping most of the time is better than that Long Sleep. I don’t believe in Doggie Heaven, but she was awfully old.
So, it was good luck among the bad. I didn’t get the impression she had lingered even a few seconds. Nothing was broken; there was no blood. She had been impacted and her little soul had drifted away.
Larue had rolled on glacier, beach and manicured lawn. She had no further need of sticks.
The next day I dug a hole in the yard and put her in. I shoveled a first load of dirt on her and started to cry. I got some newspaper so the clods didn’t fall directly on her. Then I filled up the hole.
I was ashamed I never got Larue a sheep of her own. A sheep dog without sheep to push around feels lost.
Unflocked, she used to nip the heels of strangers who came into the house, trying to steer them around the furniture.
She was a fine loud watchdog and she would have died to protect even a third owner like me.
She could say her own name, except for the initial L.
Good Dog, Larue.
Charlotte and I talked. We felt bad we didn’t feel worse.
We wondered when and if we’d get another dog. Dogs are a comfort, but a chore they can be in the city. Maxi M had lolled loose on he prch, but those days are long gone in Northwest Portland. We had to keep Larue indoors, or tie her on the porch after the U.S. postman had passed.
Dogs can live such a long time. I’m not sure I can make the commitment again. What if w hold go away to a tropical island and have to leave the dog? Would there be a friend to take it? Will there ever again be a dog as wonderful as my first dog? Life is so complex and full of decisions now.
That is why I have been thinking about Little Dog. If a free dog volunteers, what can you do but accept? Comes up on the porch and befriends you, takes the responsibility for the relationship. I know Little Dog is long since dust, but why can’t he run up on the porch again, wagging and cheerful, and choose us?
Then nothing would be my fault and we could enjoy his company.
This time I wouldn’t close the door.
I’m sorry I did before, Little Dog.
