For a dog, he was a good dog.

Which is not to say he was a smart dog, for after all, can a smart dog not also be a bad one? Neither was he a fancy dog. Truth be told, he was most unremarkable. His eyes and coat shone, dully the color of earth. His voice was no more than a stifled cough. He was not large or small. He did not even know his name.

But he was a good dog. Good because of his heart, worn always on his collar. Good because of his love, given unconditionally to his mistress. Good because he knew about his mistress, knew everything about her, and loved her anyway.

Though he knew he was a dog, he did not know that he was a good dog. He did not even know that he was a he. He did know, however, that he was not a she. She smelled differently. Her hair, her skin, her breath, all different somehow. He was hypnotized by those smells, helpless in their grip. His weaknesses were his mistresses, and that he did not know that he was a good dog.

His first mistress did know. She had seen his heart on his collar. He was hungry, and she lured him through an open door with a morsel of food. She then gave him a plate of delicious treats and clicked the door shut.

She was like a breeze, with swirling yellow hair that smelled of cornflowers and glittering emerald eyes, always sharp. Her skin was the ocean’s salty spray, her voice a peal of little bells. She smiled when he pleased her. He pleased her with his tricks: trick for praise, tricks for food, tricks to show her friends. He did not mind performing, for it brought forth her smile, and when she whispered to him, he smelled the hickory smoke of her breath. He wanted only to taste that smoke, and her skin.

Soon the tricks became more difficult. They became tiring, and painful. His mistress grew angry, and scorned him. He hurt that he could no longer please her with his old tricks. When he tried, she scratched at his heart with her frustration.

Shortly after that she grew weary of having a dog. She let him out one day and never reopened the door. He whined, then cried, then howled. She did not hear his pleas. Her scent lingered, cornflowers and hickory smoke, but she did not appear, and he mourned. All he had was a collar she had given him, a beautiful, shining collar that bore his heart. He could not see his collar; he could feel it, but only others could see it. Eventually, he took his empty stomach and shining collar and vanished.

His second mistress found him almost perished with hunger, his collar huge around his wasted neck. She, too, knew he was a good dog; (would a bad dog have such a beautiful collar?) She soothed his growling belly, and coaxed him home with a voice that sounded and smelled of rotting autumn leaves.

Her hair was a cluster of burning pine needles, her laugh a crow’s caw, and her tongue a spitting serpent, but he loved her anyway. He was a good and thankful dog whose memory had been made short by loneliness and hunger. She laughed at his tricks and hugged him close, her skin a warm and melting pastry. Without warning she would bite and shove him away, lashing with a venomous tongue and burning him with ignorant eyes. He did not understand, and felt shame. Tail dragging, he faded into the cold, lifeless desert.

He was a good dog, and wise to escape her foul breath, but he did not know these things. Though she had stolen his beautiful, shining collar, its impression remained around his neck. He did not know this either. He knew only hunger, and loneliness. His eyes became black and vacant and cold, another trick he had been taught.

His next mistress was lonelier than he. She did not care that he was a good dog; she just wanted a dog. She spoke to him in her horse’s whinny of unknowable things, unknowable because he was only a dog. She left food out for him, whether he was hungry or not. When he was lonely, she would pet him absently. He was comfortable, with her chestnut mane that smelled of soapy strawberries, and her dull, bovine eyes. He soon bored of her skin, which was like a shiny leather jacket. No longer was he entranced by her feather pillow breath: soft, warm, and inviting, but gray and lifeless.

He became a lazy dog. He would wander farther and farther away, sometimes for days, always returning. Finally, he returned one day to an empty house. She had gone. He could follow her scent but was not interested, for many other exotic smells beckoned.

For a time he went from door to door, a lazy dog begging for food. Some fed him only grudgingly, others gorged and choked him with their loneliness. Though content, he was not an especially happy dog.

What ended that was his final mistress, who had never known a good dog. She believed all were bad dogs, but took him in anyway.

She intoxicated the hapless creature. Her secret, airy clarinet voice captivated his spirit. When she whispered, he was lost in a whirlwind symphony. Breathing in the honeysuckle of her golden hair took him away to windy, grassy fields brimming with rabbits. He chased those rabbits until he had no breath left. When he was hungry, she hand fed him, bite by bite, each morsel laden with the buttery English muffin that was her skin. He was never lonely. She stroked his fur and sang to him with her butterscotch breath, spinning his mind like a child’s toy. Had he could he would have climbed inside her to drown in the well from which that voice sprang. He was dizzy from the rush of his senses, from that butterscotch clarinet. He forgot that he was a dog; he forgot that she was not, so close they had become. Her vision was only a blur, her scent his entire universe.

Like a window shade flipping suddenly open she was gone. He had known, but paid no attention. He had felt it coming, but decided only to bask in her sparkling blue eyes. Her hair and skin and voice and breath were strong in his memory, and it was a long time before he felt lonely again. She had unearthed him, released him from his prison. He finally understood that he was a good dog, a good dog that deserved nothing less than what she had given him.

Although he was not aware of it, each of his mistresses had taught him an important lesson. Cornflower taught him that easy tricks soon become difficult tricks, which eventually become impossible; a giggle easily becomes a frown, which can then transform quickly to a scowl when the tricks grow old. Serpent tongue taught him to trust in his sense of smell: that where there is smoke there is also fire. Quarter horse helped him understand that a good dog can never be merely owned, he must also be appreciated. Finally, butterscotch proved that there exists a companionship that defies explanation, definition, even description, and that this bond is elusive and ethereal, yet unmistakable.

To this day he is still a good dog, searching desperately for another that entrances him as his last did. He does not know if she exists. He does not know where to look. He only knows that he will not rest until he finds her, or she him.

Moral: Do not overlook the unobtrusive dog. He may be a good dog, quiet and watchful, waiting to be discovered. If he detects your scent, he may come to you.

© 1995 Pat Hahn

(Back)