Copyright (c) 2000 by Michael Finley

The best thing about walks isn’t the smells, which are memories of dogs past, but meeting other dogs in the present flesh.

There are dogs who adore all other dogs, and there are dogs who despise all other dogs. But there are no dogs who are indifferent to their own kind. Walking is the best chance a dog has in the course of a day to meet with its own kind and exchange particulars.

Beau was an adorer. We would be out walking in the newfallen snow, and he would strain at the leash to cross the street, where a man was walking his German shepherd. When Beau got a chance to mingle like this, he was all over the newfound friend, licking and pawing him, offering evidence of his goodwill. He wanted the new dog to begin where his litter left off.

Very often, however, dog owners, seeing us, would quickly turn in the opposite direction, and hurry their dog away. Beau would whine his frustration, seeing them disappear around the corner. I, too, was frustrated – what could the owner be thinking of? Didn’t he know that dogs need other dogs to be fulfilled? Wasn’t he afraid the dog would contract his own antisocial behavior, and turn mean?

A better way for Beau to encounter his kind was to make regular rounds of the backyards. The two of us created a mental map of the homes in the surrounding blocks that had dogs, especially dogs that spent lots of time outdoors.

Beau would be in terrific tension as we would head out of the house, looking for dog action. He was so much fun to be with when he played, in those days, that I was frisky, too.

Many dogs came up to the fence to make our acquaintance. Many people also seemed happy to see me and my proud pup. But at many houses, we encountered suspicion and evasiveness. When we approached, the people inside would see us and call their dogs inside – even when Beau and their dog were behaving nicely through the fence. It seemed awfully rude.

There was a young boxer named Ginger, the same age as Beau. Her owner was a Latin teacher who wanted to raise her for breeding. Beau was always dashing out our front and over to their place, where the two dogs would frolic on the sidewalk. Ginger especially seemed to lose control, going into a squirm and shimmy dance on seeing Beau.

Ginger's owners' great concern was that Beau would have sex with Ginger 1) at all, which would have produced the world’s weirdest dogs, boxers and poodles being the opposite of one another in every possible way, and 2) during her first heat, which most breeders like to avoid, as it taxes the dog’s maturity. So when they saw Beau coming, they freaked out and tried to shoo him away, which was not strictly possible.

They may have felt they were just being sensible, but I felt they were being just a little nuts, and that they didn’t want their dogs to be happy. I gloomily entertained the notion that all dog owners were like that.

Then we met Noelle and her two dogs Cobi and Sonja, who became Beau’s first and best friends -- his sisters, really.

We first met them walking down the alley of their home on Selby Avenue. Cobi was the elder of the two females, a mix of poodle and border collie, with very strong herding instinct. Sonja was the younger dog, a Labrador retriever big enough to retrieve Labrador and half of Newfoundland.

When we walked by after an especially deep snow, they barreled off their back porch and began barking at us. Cobi, the herder, orchestrated the barking, and Beau was delighted with the havoc, and wagged his tail appreciatively.

The dogs’ owner, appeared in parka at the back door. “Allo,” she said. She was French!

“Hi,” I said. “This is Beauregard, and we were just –“

“Beauregard,” she said, stooping to pet the puppy. “It is true – you are so beauty-ful!”

Beau and I both brightened. I was dying to have someone say nice things about Beau. We had been cooped up in the house, me falling in love with him – and no one to show him to!

“You know what we call you where I am from,” she said, scratching behind his ears. “Caniche. Oh, you are such the beauty-ful boy.”

“It’s nice to meet people who like dogs,” I blurted out.

“We love the dogs,” she said with a Gallic shrug. “I tell you, any time you want to visit, come by. My dogs, they always love to play. And you would be most welcome, Mike.” I liked how she said Mike, stretching it into two syllables.

I was stunned to encounter such hospitality in emotionally frozen Minnesota. “Are you sure?” I said. “Because we’ll be here every day. Beau just loves to be with other dogs.”

“Let them play,” Noelle said to me. “I will make you a cup of coffee inside.”

And so began a splendid friendship all around. Noelle and her husband John, and their three kids, and their dogs, became “best family friends” of my contingent. All winter, and then all summer, and then on into the next year, I would stop by, almost every day, and Noelle would make me coffee, and maybe I would buy a sweet.

Noelle wanted someone to tell her stories, and someone to tell stories to. She told me about growing up in Mauretania in Africa – her father was in the foreign service, and a friend of DeGaulle, and her mother was a concert pianist in her hometown at the base of the Pyrenees.

And so we talked, and enjoyed our coffee, while the dogs out back raced around the apple trees and played.

I loved watching Beau play, as a puppy, with other dogs. With Sonja and Cobi, they would run, snap at each other, paw the air like stallions, and otherwise wrestle one another to the ground. They could do this for an hours, and the looks on their faces were of unmitigated joy. I wondered why it was that Beau was so ready to play, and that other dogs sensed this in him and joined him in the fun.

Except for our brief introduction to his father razz, I was never really allowed to meet Beau's family. I understand his mother was a snow-white bitch named Emily, a champion show dog, as was his jet-black father. But Brigitte and her daughter Lorraine, who actually kenneled their dogs, were careful to hide their operations from me, and I never glimpsed what Beau's litter was like, except for that one moment when we all first met, and a lone white sister was with him.

Nevertheless, I came to the conclusion that Beau had a terrifically happy puppyhood. I had never seen him with his brothers and sisters, but I imagined he was a blast to be with, capable and active but never, ever, ever mean. As the alpha leader, he must have set the pace for the pack. I was sure they played rhapsodically, day after day, for the three months they were together.

It didn’t dawn on me that Beau must have driven his siblings crazy by having to run the show. And his poor mother!

So now, when he pulls on the lead because he senses a dog behind hedge or fence, or he knows I am headed for Sonja's house, I am convinced he is trying to recreate those weeks of bliss, rolling on his back, nipping at one another's ears, striking heroic poses one moment, clowning poses the next.

In my theory, dog friendships recreate the emotional hum of the litter. And emotion is pretty much everything to dogs.

Which means that, when he is solitary, at home, on his pillow, staring emptily out the window, he misses his litter. Even the most pampered lap dog must feel this quiet grief, a yearning for what is happening on the other side of the window, and a dim memory of paradise, tumbling with one's siblings.

One day I had a special treat for Beauregard. I took him with Daniele to her riding stable in Wisconsin. While Daniele rode, Beau played with a setter collie mix, and the two of them fought and played for the full 60 minutes of the lesson. It was a dazzling display, in the dizzying atmosphere of horse manure and sawdust, of all-out full-tilt dogplay, like a boxing match with no bell between rounds.

Beau played so hard he drove the older, stronger dog into the ground, where it lay panting, waiting for permission to get up.