Daisy: Walking on Water by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Random Meandering Life

On our daily trips we sometimes headed north and would have to cross a flat ten acre drain field filled with small scrubby bushes which the Middle Rio Grande Conservation District (MRGCD) mowed once or twice a year. It was about a mile from our public entrance to the Bosque on Romero Road and a couple of miles from the next public entrance on an unnamed road on the border of Rio Rancho. Few would be there, probably due to the necessity of having to undertake a journey requiring more than a few steps, as well as the fact that the going started to get particularly tough there.

I’d always talk to her during our trips, of necessity sometimes saying; “No, no, no, no,” when she indicated an interest in going toward something which I deemed to be a danger to her, which she substantially ignored. Most often I would tell her stories. She seemed to look back at me whenever I was silent as if to say; “Tell me a story,” or “What’s wrong?” I tried and enjoyed the effort to produce soothing sounds that I hoped were not repetitious, banal “Musaak.” After the early days of telling her about what I knew of her, the wonders of New Jersey, Willy, her spiritual father, and various other potpourris gleaned from the few books that I had read, my artistic drought led me to using alliteration to expand her name. It was Nabokov inspired

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and woefully out of style, though neither of us cared much about being considered old fashioned. I called her Daisy. I called her Daisy Dog. I called her Daisy Dalmatian Dog. I called her Daisy Delightful Dalmatian Dog. I called her Daisy Desirable, Enchanting and Delightful Dalmatian Dog, at which point I decided to revert to just plain Daisy. The archaic, antiquated, antediluvian, asinine, anthological alliteration stream proved too bulky for either of us to remember and I could not locate a suitable synonym for enchanting which began with the letter “D.”

So, I reverted to conjuring fables which made no sense on the surface. Daisy liked the intonation and I liked the simple ease infinity offered.

The bushes on the field itself grew plants which had briars which would stick like Velcro. It wasn’t particularly bothersome, though sometimes I would stop and get them off the two of us. There was another way around the field, which was to take the levee path. However, this required going down a steep decline and then climbing back up, to get around a concrete drain channel. It was easy for Daisy, but much less so for me.

On the downslope I would be at full speed by the time my feet hit level ground, and on the upside, I doubt if I would have made it without her assistance in pulling me. The drain channel looked like a huge handball court with shallow water and sometimes had mud at the base; sometimes thick mud. The prize

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for successfully traversing was to enter another wooded area in which the unused paths were blocked by broken tree branches.

With some difficulty we got through or around the obstacles. We followed a path made by mole hills and a few hundred feet into the woods, on the river’s edge was the prettiest part of the Bosque I had ever seen. Mature, hundred foot, cottonwoods reigned supreme and were well spaced as if someone had planned the site many years ago. We’d often linger there as Daisy would investigate all the scents made by the resident animals, relatively undisturbed by mankind. The views were fabulous; the trees, the mountain and the river. The quiet provided no distractions from the natural. And as Daisy slowed down to inspect everything, I would catch my breath.

When Daisy was about four the MRGCD decided to send in the plows and re-contour the drain field, ostensibly for better flood control. They made gullies which took in water from the river when it ran high. Not particularly relevant to our story, but worth mentioning, was that after the first significant rainfall, the houses in the area flooded for the first time and the MRGCD subsequently re-flattened the area. At the same time, they made a feeble attempt to isolate the area, and under the guise of working on the drain field, they surreptitiously bulldozed twenty to thirty foot wide paths through our favorite woodland, “so that a fire truck can get through,” destroying

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many of the mature cottonwoods and brush in what now was formerly my preferred spot. However, none of the MRGCD employees or their sub-contractors would be working on Sundays that frigid winter. They had cordoned off the area with plastic tape strung across the lucky surviving trees. Daisy and I would break through it with no effort, go in and investigate.

I was shocked. The devastation was worse than I had envisioned. “Pete’s,” a local landscaper got a lifetime supply of wood chips, all of which was gathered from the recently living, while the very burnable dead retained their places of honor.

I told some self-declared Bosque lovers what was going on, but they chose to not believe. Perhaps not surprisingly, after the damage was done, more dog walkers went to the area, proving the banal adage that there truly is no accounting for taste; nor respect for nature.

Prior to this “improvement” project we’d walk alone through the difficult passageways and non-passageways. Sometime Daisy would sense that something unseen was near and pull up sniffing at the air. It was creepy as there had been occasional reports of mountain lions in the area. I’d tell her; “Okay, I’ll get in front,” and lead her through the aromatic part. These were the only times I was allowed to get in front when we were in the wild. In these cases my regular talk to Daisy took on a

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reassuring note. When the mood struck me, my chatter would become defiant and I would tell her that her spiritual father, Willy, was protecting us. Truthfully, I needed the reassurance myself. I would say that Willy would never let anything happen to us; as, in addition to food, we were the only things he liked on this planet. I rightfully believed this as the mountain lions found other prey. It was also reinforced by a dream I had shortly after Willy was gone. In it he came excitedly to me and led me to our back yard. At the far right corner was a basket with five squiggling white puppies. He told me that these were his babies. Dalmatians are born without their spots. Throughout his life Willy never liked anyone other than me, but as he aged, for some reason, I got the feeling that if he had it to do all over again, he would have made more friends. This was corrected to an extreme in his daughter.

One almost warm morning we were walking back and Daisy wanted to go through the field which, at that time, was host to gullies full of water. We tried to find a dry route through the area, but were stymied. We were tired and were left with the choice of significantly back-tracking or going through one of the full gullies. For her the choice must have been an easy one, as she had already been in the river. She always liked immersing

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herself whenever the temperature was above forty, though I wouldn’t join her until it reached seventy-five or so.

This day I followed her lead and started through a gully I expected to be shallow. Just this one and we would again be on dry land the five mile remainder to the house. We went in and soon the water was over my head, which never had happened in the river itself. The muddy bottom made it difficult for me to move and I think I might have drowned is she didn’t pull me out. She swam to the opposite shore, got up on the dry land and I was able to get leverage from her to climb out. That day Daisy became a bona fide life-saving hero, and I don’t think she knew it.

I shivered from the cold the rest of the way home. Halfway there I met a woman I knew; a fellow dog walker. After having seen me soaked she asked; “What happened to you?” and I told her of our adventure. She then told me to “be careful.” I made no reply. Daisy and I never were careful. That’s why we had so many memorable days.

On one particularly ambitious and warm morning we went north, through everything we had previously been near and gotten to. Daisy must have been at the peak of her abilities as she crisscrossed throughout the trip, making sure that she hadn’t missed a thing. She even investigated the long, straight and

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boring “Clear Ditch” path, though in those days it was not mowed, and the long, grassy growth was home to many little animals and strange, flying insects with iridescent red, blue or green bodies. Farms dominated the other side of the water; some horse farms, some cattle farms, and one of the tree farm variety, if that is not an oxymoron. A woman on one of the horse farms called out to us; “I left one of those in California.” I remained silent as all I could think was; “Idiot.” We were to shortly come to a gate with a sign which read; “Rio Rancho Bosque Preserve.”

Daisy and I had been this far out previously and would also be there many more times. But, on each other occasion we were or would be near the river. There too, would be an identical gate and sign, but after seeing a small dirt parking area, there was basically a continuation of the Bosque. The “Clear Ditch” side was very different. It hosted a large dirt parking area, a children’s playground, houses, and the Rio Rancho waste treatment facility. After sniffing around the other areas, Daisy wanted to investigate the paved parking lot of the huge building with the silver façade, which could best be described by what it resembled; millions of steam-rollered, metal garbage cans glued to embarrassed and hidden frames and beams of unknown origin. We had not seen a human since we had gone around the “Rio Rancho Bosque Preserve” gate and I wasn’t surprised. Further reflection

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suggests that we didn’t see any animals either. There was probably an insect or two, but I’m not certain.

Daisy wanted to check out the strange structure and I needed some persuading. She must have thought; “I haven’t come this far to miss anything this big and smelly,” and she proceeded to insistently pull me toward it. I hoped no one was sloppy with yesterday’s work.

No one was, but I held Daisy back when she tried to enter the building. I supposed she thought it fair to acquiesce at this point after having gotten her way the last time. We walked on, me hoping that no one would point a gun at us and accuse us of being investigatory terrorists.

Our next sight was even more incredible and mercifully devoid of any odor. It was a huge, reddish rock, perhaps a mini-mesa, with instructional signs, warning signs and rope hand rails all over it. I took as much meaning from them as Daisy did. With her in front, pulling me up inclines which I couldn’t have handled myself, we started to climb it. In future years I would refer to this rock as the Rio Rancho Mesa and was never corrected. Most feigned full knowledge with resolute nodding heads, but I doubt if any of them ever actually saw it.

We followed something of a path which wound around the mesa, often seeing the edges crumble away and fall down the steep side, a very disconcerting visual for one who gets dizzy

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at the roof’s edge of a two story house. I hoped that we wouldn’t encounter anyone else, especially someone with a dog, as the skinny path necessitated single file walking. This would have been difficult to negotiate with a friendly, willful puppy.

Luckily, we didn’t.

I don’t remember if we made it to the top, but given Daisy’s adventurous nature and her zeal, if there was any way to do it, we’d have been there. I more remember the trip back down.

Daisy found another path, which was steeper than the first.

While I may have been able to control my fear of heights on the way up by my usual focus on her, coming down, that same focus brought in the backdrop of the ground well below.

Daisy seemed to pick up speed as we descended. It would have been difficult not to have. So did I. When she abruptly stopped at ground level, to avoid running into her, I had to jump over her. Her expression was one of surprise and curiosity.

She didn’t know that I was well practiced in the art of dog jumping from my days with Willy, though I probably could have used honing of this skill.

Willy, like Daisy, had a knack for knowing whether or not he had my undivided attention. He usually did, but sometimes when he stopped or slowed down, I would take in the scenery. The first time he noticed this he took off running with me running behind him. He stopped on a dime, and rather than risk plowing

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into him, I jumped over him and came to a stop on the ground, still holding onto his chain without pulling him. While we were on eye to eye level, his expression seemed to say; “Whoooo. That was fun.” I’m sure that I was right as subsequent to that, his repertoire regularly included “Run, Stop and Watch Ed Jump.”

As the water supply of the Clear Ditch ended two miles back, Daisy and I moved in the direction of the river, probably both due to her thirst and the time we had already been out.

This was to be our longest walk; five hours and fifteen minutes, garage door to garage door.

We got to the Rio through a sparsely vegetated, beachy spot below some houses with a full river view. The land exhibited evidence of having received some human maintenance, unlike any other part of the Bosque we had seen. When we reached the water Daisy went right in and took an extended drink and swim. The water was surprisingly deep just offshore as I could see that her feet were not touching bottom.

She headed south, toward Romero Road, following the shoreline, for at least three reasons I could think of. She wanted to be near her water source. The sun was getting high in the sky on that summer day. She wanted to take a different route back. And she didn’t want to wind around established paths or risk obstacles on the non-paths. She was in for a surprise.

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We followed coyote trails, which were common at the shoreline in much of the Bosque that we had seen. We sometimes had to veer inland a bit at places where a low branching tree grew right at the edge. We both avoided dehydration by drinking from the river and things went fine until we encountered a prickly Russian Olive tree in our way.

To make matters worse, its brothers and sisters formed a grove all the way back to the Clear Ditch. Daisy’s thick coat made her rather oblivious to the barbs. But, for me, especially wearing light summer clothes, they meant stitches. I stopped her and thought; mostly productive things like; “Oh, ****.” But, I did get an idea. We were experienced river walkers and island hoppers; so we could get around the trees through the Rio Grande.

I led her into the water. The current was with us. However, Daisy was, of necessity, swimming ahead of me, and I was getting into deeper water with each step. When it reached my neck I decided that we’d better back out and head for the Clear Ditch.

Now, we had to go against the current while I had difficulty walking and at the same time had to use her loose fitting collar and chain to pull my baby back. While this might not impress Ernest Hemingway, I was damn scared. I pictured Daisy coming out of her collar and floating down the river to somewhere I’d never find her. But, slowly we made it back to where we entered and

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followed the line of trees to the Clear Ditch. I could tell by the look in her eyes, that Daisy was also scared while we were in the deep water. But, now she kept looking up at me, as if to say; “What? What’s this all about? Why do we have to go this far out of our way?” I stopped her, knelt down and gave her gigantic cuddles and a few kisses, all the time thinking that we had just survived a potential disaster. It reminded me how much I adored her.

I don’t recall the rest of the route taken. I think we followed the straight and therefore shortest path along the flowing Clear Ditch for some time. Then, when we approached very familiar territory, a bit north of the drain field, we returned to the Rio. I know that I would have liked to, as in emergencies, I would drink from the river, but always balked at ditch water. This beautiful, black and white, graceful athlete probably led the way. Ninety percent of the time she did. I was always the better off for it and, most importantly, I loved her.

At two years of age Daisy was absolutely gorgeous. Her predominately white coat was the softest and most radiant I and many others had ever seen. Even on a moonless night I could easily see her in the back yard. The black spots on her body were circular and well-spaced, excepting a cluster of four near her hindquarters and a doublet near the center. Her head was

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almost entirely white with five tiny dots here and there. Her snout was speckled with a series of small dots, ending at her black nose. She stood on long legs about two feet high, was about three feet long, including head, and weighed 60 pounds and was on the increase. I never took any of these measurements and am only relying on memory to estimate them. Her ears were mostly black if viewed from the front and she had big, expressive brown eyes. People would regularly tell me how beautiful she was and I would reply; “Inside and out. Daisy and I thank you.” Of most importance I got to cuddle and sleep with her every night.

At the age of five she reached 78 pounds. She was still absolutely gorgeous, at her peak and putting in her long walks, pulling me much of the way. That’s the equivalent of a human running with an un-wheeled 300 pound cart tied to their back, dragging at the ground. I would like to see any human do that for 20 minutes, much less three and one half hours. She was in excellent shape, felt well and so did I. Her chest muscles became so huge; she was more than once likened to a sled dog.

I think most humans are most comfortable when they can characterize things. They seem much more at ease with a one or two word simplification than having to take the trouble to describe any nuances. Unfortunately for those so limited, Daisy didn’t fit into any un-complicated classification. Her physical and mental attributes defied what the American Kennel Club

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unequivocally advised about Dalmatians. However, I believe that it was this no-brain need for simplification which led to unsolicited commentaries in her middle years. The majority still called her soft and beautiful, as they stroked her coat, often commenting on the velvety nature it had. I would point out that it was also a very warm covering, and when combined with its beauty, was the obvious reason why Cruella DeVille lusted after them. But a few interjected terms like possible Lab mix, possible Heeler mix, and a small contingent of grumps actually had the nerve to call her fat. She peaked at 78 pounds.

Since she was a stray when I met Daisy, I did not know her heritage. Since she had displayed the sweet temperament and minor physical characteristics of a Lab I put some credence in that possibility. She had filled out more than a Dalmatian and the shape of her head was a bit less angular. It didn’t matter to me what she was. I knew what she was. She was Daisy, the greatest dog anyone ever had and I loved her; end of story.

However, as a point of order, I’d like to make it clear that she was pure Dalmatian. I found this out from a vet when Daisy was ten. I mentioned to him the possibility of her being part Lab and he said; “Oh, no.” He went on to tell me that when he was in vet school he had a Dalmatian who looked quite like Daisy. He pointed out that most people and reference sources only speak of the more populous, generally considered, Croatian strain; while

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Daisy and the vet’s Dalmatian were of the lesser known English strain; generally heavier with a rounder, prettier head.

I almost regret that I was compelled to go into all of this, as I always thought that Daisy is Daisy, that she is perfect, and that I love her. I guess the insignificant existence of the cretins who called her fat succeeded in achieving their loftiest lifelong goal; by becoming a petty annoyance and getting under my skin. Daisy never showed any such animosity and went about her merry way.

After some number of early Bosque walks, which in Daisy’s youth and middle years, averaged three to three and one-half hours, a few five, my body ached all over, especially my knees.

It accidentally became a routine that every morning I would tell her; “I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it today.” A bit later I would think; “She’s so co-operative. We can always turn back if necessary.” We would then start our journey. My job was always to protect her from danger; edible carcasses, moving cars, loose dogs and ominous appearing, probable humans. After a number of days doing this, I noticed a consistent pattern. When I was with her my aches and pains disappeared. It had to have been that by concentrating on Daisy I forgot about myself. So through focusing on her, we both benefitted. Previously, my cardiovascular readings were marginally bad, but after a few

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years of walking with her daily, they turned to excellent.

Though I didn’t vocalize it, some particularly tiring mornings I would think; “I’m doing you quite a favor, girl.” Wrong. We did each other one.

During Daisy’s ninth summer we saw the results of the infamous Corrales Bosque fire. The summer had been unusually hot and dry, though it would prove to be outdone by the one coming.

The twenty foot indented gate on Romero road had been closed for some time, presumably because this was a fire deterrent or an aid in finding and putting out one. On what was to be fire day I parked on the other side of Corrales Road. At age seven, when her walking abilities started to wane, Daisy went right into the previously feared car, as she wanted to use all her remaining capability at the Bosque, her favorite place, not the ditch paths. Walks dropped to two hours after she tore an ACL muscle.

Daisy and I walked the .3 or.4 of a mile down the boring and

“closed” ditch path to the Bosque entry gate. She made numerous stops in the full ditch to remain cool and hydrated. We had an uneventful woods and river walk which I really can’t recall, except to say that during the last few weeks the Romero Road part of the Bosque was plagued with government employees on a daily basis, and that day was no exception. More than ever before in our prior eight years of visits, those on the public

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dole demonstrated a need to congregate there before 9AM and still maintain a presence when Daisy and I left around 11. Not only were we greeted by representatives from the ever present MRGCD and the previously sporadically attending Corrales Departments of Police, Fire and Animal Control, but we also saw representatives from the New Mexico State Police, a NM State fire investigatory unit, a Rio Rancho Police chaplain, a duo of undisclosed-ambition-men utilizing a federally licensed car, a representative of NM Fish and Game, and even an overzealous person driving a truck emblazoned with “Flood Control,” whose internet map must have been off by a thousand miles. None of them questioned why we were on a “closed” road. Daisy was happy to see all the old and potentially new friends. I was my New Jersey bred wary. We walked, swam and watched pick-up truck occupants scour the area from their plushy plastic pew vantage points and went home.

Daisy’s nose had always been predisposed toward smoke and fire. On many of our walks, long before anything was apparent to me, she detected smoky blazes and always headed in its direction. I thought that this must have been the reason Dalmatians were the original fire dogs, but have found no scientific confirmation of this anecdotal fact anywhere, inducing me to further distrust the veracity of science. In all the cases, except one, I can recall the incendiary suspicion was

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the result of someone burning leaves or garbage on their own property adjacent to the Bosque and I suppressed her investigation. On the other occasion Daisy led me right to a three by ten fire in a dead cottonwood branch alongside the river. The flames were about four feet high and I led her back to Romero Road to find help. I carried no cell phone for a variety of reasons and sought someone who did. The parking lot was empty and the usual yard-work-loving, Romero Road denizens had apparently come to appreciate the virtues of “The Invisible Man;” and the unwritten Corrales law which requires residents to be around at all times, except when they might do something useful. I knocked at a few doors to no avail. A few minutes later I saw a man at the end of the road, standing next to a black, recent model Cadillac or Chrysler. I had never seen him before, but approached, told him the story and asked if he would call 911. He balked as he saw no flames. My persistence finally convinced him to make the call, during which he disparagingly said; “This guy told me, etc., etc.” as if he wanted to distance himself from the absurd, imperceptible notion. Corrales’

diligent Fire Department must have been on other maneuvers as the Police Department shortly arrived, and after asking me the location, put it out by shoveling dirt on it. I would come to learn that three quarters of the dog walkers Daisy and I regularly encountered had a similar experience. The fires which

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had been caught when they were still small now had less restricted reign, because of the reticence of civilians to traverse government “closed” Romero Road.

At that point I had lived in Corrales for fourteen years and Daisy nine plus. In that time we were not made aware of a Bosque fire of any substance, and neither had any associates who were here longer.

At 3:30 that afternoon I looked out a house window and saw more smoke than I had in the total of my previous 62 years. To make matters worse it wasn’t very far away. The government protected Bosque was ablaze. As there was no fire break between our house and it my first thoughts were how to get the animals out of here. As I walked in circles for fifteen minutes, and nervously tried to locate carrying cases, the flames subsided, thanks to the bucket carrying federal helicopters. Despite the strong smoke odor permeating the area, Daisy slept through the whole thing. She must have known that it was not coming this way. She was a very smart dog.

I was to later learn that a Corrales Village employee had admitted to starting the conflagration. Ten acres had burned in the Corrales Bosque and 300 across the river on Native American land. State investigators insisted that it started on the Corrales side. Information ceased to flow when liability issues arose.

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Daisy and I motored to Romero Road the following morning.

We parked on public land near it and when we got to the levee we saw that the fire was still smoldering. I kept her back from our usual path to the river as the trees and brush near the dirt trail were blackened. I was afraid that my curious puppy might stick her nose into something hot. I tried to lead her down the levee path, but she displayed her customary disdain for the unadventurous and sat. She periodically rose to again try going her own way, but, unlike some past experiences with dead and tasty, small animals, I remembered what we had to avoid; the color coding a big help.

Daisy slowly perused the area and settled for a drink and dunk in the “Clear Ditch,” on the other side of the levee. We sat near her place of entry in the sun. Shortly, State fire officials showed up and told us not to go in there, falling short of defining where there was. They went to work attaching

“CRIME SCENE DO NOT ENTER” yellow tape to whatever was left to hold it.

While the purpose of the tape should have been obvious to all, I considered it insensitive to have only used the English language in a heavily bi-lingual state. I considered it an absolutely egregious omission not to have also displayed such important instructions in canine dialect.

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Daisy showed her hurt feelings by pretending that she took no notice of the ethnocentrically Anglo instructions and kept attempting to get into the wasted woodland. She came close on a few occasions, to the continually elevating consternation of the man who claimed to be the chief investigator. As we had committed no crime, we considered that very unprofessional behavior from a public servant, as we crossed none of his barriers. Whenever we got within earshot of the man in charge of installing the yellow plastic boundary, I tried to tell him of the strange people, omitting the plethora of regime personnel, which we had recently come across in the area, hoping that it might provide a clue. Before I could fully communicate any of my eye witness observations, I was repeatedly told to get out.

Eventually we did.

After the fire investigators cleared the Bosque for human and animal traffic, Daisy and I re-entered the piece of land devastated by the government pretense of management. We had sadly and gradually become accustomed to the ravages of clearing. It was said to be necessary for fire prevention and control; while all the dead wood which had made a permanent home on the ground continued to lie, as healthy trees were bulldozed.

The zombie dead were apparently deemed not to be burnable material. Their immunity to MRGCD purview was no doubt enhanced

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by their prone position, which ordained that they could not be further flattened or easily chain sawed. Their removal would have necessitated an overt personal physical effort from a government employee. Ostensibly, this activity, which might require a G-7 to get more than ten feet from his state owned pickup, is not listed in the schedule of G-7 duties. Their possible priority to protect state property seems commendable, if it were not the case that the recently living trees were also wards of the same state.

Nonetheless, this is a state in which no one complains; except me. If everyone tells a person that “The Land of Enchantment” is above reproach, that person will either soon agree or come to doubt their own thoughts on the matter. The system works. To express an opinion suggesting that New Mexico is not Eden quickly results in the conversation provoking line of; “If you don’t like it, then leave.” My soft and furry companion was born in New Mexico. This is irrefutable proof that the place is Eden, albeit an Eden with an infinite supply of broken and burned branches.

Daisy indicated no particular feeling when she entered the charred remains of the forest. I thought that she would have been disappointed and wondered what she thought. It was eerily quiet when she led me through the scorched earth. The birds, insects and the little playful coyote either had re-located or

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had made the place their permanent resting place. The blackened, lower portions of the cottonwoods stood like dark spectres seeking their murderer. This was once an area popular with bird watchers, many of whom utilized paths which Daisy and I had established during her youthful romps.

She easily jaunted through the almost obstacle free terrain, tugging at the leash as if there were someplace she had to get to quickly. As I had always done, I told her; “Slow down.

We’ve got all day. This is New Mexico, where nothing moves. It will be there when you get there.” Daisy heeded that advice as much as she always did and continued to pull me.

She led me down a few challenging drop offs to a spot we used to visit regularly. Its appearance had changed from a summer green, treed, bushy and hidden oasis which, to the best of my knowledge, only Daisy and I ever found, to an open and blackened relic with foot entangling, plant carcasses at ground level. Daisy insistently kept on leading me. I had to slow her down as I kept tripping over the remains of what once was. We eventually got to the river and she jumped in. She had found that which was most important to her was invulnerable to the fire. The ever flowing, life giving water of the Rio Grande River was still there. Everything was all right.

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One of my fondest memories of Daisy is of something that she did not do. She never broached the subject of money. While my experience with human engendered topics of interest regularly and inevitably took the course of the dismal science, my playful little girl always retained a disinterest in greenbacks, with the exception of the grass she munched all her life. She never succumbed to the unnatural considerations of the market value and relative status of her location and room. Someday, I intend to get her thoughts about the necessity of the $25,000 bankroll which was required to keep Drew, one of our well-loved animals, alive. If anybody has found a way to balance the seemingly disparate thoughts, she’s the one.

Daisy has not yet given me her thoughts about Drew. I know that she liked him and would go out of her way to say “Hi,” when their paths crossed. Drew, understandably, shied away. My big, brown eyed pup met Drew periodically when we made one of our 30,000+ trips down the hall to the back door. Drew had something in common with Daisy as he, too was black and white, though he differed from her in that he was born a cat. Diane adopted Drew prior to him having reached his first year. A local animal rescue facility had saved him from an early demise, which was prompted by the foreclosure and personal bankruptcy of some former Corrales denizens. They left their animals behind, which

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included a number of hungry dogs and cats. The dogs ate Drew’s brothers and sisters, while he watched. His outstanding jumping ability saved him, as he was able to get on top of a fence post.

As a kitten Drew could leap from the floor to the top of our refrigerator.

It seemed obvious to me that Drew missed his family, as a few months later Diane took in kittens we named Teddy and Lucy, and Drew followed them around like a mama cat. Teddy was all black and had no tail, while Lucy was a traditional tabby. They were cousins born a week apart and Diane brought them home at a very early age. Teddy got his name because at first he couldn’t run well and lumbered like a bear; hence Teddy.

In the process of being kittens, they explored the house, and sometimes got into difficult situations. Drew was always on the job and if he couldn’t handle things, he’d come and get me.

One day I sat on the futon watching TV. Drew came into the room and motioned for me to follow him, just like Lassie. I did and found Teddy stuck high in the ficus tree, not knowing how to get down. Order was restored when I put him back on solid ground.

Drew, Teddy and Lucy were always together until Drew was diagnosed with cancer at the age of six. The chemotherapy treatments did not sit well with him. He sat alone and when Teddy or Lucy would come near, he’d chase them away. He died

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earlier than any cat Diane and I ever had. It seems unforgivably cruel.

One morning, coming back from a not unusual stick, dirt and mud accumulating adventure with Daisy, a garbage man working on Academy Road called out; “Where have you been?” His tone of voice communicated the Tidy-Bowl-expectations of a manicured, suburban community.

We no doubt must have been covered in Bosque mementoes; things with which we had no concern, having long ago established immunities. I was tempted to say; “If you don’t know, I couldn’t possibly tell you,” but held back in fear of a follow-up, tidy inquiry. I don’t remember Daisy’s response, if any. I called out; “The river,” and we kept moving toward home.

Some summer mornings we were on the road an hour before dawn. Daisy seemed to take it in stride, and I convinced myself that I didn’t have to know precisely where I was walking until we were out of the development. I thought it would be a good idea as Daisy labored in the heat. She often turned back an hour after sunrise. I also thought it might provide a new challenge on well-travelled ground.

The pervasive darkness resulted in my stumbles and slides, while Daisy seemed to understand my difficulties. She trotted

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more slowly than usual and came to a full stop when she saw headlights. I worried about the one sitting behind the headlights, hoping that they were paying full attention. I thought it likely that one driving this time of the morning was either a doctor off to early surgery, an all-night convenience store habitué, a drunk, or a combination of the three.

Generally, there were sufficient, mature trees for cover, and where there weren’t I’d position myself between Daisy and the oncoming vehicle. I found it amazing how many drivers were compelled to honk their horns at us, probably as a greeting, when it seemed obvious that we couldn’t tell who they were in the cool blackness. Maybe they wanted their sociability to be anonymous, some stupid mind game with no point.

Daisy’s mind was fine when it wasn’t registering artificial lights, doing forty. With sounds magnified in the stillness, a dog barking sounded like an imminent attack; an SUV sounded like a tank and our footsteps seemed sufficient to wake the dead. We often thought that we glimpsed a few zombies creeping in the sinister shadows.

By the time we exited the relatively safe terrain of the development, we could see well enough to be more comfortable. An uncanny number of times, as soon as we got to the river, we witnessed a magnificent sunrise illuminating the houses on the hill, upriver in Rio Rancho.

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Daisy’s sweet disposition had no antecedents that I knew of. In my curious youth I had read books and saw films about Gandhi, Lassie, the Velveteen Rabbit, and countless other heroes and heroines who seemed to have a spirit capable of rising above it all. They didn’t disappear until I had aged a bit. Daisy gave no outward indication that she had sprung from so lofty a perch, but her actions showed an inherent understanding of the things that made my world worth living in, at least while in the presence of one so kindly and forgiving. She never had the inclination to fight, even when attacked. I used to tell her that any bullying nonsense would end if she just used her physical abilities to kick one ass. She didn’t agree with me, though the difference in opinion lay somewhere in what was not obvious to me in my unintentionally biased and corrupted words.

My brave and loving girl showed her most pronounced similarity to Sunshine, a cat from Diane’s and my distant past.

He was named in honor of the Merry Pranksters, an early 1960’s group of people who did not give the least bit of a **** for the constricting norms of McCarthy inspired, effective lies.

Sunshine came into our lives along with his bigger brother, Tippy, in 1985. Someone had dumped them in a paper bag in front of a pet store in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Diane, who was visiting her mother there, saw them and was entranced. Tippy was

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an extremely big gray and white cat with six toes on each paw and the start of a seventh on one other. When he was skinny he weighed eighteen pounds and registered twenty-nine in his portly dotage. Sunshine was huge by all standards other than that of his brother, and was mostly orange with white stripes.

Diane brought me to see them questioning which one we should take. I thought that they should not be broken up and we purchased both of them. Sunshine was a pre-cursor to Daisy, in that he wasn’t afraid of anything, played a lot, yet had no concept of fighting. He viewed all as friends. When they were kittens Sunshine led Tippy on explorations of our old farmhouse in New Jersey, Sunshine boldly in front and Tippy slinking and warily slouching behind. In time I would come to see that Sunshine’s bravery was not a manifestation of any phony, steroid induced macho, but a sequestered and thereby innocent belief that; “I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. So, why would anyone want to hurt me?” It sounded good to me and worked for him in his house sheltered life. Whenever I went anywhere, Sunshine greeted me at the front door when I returned.

Tippy apparently had his reservations about his brother’s conclusions and acted accordingly, though he too never had a physical fight. This precept was to stay with them their entire lives, until they died one month apart at the approximate age of sixteen. In life, Tippy’s sheer size resulted in him being

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deferred to as the king cat. A month after we got the brothers, Diane brought home a small, short legged, long gray and white haired kitten we named Puff-Puff. He was the most un-athletic cat I had ever seen. He was playful and pretty, but he was unable to leap from the floor to a kitchen counter. The three would prove to be the nucleus of a family of cats, at one time totaling eight. This was the result of taking in obviously domesticated cats which were abandoned by fickle owners. The people presumably “wanted to give them a chance,” in a large wilderness park named Voorhees, located in Lebanon Township, NJ.

Diane and I walked there on Sundays, and while we left home as a couple, we occasionally came back a trio.

At least twice a year Daisy and I were stopped by people who had advice as to how she should properly walk on a leash.

Not one ever first asked if we were dissatisfied with the manner in which we were naturally doing it. One such time a very short man accompanied by a normal sized female came out of a housing development which bordered one of the ditch paths Daisy and I used to take to the Bosque. He announced that without any doubt, he knew the right way to do it. He reached for Daisy’s leash, and being rather startled at the audacious intrusion, I handed it to him. Daisy took off running at top speed dragging Shorty behind her. She stopped about 100 feet away when she saw that

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she was getting too far away from me. I walked to them, and Shorty returned the leash without offering any more advice.

Gunther is a four year old orange and white cat who is currently with us. When Daisy goes down the hallway on her way to the backyard or her morning walk, Gunther “hides” behind a step down into our living room. I always see his pinned back ears and wide eyes and so does Daisy. She always sniffs him until he gets intimidated by her size or tired of being sniffed.

When Gunther halfheartedly tries to get away, Daisy would follow him, in an attempt to solidify their friendship.

Sometimes Gunther would further retreat, in which case I would hold Daisy back and lead her to the back door. A few times Gunther got frustrated, lifted a paw, and bopped Daisy on the nose, at which point she would run to the back door of her own volition.

One of our less frequent walks was through a “beach”

situated north of the drain field at the Bosque. This land mass had to have been established in Daisy’s early years. As it was in a bit of an out-of-the-way area and access required the luck or knowledge of recognizing which trees to go between in a densely wooded section, few people went there. We never saw any, and the only footprints we ever found were that of birds,

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squirrels, and an occasional horse. I liked the privacy and Daisy disliked the privacy and lack of shade. In warm weather I sometimes would have to lead her to it and she would humor me.

Upon arrival she would usually splash through the water’s edge to stay cool. She did not like temperatures above 78 degrees, but she was a very co-operative dog.

The beach had a unique view. Because the land to our south was indented from it and curving, we could see downriver for miles. I could see the spot at which Romero Road, sort of, hit the river; and beyond it to another much smaller beach we often walked when we started out with a southern turn. I don’t think Daisy mentally dwelled so far ahead. She seemed content to stay cool in the Rio and trying to find something the least bit interesting in sand.

Though it wasn’t technically in the sand, Daisy did find a few things near the sand in the water. I can’t recall the precise time of summer, but every year there was a period during which the fish were literally jumping. Even when we didn’t see the leap, we’d hear their splash made upon re-entry. Daisy and I could often see them rollicking just below the surface. One time she waded out a little further than usual and caught one in her mouth. She brought the squiggling flyer back to shore and checked it out for food potential. To my surprise she didn’t like it. It might have been the only potentially edible thing

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that she didn’t. When it was obvious that the investigation was over and that Daisy still had absolutely no interest in eating the fish, I threw the incessantly squirming fish back into the Rio. I have no idea if he or she made it, but I’m sure Daisy and I hoped so.

One of Daisy’s gentleman callers was a sizable, long haired, mixed breed dog named George. He was six years her senior and was brought over by a couple I had do sporadic yard work for me. He was the survivor of having been hit by a car and he would eat every treat I offered him.

Until her middle years, when dietary considerations overruled it, I gave Daisy a bone every day, when she returned to her room after our walk. She usually didn’t finish them and when the aggregation got large I would put them in a box, which sat on the portal in our back yard.

Generally, Daisy would continue to ignore them until George came over and made it his business to bury them all. She didn’t mind him fooling with her stuff and would follow him around as he did his job.

I found it surprising that after George buried them, Daisy’s interest in the bones would be re-kindled. She would spend the next few weeks hunting for them, and when found, eat them.

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The bulbous gray clouds motionlessly hovered and filled the morning sky, reflecting an unnoticeably imperfect image of New Mexico’s gawking dead. Any semblance of blue had hidden, far away from the static monotony of the well-armed occupation force. The traitorous white linings attempted to offer hope of a respite and served only to fool those who had not previously seen the scam. No rain was to come as the powers that be had not seen any personal interest in refreshing brittle and starving remnants of the long departed summer heat. On the frozen ground, solemn and patient buzzards shivered near their front doors waiting for a sign of a carcass containing warm blood. It was the unabashed winter in the melancholy terrain which enchants some eastern drifters on their ill-directed way to the coastal promised land.

My energetic, four year old Dalmatian girl saw things differently. With her wide brown eyes focused on the ground immediately ahead of her, Daisy pulled me out of the development, and all the way down Academy Road. We crossed the partially paved parking lot which facilitated the Seventh Day Adventist commercial enterprises, ran down a steep hill, unintentionally on my part, and were on the back ditch path, which parallels Loma Larga.

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Being sometime in the month of December, it was still too early and cold for less energetic hikers. The ditch held no water, having been drained for the season in early November.

Trapped tumbleweed bunched near the pipes under the iron bridges. I hurried behind Daisy down the frozen path. Its best topographical attribute was the underfoot solidity provided by the frozen muddy portions. Its best aspect had nothing to do with itself; it was the fact that Daisy and I were together on it. Daisy showed interest in the barren path, as she always showed interest in everything. She hastily inspected rabbit crossovers at the edge of the dry gouge and rabbit places of gathering in what remained of the brush at the side of the path.

I know that the below freezing temperature was no hindrance to her, so I concluded that she was anxious to get to the place that made her most happy. The water at this time of year, was only available from the source, the Rio Grande.

A few mornings we did see others on this route. There was the male jogger, who would extend the hand he had on Daisy’s side. Daisy would leap toward it. It looked something like a standard high five mixed with a revolutionary high nose.

There was Ron, with his aging Golden Retriever, Donald, who would only go approximately 500 feet on the ditch, before turning back and returning to their house right off the ditch path. Ron and Donald didn’t mind standing still and talking,

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though, and I eventually knew his life story. Daisy had difficulty getting Donald started. He was rather reserved, so Daisy contented herself by brushing up against him.

There were occasional others who we never really knew well.

There was a large housing development off Loma Larga Road and dog walkers who lived there almost always stayed on their side of the ditch, opposite us. Most never went as far as the Bosque.

I think many of them coincided their walk with the time that Daisy was there. My happy little girl had a knack for making other people smile and they did exactly that. When Daisy saw them she would go to the edge of the ditch, wag her tail furiously and look at them. The people and the dogs seemed to enjoy being a source of enthusiasm.

There was one woman I don’t remember at all. We didn’t cross paths regularly, but whenever we did, Daisy and her sizable, stocky looking dog seemed to show a big interest in each other. We were always on opposite sides of the ditch and this precluded closer contact. This went on for a while until one day we finally crisscrossed near a bridge. I double checked to make sure it was all right and the woman indicated that it was. Daisy rushed half way across the bridge, but then slowed down. Her previous long distance view didn’t tell her that this was a very big dog. Each step she took made her more aware of that. When Daisy neared, the other dog slammed both of his front

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paws on the ground and loudly woofed. Daisy ran back to her original side of the ditch, almost knocking me into it as she squeezed by on the narrow bridge. The woman laughed and said;

“He just means that he wants to play. He always does that.” But, for one of the few times in her life, Daisy chose to display caution.

After walking part of the ditch with the Loma Largans, we’d make a sharp right on another, which would bring us to Romero Road and the Bosque. This road wasn’t very long and I don’t think that we ever encountered anyone on it. On occasion we did see people and their dogs come out of their houses which lined it, but they always seemed to dawdle in their yards until my

“wild one” and I cleared out. Their loss.

Especially when the ditches were drained, by the time we had gotten this far, Daisy would be going as fast as my legs could move to get to the Bosque. I’m sure that she had worked up a great thirst and needed a drink from the Rio. If the temperature exceeded forty by the time we got there, she’d also take a dunk; a full body immersion that I hoped she wouldn’t shake off on me until we were back to 75 in April.

Daisy regularly did things I found amusing. I would see her with a curious look and say; “What are you thinking?” and sometimes I thought I had a good guess. The first time she

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noticed that walking close to the edge of the ditch bank caused some dirt to come loose and splash into the water she seemed mystified. She stared at the water wondering; “What just jumped in there? I didn’t see it.” She would keep her vigil until boredom set in, hoping to get a glimpse of the culprit. She never did.

New Mexico styled cold weather never bothered her in the least and the ditch banks held many things Daisy deemed worthy of further investigation. In later years the ditch banks were often devoid of vegetation. They always had the ability to act as a wind tunnel if the gusts were coming from the appropriate direction. In these circumstances, sometimes twenty degrees and a wind-chill well below that, whenever she stopped to scrutinize something, I would give her a tug and say; “Come on, Daisy.

Let’s keep moving at least a little bit.” She always responded the first two times I did this, but invariably, on the third tug I would be halted in my tracks. I’d turn around and see Daisy sitting on her haunches with an expression that said; “Don’t you dare pull me.”

Initially, I never checked the temperature before leaving in the winter mornings. Usually, my hands and feet were numb by the time we got back, but the only problem that presented was my difficulty in using a mechanical can opener to open Daisy’s food

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can. One time it seemed strange that absolutely no one else was out. It was breezy and when we finally did see someone they yelled out; “Are you some kind of a nut? It’s minus three degrees.” I was somewhat complimented and think Daisy was too, and we kept on. When we got to the river I noticed that not only were my hands and feet frozen, but that I had lost sensation up to the knee.

I cut her Bosque exploration short and led her back home.

She periodically stopped and looked at me as if to say; “What’s the problem?”

I’d answer her with a firm; “No, no, no, no. We gotta git.”

She was co-operative and also confused. We got home all right and I took a particularly long time to open her food can. We warmed back up as we napped together. There were times when I’d think that we were not going to make it. But, we always did. She was a very smart dog.

During the second summer of our Bosque excursions, Daisy silently, but with the competent uses of easily decipherable facial expressions, convinced me to join her in the Rio Grande.

She took her usual dip at the end of the first available path to the river, after entering on Romero Road. Maybe it was abnormally warm that day or maybe we had gotten out late, but as she waded in the shallows eyeing me, I felt compelled to join

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her. I entered and we proceeded to investigate the islands. The initial shock of the cold soon wore off, just as quickly as it did when I went into the public pool as a kid. Sometimes I led her and sometimes she led me. If there was any logic to the captainship, it was likely to have been a function of that day’s spirit of adventure mixed with our mutual reticence to get in water over our heads. Upon seeing her drenched, people often asked me if she liked to swim. I’d answer that; “She likes to wade,” as I had noticed the look in her bulging brown eyes when her immersed feet no longer touched something solid.

After the daily, initial jolt of cold subsided, we fought the river current to get to every island on our side of the Rio Grande. Once in a while Daisy wistfully looked at the other half of the river, but I always held her back. I had been informed by someone who should have known, that the river has at least one channel; a severe drop off where the water flows deeply and quickly. Since we had encountered no such thing on “our” side, I made the logical and safe conclusion that it must be somewhere on the other.

We hopped from island to island, finding that all but one were easily reachable during the warm weather, low river level policy of the MRGCD. The islands offered only a few surprises which we never found on the mainland; old wallets, clothing and dead fish. However, I enjoyed them as they afforded a solitude

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not available on the continent in Daisy’s middle years. She probably did not share this thought, and most likely would have said that she liked the islands because it gave her a better opportunity to stay cool and wet. However, she never found a way to make her feelings clear. On a few particularly hot days, when we were walking back home, people crossing our path mentioned the overbearing heat. However, due to our saturation, we didn’t feel it. We were walking swamp coolers; an inexpensive and popular adaptation to air conditioning prevalent in the Southwest.

Most often Daisy would first lead me to a long and small, half sand island directly in front of her everyday “stop and wade” in the Rio Grande. She’d scrutinize the vegetated back half, return to the front, and gaze at shore. She was keeping her eye out for a friend, old or new. On the few occasions when she found one, she’d return to the mainland to say “Hi.” On the majority of days we’d wait there ten minutes, re-explore the back half, and then go from island to island.

Some were tangled and overgrown, evincing many years of existence, and some were sandy newborns, devoid of any impediments to free movement. One was technically a peninsula, attached at one end to the drain field, so loved and plowed by the MRGCG. It was on this peninsula that we had our only encounter with a homeless person. Most people I have met find

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this incredulous, as the prevalent wisdom espoused by the Corraleans who never have gone to the Bosque, is that the place is a haven for all sorts of dangerous undesirables, including those living as Lewis and Clark; their choice in the matter a subject worthy of volumes. We only got to see this guy’s head, as the three or four times Daisy and I got near him, he was still zipped into his sleeping bag. I always held her back from licking his protruding face, not out of any particular concern for her well-being, but merely because I considered it rude.

The first time we saw him he was sleeping. He opened his eyes and squinted into the rising sun, with an expression which said; “You must be crazy to be up this early.” On the next few meetings his silent posture may have been identical to the first, but I read him as saying; “You, again!” He then moved to a further out island which Daisy and I did not frequent, presumably without the benefit of Mick Jagger’s money.

Our island summer days lasted until Daisy’s eighth year, when she began to show signs of age. I suppose that we could have continued for a while, but I became as disgustingly cautious as a pre-1970 banker. Daisy had her first serious illness-injury the prior year when she tore a muscle near the top of her right hind leg. Surgery and four months of recuperation was in order. After that her walks dropped from a three and one half hour average to two.

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It was at this time that she testified to her diminishing abilities by voluntarily hopping into the back seat of the previously dreaded car. Though very logical to her, her choice was surprising to me. She wanted to forego the hour long ditch path and road walk to start at her favorite place; the almost unmaintained Bosque. Her walking pattern also changed. Whereas in unfettered youth she would walk as far as she could, either north or south, now she began to go a bit south, double back and go a bit north, or vice-versa. I think that she wanted to be relatively close to the car in case her leg started to hurt. She was a very smart dog.

Daisy’s very first canine playmate was a sizable, short haired, tan mix named Angela. She was with one of her human companions named Susan on the grounds of the Seventh Day Adventist Tax Free Enterprises front church. Susan was much crankier that day than I ever subsequently saw her. We nodded to each other and she asked; “Do you know how to get to the Bosque through there?” pointing across the street, in the direction of the development where Daisy and I lived.

“Not without trespassing.”

“Well, I’m in the mood for a little trespassing.”

I asked her why she didn’t go the way Daisy and I had just gone. Susan informed me that there were too many creeps there.

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At this early stage Daisy and I had not yet had the pleasure. We got to talking about our puppies and Susan told me that Angela, who was two at the time, had so much energy, .................,”

a phrase I can’t recall.

I told her; “Daisy, too,” and we let them play in the unoccupied, paved lot. Soon we would never again see the lot empty. Frequently the good, church-going occupants sat behind tables hawking anything from close-out T-shirts to discount, group, Florida vacation plans. In less than five minutes, apparently exhausted from the romp, Angela hid in the bushes at the base of the church front. My Daisy could out play anyone.

Over the ensuing nine years we would infrequently see Susan and Angela on the creepy ditch path, but she would always say that she didn’t recall the cantankerous aspect of our first conversation.

Early on I bought Daisy every type of toy carried by local pet shops. I’d give her a new one every day or every other day.

She often ripped the doll-like ones apart to get to the inner part which made various sounds. One I got for her was a little gorilla, and when you squeezed his belly he would make a sound like what a gorilla might sound like, if one knew gorilla language. Daisy was very afraid of him. I’d pick the toy up and activate the sound, but she wanted no part of it. I don’t

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remember when it happened, but I think within a week, Daisy got unafraid and ripped him apart too.

Her favorite doll was soundless. It could speak, but generally chose not to. It was a predominately gray, black and white koala bear. After a familial neatness binge in Daisy’s middle years resulted in all of her toys being sequestered in iron magazine holders, the only one she pulled back out was him.

Daisy kept her koala near her on her blanketed mattress always.

Shane- Daisy’s first love. In our earliest days at the Bosque, it seemed that we had the place to ourselves for the most part. Most walkers, dog and otherwise, contented themselves to tread the high levee path or the ditch paths one hundred feet away and technically not a part of the Bosque. A small contingent expressed fear of going into the partially hidden aggregation of trees, bushes, tall grass, bees, coyotes and Freddie Kruger. The few times Daisy tried the ditch path routes, she quickly transferred back to the wild, wooded, generally five hundred foot wide drop off to the Rio Grande. I think she found the perfectly straight, vegetation free, sand, clay and rock paths too monotonous, as well as inadequately shaded. Daisy and I did use them a few times when we had gone a little too far and wanted to take the shortest, straight line route back home.

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I can’t recall exactly when it happened, but probably within three months of our first walk on the wild side, we were impressed to see the perils of the untamed navigated by a tiny, brave woman we would come to know as Nancy, who held onto two small, leashed dogs, named Victor and Shane.

Shane was an extremely silly, seven year old pug mix, and Nancy’s favorite. Daisy wanted to run right over and I held her back. Up until then, I don’t remember her interacting with a very small dog, and I was cautiously fearful that she might confuse them with the delicacies of rabbit and squirrel. Though I would later find out that cuisine considerations were not of paramount importance, at this time Daisy would chase cats, and I had seen cats bigger than Shane and Victor put together.

Nancy was quite a dog expert and apparently saw in Daisy’s nature that she wouldn’t think of attacking. Eventually, we all met and whenever Daisy saw the trio she would wag her tail like a helicopter and pull me to them, sometimes doing it so well that I slid on my butt trying to somewhat restrain her.

Out of breath, I once told Nancy that Daisy went crazy every time he saw her.

Nancy said; “It’s not me. It’s Shane,” and sure enough it was. Daisy would be just as excited every time she saw Shane, until he died at age eleven. We would often follow the trio into the parking area. As Nancy would drive away, she would open the

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back window, and Shane would stick his head out of it, tongue hanging out with a wild grin on his face. Daisy and I would watch and smile, anxious to see them again.

Only once did Daisy growl at me. While quickly our routine became that she would come inside after our walk, initially she stayed outside. I saw that she thought that if she was going to be alone, she’d prefer to do it in her room. During that early time I had someone install a doggy entrance on the door leading into the triangular room. Prior to that Daisy used the pillow in that room, but I had to leave the door partially open for her to access it, decreasing the heat in cold weather.

When she saw the doggy entrance for the first time she refused to go near it. I tried to push her toward it, but she strongly balked. In the hope of showing her that it was safe and useful, I got on my hands and knees and went through it. I came back out the same way and Daisy started barking in my face. She was serious. I wrote the entrance off as a bad investment. She would never again stay in the triangular room, though she was willing to pass through it on our way out. She had no other choice. From then on she preferred the ground to the pillow inside.

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One day I told this story to Nancy, testing her expertise at dog behavior. I asked her; “What could Daisy have possibly been thinking?”

Without hesitation, in a voice out of a cartoon, Nancy said; “He’s doing something crazy. What is he going to do next?

Stop it.”

When I followed up with a question about why Daisy now avoids the triangular room, Nancy used the same voice to say;

“Oooooh, something bad happened there,” and I laughed at her sound and her insight.

One particularly hot summer Nancy recommended that I get a dog wading pool for my backyard. I got one and filled it with water. It was blue, made of plastic, circular, and about two feet across. Daisy investigated it. She must have thought that it was weird, sitting there in an unnatural position, a contradiction to the bricks making up the portal, upon which it sat, in the area so close to home. She must have concluded that it was a massive water dish, as the only use Daisy had for it was to take a drink. She never put her body into the artificial monstrosity which welcomed her for two summers. My little spotted girl chose to ignore the potential of plastic.

Often, when I had taken Daisy into the backyard, Diane would come out to say hello to her. Most of the time Daisy would

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break from the grass she was eating, the cricket she was trying to catch, or the smell which seemed as if it didn’t belong there, to trot over to Diane, who would call her by saying;

“Cougar,” in a Monty Python screech voice. The diversion would lead to some pets and an evaluation of Daisy’s perceived physical abilities, relative to those at her peak. Daisy customarily reacted to the whole assessment by sitting under the Chaste Bush, like a Miss America contestant who was uninterested in the contest.

Daisy seemed oblivious to the territorial concerns of man and beast; the latter word a misnomer for those who do not pay the least bit of attention to the trifling concerns of the established order. While the eminent domain considerations of the petit bourgeois were often foisted upon her, she had an inability to fathom the attempted encroachments of those insecure and overly protective of their perceived and fleeting place in the world. Daisy saw no boundaries; seeing the world as an infinite harbor of potential, which, she obviously thought, should have been reached by all long ago.

At times, she showed her misunderstanding of the status quo. Upon seeing something which seemed entirely mean or entirely self-serving, she would stop and look at me, no doubt thinking that I could clear things up for her. While I had lived

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long enough, and consequently had the ability to explain why the self-defeating stupidity was in existence, I could never state, in a language she or I, for that matter, could understand, why it was that way. Daisy trusted me to know what to avoid; most of the time; the innocent baby counseled by the ancient and world weary protector. She was a flower child from the forgotten, misunderstood and reviled 1960’s, willing to personally defy at great personal risk the dictum of the Marquis De Sade which warned; “No good deed goes unpunished.” To those who doubted her good intentions, I merely say that you didn’t know her, never will, and that was your loss. Like a shooting star, Daisy transcended the incorrectly predictable order of the supposedly rational cosmos.

“Far ******* out,” the Reaganomically cursed populace of 2013 sarcastically intoned; just another stoned out diatribe of one weaned on hallucinogenics. I say suffer in your thwarted dreams for a killer swimming pool. Without such an envy inspiring symbol of status, and even being domiciled in the desert, Daisy and I had access to all the water we required.

Daisy had to have had some Marxian notion about an equitable division of labor. Where we walked in the “wild” as well as in our back yard, her paws would regularly pick up some impediment to her continuation. They came in many varieties, the

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most treacherous of them being goat’s heads. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of living in the Southwest, goat’s heads are the plentiful seed thrown off by a ground hugging weed endemic to the area. They are hard and have a needle-like protrusion, much like a thumbtack, which is capable of flattening the tire of a riding mower.

Whenever Daisy got one in a paw she stopped moving. If it was in one of her back paws she would use her teeth to carefully extract it. However, if it was lodged in one of her front paws it was my job. It was much less perilous for me. I didn’t mind the task, but always wondered why she was so self-sufficient regarding her posterior appendages.

The last returning portion of our walks always took a different route from that with which we had left home. While we always exited the development through the woods at the end of Manzano Road, Daisy always preferred to make her grand comeback only utilizing Camino De Lucia. This made it a slightly longer trip and necessitated an increased jaunt on Corrales Road, the main thoroughfare.

When Daisy was young a Spanish couple lived on the southern corner with their disagreeable dog. The woman was often outside and she would always say “Hello” to Daisy by stooping over and petting my Dalmatian’s head, while using baby talk. After a

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while she voiced an idea. She wondered if Daisy could come over and play with her dog, in the hope of socializing it. Being a courteous, thoughtful person, the woman had the two dogs introduced while a wire fence separated them. Her caution proved to be a necessary safeguard, as ten seconds after sniffing each other through the fence, her dog always went ballistic. We tried the introduction three or four times, always with the same result. After each failure she would yell at her cantankerous canine, saying; “What’s wrong with you? That’s Daisy.”

Oso lived across the road and a bit further down it from the Spanish woman. While I never saw the humans with whom he lived, I sometimes saw his doggy playmate. Oso was large and had a shaggy, white coat, which made him appear even larger. He’d run the fence which separated us as we passed. He seemed friendly to me and Daisy would get close, but never close enough to risk a nose bite through the wire.

Sometimes I’d pick up a lost tennis ball during our walk and throw it to Oso. He always got it and brought it back to the fence. Daisy might have been jealous, though she had a plentiful supply of tennis balls in our back yard. One of the employees of Corrales Animal Control informed me that Oso had run away three times. He had brought him back on each occasion. Maybe Oso was just looking for someone to play with.

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Mike and Annie lived further down Camino De Lucia. Though they always had smallish, somewhat sequestered dogs, the highlight of their property was a group of burros. Pablo, named after Picasso, was always the center of attention. He’d bray, run around and come to the fence looking for people with apples.

He was also smart and adventurous. When Mike and Annie had workmen there, Pablo would hang around by the gate, and if one of them was lax in closing it, Pablo would make a break for parts unknown. He’d explore part of the neighborhood and often settle in the shade and imagined privacy of a dirt road behind my house. But I would screw up his plan and squeal on him.

Mike and Annie were old hippies who operated an eating establishment from where they also sold original paintings by local artists, in many cases being the buyer of last resort.

Though they both liked Daisy and gave her rough pets, which Daisy loved, whenever they saw her, I think that for Mike the feeling was something special. He seemed to regularly just happen to be coming out of his house when we approached. He always crouched down and squeezed Daisy all over. Mike was the first to tell me that as a result of pulling me all over, Daisy’s chest muscles were like that of a sled dog.

Sometimes, when no one else was there, Daisy and I would stand at the corral fence to watch Pablo put on his song and

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dance routine. One particularly energetic morning, Pablo ran the corral like a maniac. Daisy and I watched him, but in watching him I lost concentration on Daisy. She decided to join Pablo in his spree and pulled me right over. I was fine and Daisy continued to run the fence with Pablo, me right behind.

Mike died in Daisy’s fifth year. Annie no longer came out to see my pup. She shortly moved back east. Pablo was relocated to somewhere else in Corrales. Every day, Daisy dawdled at the corral fence, waiting for her friends, but gave up after a few months.

Daisy always wore a collar attached to a leash when we were outside. A few people asked why I didn’t let her run free. I gave them various answers depending on what popped into my mind at that moment. Keeping her safe from cars, coyotes, bad edible things, whatever was in plain view.

Daisy demonstrated her feelings on the matter on numerous occasions. The zeal with which she pulled me resulted in her ripping through eight collars. I carried a spare. Each time it happened she stopped in her tracks and turned back to me as she knew something was wrong. She and I both understood that it was a practical symbol of our attachment.

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Near Daisy’s tenth birthday, as we were sitting at the Bosque, we met William and Arthur. It was still not yet officially summer, but you could have fooled anyone who went outside. The actual, calendar measured summer yet to come was to prove to be by far the hottest in Daisy’s New Mexican lifetime.

The Rio Grande came close to going dry. After an hour’s food hunt, swims and squat, we sat at the top of the levee in the shade of a cottonwood. She no longer fancied the marathon walks, and little by little, curtailed them, though she still had her days. She was in no rush to get home as she still enjoyed the sights and smells of the “wild” outdoors even though her locomotion wasn’t that of a puppy. Moreover she had the right vantage point to locate old and new friends. While I missed the old days, I was rapidly approaching 64 years of age, and for the last two had been getting the first signs of meaningful limitations. It seemed right that she and I were growing old together after jointly having regularly experienced adventures few Corrales dog walkers had ever attempted. This ensured that we would always have our memories. On this day, like many others, I stroked her head and back, saying time worn things like; “I love my little Daisy” and “You’re my magic puppy.”

We didn’t see William and Arthur until they exited the woods five feet behind us. We creaked to our feet and turned.

Arthur, the seven year old retriever was off leash, but ambled

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over somewhat cautiously. In traditional Daisy fashion, she impatiently went to him and they immediately became good friends. William introduced his companion and himself and so did we. William made a special note of petting Daisy, as he always would. He described Arthur, who was named after the king, as goofy, and I petted him. William said that the characterization was not meant to be disparaging; that Arthur was just .........

goofy. We were to meet many more times that season; one time walking and talking so intently, that Daisy and I lost track of the distance we had travelled and I barely made it back, having to stop and catch my breath on more than one occasion. Daisy didn’t complain as long as she could get frequent stops in the water. Daisy and I visited with William and Arthur, which gave her the opportunity to see a friend in the confines of a backyard, a glimpse into what was to become her more sedate future.

While Daisy had no fear of cars, horses, water, other dogs or people, there were two things which she was afraid of; balloons, which she saw as fire breathing dragons, and the sound of a locomotive, which I called The Choo Choo monster.

Every year, during the first weeks of October, Albuquerque hosts the International Balloon Fiesta. Presumably, it is scheduled at that time as visitors consider that period as ideal

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central New Mexican weather, with the hottest days of summer over and the harsh winter still a ways off. However, there is an inevitable dispute with any judgmental statement and this was always a time when Daisy would have preferred to have been vacationing in Tora Bora, Afghanistan.

If the balloons were already in the sky when we entered the driveway, Daisy didn’t want to go in their direction and would attempt to return to the back yard, until things blew over.

However, I knew that if I could get her to go approximately 100

feet on our curved street, that the balloons would no longer be in her face, and they would gradually disappear to her left.

This posed no real problem, despite the “Uh oh” look on Daisy’s face. We’d get to the Bosque as usual, but so would many of the dragons. Many liked to dip down and get as close to the Rio as possible, giving Daisy an up close look and a magnified

“whoosh” sound as they fired their helium. Daisy was a smart dog. She’d get under the cover of a grove of cottonwoods to wait out the assault, while keeping a watchful eye on the multi-colored and multi-shaped monsters.

Sometimes I had difficulty in getting her back home as the skies would be filled, and Daisy would not walk in the direction occupied by the beasts. We’d wait them out as they didn’t have the ability to last as long as we did.

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