Jack Knox
Victoria Times-Colonist
Monday, February 02, 2004
Our house is Spotless today, and that's a bad thing.
Spot is my golden retriever. Or rather, he was, up until a couple of days ago, when his soul slipped off to wherever it is good dogs go when they die.
Our friend Darron Kloster called Spot the best dog he had ever known. Kind words, but slightly misleading. Spot was, in fact, the best dog anyone had ever known, ever.
He was a couple of months old, barely calf-high, when we got him back in 1989. "Will he grow much bigger?" asked my wife. "No," I lied.
He was called Max back then, but I quickly rechristened him Spot, because he didn't have any. My wife implored a friend to propose an alternative, and he came up with Blacky, so Spot it was.
Some people were nonplussed by the name, but it's not like it mattered to the dog. You can call a pup Hitler or Stalin or -- shudder -- Celine and it won't care, as long as you feed it and scratch it behind the ears. (This also applies to most men.)
Besides, giving pets human names can be confusing. The woman with whom I share an office has a terrier called Jack. Every so often I'll overhear her on the phone, saying something like "Jack's been acting strangely lately," and I'll get all huffy and think "fine!" Then she'll say "I found him drinking out of the toilet" and I'll think "what was she doing in the men's room?"
Anyway, Spot is gone now, and it is no insult when I say I mourn him more deeply than I would some blood relatives. He was, after all, the best dog ever.
Not flawless, mind you -- although a neighbour once composed a song, Spot the Perfect Dog, sung to the tune of Puff the Magic Dragon. The truth is, Spot was a bit of a cowardly lion.
He was afraid of the vacuum cleaner. He was afraid of linoleum. He was even -- oh shame -- afraid of water. (One Christmas Eve, I had to wade waist-deep to fetch a ball that he wouldn't. "Hey, guy," called a passer-by. "Nice retriever!")
Once, when we opened the door to let him outside, he froze in place, stiff-legged, eyes wide, body trembling. Must be a cougar, we thought. No, there was a bunny on the porch. (He did eventually overcome this last phobia, as proven on the day we found him snoring on the front lawn, a rabbit placidly grazing between his paws.)
And even though it pains me to speak ill of the so recently deceased, it must also be noted that Spot had poor personal hygiene habits: perpetually muddy paws, breath like death and paint-peeling flatulence (OK, sometimes that was me). More than one dinner party -- usually with people we didn't know very well -- was punctuated by a wet, noisy and aggressive investigation of his own private parts. When he jammed his cold, wet nose in the back of your thigh, you were glad he wasn't taller.
I suppose he was smart, if by smart you mean easy to train, obedient and unwilling to make eye contact with pit bulls. He did not, as did my niece's dog, rip a porch off a house or pee on a VCR with such force that it opened the little door and fouled the inner workings. He did not, as did Laurel Bernard's Sadie, consume two -- count 'em -- dental retainers within a matter of months. He did not wander, chew furniture or postmen, or attempt sexual relations with visiting clergy. But all that says more about behaviour than intelligence.
So what was it about Spot that was so good? Mostly it was just that: goodness. He was kind and warm-hearted, reminded me a lot of my dad, but with more hair and a better singing voice.
He didn't have a mean bone in his body, never showed a hint of aggression, except once when our friend Donna took him for a walk and a German shepherd ran at her baring its teeth. Spot chased the shepherd up its driveway until he remembered he was chicken, then returned with expedition, his honour and hide both intact.
Spot was loyal, good-humoured, guileless and devoid of malice. Every quality we would want to see in ourselves could be found in that dog.
We don't plan to get another pup, at least not soon.
For now, we'll content ourselves with occasional visits with Darron's border collie Archie, or Jeff Rud's Roscoe, who is not just a dog, but a dawg, a big, friendly Labrador-Humvee cross with a 40-pound head that takes the starch right out of you if he comes in for a crotch check while you're not looking.
But even if we do get another dog, we'll never replace Spot.
Jack Knox is a columnist with the Victoria Times-Colonist. E-mail: jknox@tc.canwest.com