Howdy Doodle

 

It was four summers ago—nearly five—that Margaret drove the six hours or so to the Bay Area, to an animal shelter that specialized in small dogs, especially the small crossbreeds such as goldendoodles (golden retriever/poodle.)

 This was the end of a process that began with her joking suggestion that, after two cat companions over the years, we might get a dog.  The joke soon became serious: she wanted a dog, a small one but not (I was assured) a very small, yappy dog. 

 We visited local shelters, where small dogs were in short supply.  She applied to other places, and ran the gauntlet of questionnaires (with more intrusive questions than would otherwise be tolerated) and phone interviews.  Eventually she qualified to be notified of possibilities, and visited with several dog candidates nearby.

 But the one she was sure she wanted was at the end of that long drive.  He was a rescue dog, a small poodle crossbreed of indeterminate type, found starving in a drainage ditch in the Sacramento Valley.  Because he was black he was less desirable to adopters.  Margaret had to promise to have a fence completed around the backyard in order to get him, and so she did.

 By the time the two arrived back here in Arcata, they had definitely and definitively bonded.  The shelter had called him Ace, not a name we ever considered keeping.  Margaret walked him in the mornings, but we took him together on his afternoon walk.  He got to the point that he let me hold the leash, as long as Margaret was in sight.  He liked that I walked faster. 

 On one of our first walks, Margaret was speculating on what kind of a doodle he might be.  “A Howdy Doodle,” I said.  Margaret is one of the few people who get that joke anymore, since she too is of the Howdy Doody Time generation, every evening at 5 on the family TV.  But she also liked it as a name.  And so he has been ever since: Howdy, and more formally, Mr. Doodle.  

When Howdy stretches to his full height—dancing and twirling before meals—he is maybe two feet tall.  He weighs in at 10 pounds.  His local vet suggested he has some terrier in him, and that seems right.  He has that tenaciousness.

  Evidently the poodle crossbreeds are popular because their hair is hypoallergenic.  And it is hair, not fur, so it grows. It doesn’t take long for Howdy to look a lot huskier than he is.  He needs grooming fairly frequently, if for no other reason than the hair interferes with his traction when walking. 

 The autumn after he arrived, I went back to western Pennsylvania for a long overdue family and friends visit. While I was gone, the fence was finally completed, and Howdy got to explore his yard.  Almost immediately he found a nest of angry ground bees, and both he and Margaret got stung.  That was pretty much the end of his backyard forays. He mostly won't leave the porch without an escort.  So much for the fence.

  When I returned from this trip, I assumed my nearly two weeks away would have eroded some of the progress I made gaining Howdy’s confidence, but much to my surprise, the day after I returned he allowed me to take him on his afternoon walk; for the first time, just the two of us. 

      Margaret took him to a few training classes and maybe once to a dog park and a few doggie dates, but Howdy wasn’t engaged.  After he identifies the smell of a particular dog he pretty much loses interest.  He doesn’t know how to play, either with other dogs, with us or with play objects.  He’ll sit on the beach beside Margaret and watch dogs chase sticks but it has no appeal. He goes to sleep.  Sometimes with me he’ll get into play position, and then doesn’t know what to do. If I toss a ball down the hallway he might retrieve it once.  But if I do it again he ignores it.  I guess he was just trying to be helpful, but if I keep losing the ball, it’s more polite not to notice. 

 He is however very smart.  He can functionally count to three and possibly four.  He knows quite a few English words and a few Italian expressions (particularly “aspet”, short for “aspetta,” which means wait, or just a minute.)  He remembers our several walking routes and always knows the way home. 

 Howdy is utterly devoted to Margaret.  I can come and go but he must know where she is at every moment.  He was with us for only about seven months before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and for a long time we were seldom out of the house, except for his walks and other outdoor activities.  Since we’re both retired, this didn’t change much since. So the three of us as constant companions became the way of life he knows.

 Howdy is completely indifferent to cats—they barely register as lifeforms—but he himself has catlike characteristics. He finds that spot on the floor where the sunlight falls for his morning nap.  In particular, he adopts and insists on daily rituals.  He of course knows his mealtimes and walk times, and reminds us with plenty of time to spare.  But we each have other rituals with him, some of which he invented. 

 For example, I share part of my morning biscotti with him. Howdy has figured out that the first smell of coffee is the tip-off.  But he doesn’t always show up right away.  He stays in the living room (or even goes back to it) as I get my coffee cup, the milk for my coffee and the biscotti, all on the kitchen counter.  Then I walk over to the dinette table, passing the doorway to the dining and living rooms.  As I do, Howdy comes running in to intercept me, jumping and twirling.

 Early in his residency, he watched me slice an apple in the evening.  It turned out he likes apples a lot, but only without the skin.  So now my evening ritual is to cut small pieces for him, and I get all the skins.

  I’d noticed that he likes to bring his chew into the living room whenever we are sitting there, especially after dinner.  I thought this might be pack behavior, so in our apple-time I started looking at him while we both chewed on the apples, and he looked back.  He seems to enjoy this.

 I made up an “all gone” gesture for these occasions, which he understands and accepts totally.  He’s also  learned to look where I point my finger, and not just at the finger itself.   

 We used to range far afield in our walks but for various reasons, including a lot of new construction, we restrict ourselves to a half dozen regular routes in and around the neighborhood that we alternate (and alter) at Howdy’s discretion.  There are routes he found himself, and there are routes for some reason he doesn’t like. He can be stubborn but we’ve both learned to compromise. 

 I let him lead our walks, and go at his pace, which usually involves a lot of sniffing and marking, followed by brisk business-like walking.  I read in a book about animal senses that dogs should occasionally be taken on “smell walks” like this, but for Howdy, almost every walk with me is a smell walk.  He evidently has a constantly revised map of the neighborhood in his head consisting of smell trails.  I’ve watched him associate a smell with a dog he hadn’t seen before, then just turn away.  He would rather follow the trail of another dog than meet that dog. And of course he's constantly marking his own trail.  But he's not just mapping territory; he also seems to enjoy smelling flowers and aromatic plants.  

 However I do guide our walks in other ways, to keep him safe and out of trouble. I talk to him, but most of our communication in this regard is through the tension on the leash, to which he responds easily, most of the time. 

Howdy was very quiet for his first few months here but he is now comfortable enough to bark at the UPS truck and others who come too close. He’s also taken to barking at us at times, maybe a little frustrated we don’t get the nuances of his language. He wants to talk, too. Otherwise, he does constant perimeter checks for crumbs, and sleeps a lot.  I see him most relaxed when he is nestled between us on the couch, especially when he’s getting simultaneous rubs.

 So far I’ve learned that while a cat rules the household, a dog becomes its center, since he requires (and insists on) more active attention, and also gives it.  Through this troubling period of Covid, Howdy has held us together happily.  It’s the three of us now.