Clean Run - November 2016 - 8

The Beginning of the End,
Part 1
By Laura Hartwick, illustrations by author

An era marks an ending. One door shuts, and it stays shut.
A half full glass person would tell you, so lucky, because another door is opening. A dog gets to go home to the rainbow
bridge! How lucky is that? I look at my shaky legged, mostly
blind dog, slowly wobbling her way across the room so I can
carry her down the stairs. Rainbow bridge my ass. This is the
end of an era.
I didn't get Ruby to be a performance dog or a partner in
agility crime. I got her to be a friend for Timmy, my little black
dog and because I thought she might fit in a purse. Timmy was
my wingman. Timmy went everywhere with me, slept with me
and the mice on my packing crate when I lived in a corner of
a warehouse art studio and slept curled on the end of every
couch in our San Francisco couch-surfing years. He was my
ride-along dog, shotgun in the front seat of my old truck with
the door that only opened from the inside with the magic
touch of a special pair of pliers. Happy as a clam to be smuggled into the Reno Nugget in a duffle bag for the last time
Johnny Cash would ever sing in public. Timmy would pee in
terror at the sight of anyone who wore
motorcycle helmets and wallets on long
pocket chains, yet bravely defended me
when we were chased down the block
by a screaming, knife-wielding junkie.
When me and Timmy settled down in
Santa Cruz, in a real house with a little
picket fence around it, I decided he
needed a dog buddy.
Ruby seemed like a good fit. Why, I have
no idea. She was feral, some kind of terrier, and had a lot of spring. I used to
volunteer at the shelter, and she came
in, somehow fitting my inexplicable vi8

sion of a Lassie to my Timmy. Legally Blonde was the movie
dujour, and I think I wanted a Bruiser Woods. A Beverly Hills
Chihuahua. Another go everywhere dog so I'd never have to
have a go at it alone. When Ruby came in, I called one of my
friends, a dog walker who knew everything about dogs.
"Are there bat-shaped Jack Russells that come in black? Do
you think these would be good dogs?"
She didn't see any reason why not. At least not that she told
me. And so I brought Ruby home.
Ruby may be a Rat Terrier, she may be something else. It's
a thing we'll never know, and neither of us care. She didn't
come wired with domestic dog skills. Eating out of bowls was
bogus; she preferred leaping up to the refrigerator or across
kitchen counters in single bounds to help herself to a pizza or
a loaf of bread. Once I busted her on top of the kitchen table
in the middle of a giant chocolate Easter cake, amidst a pile of
Peeps and an explosion of chocolatey goodness. Walking her
on a leash was like taking a flying Tasmanian she-devil out for a
stroll. Running free on the beach tired
her out some, except that running humans were her favorite prey for a small
black dog take down. If she smelled
food within a mile radius, she vanished
instantly, right before my eyes. Ruby
was lawless, and she was fast.
I'd taken Timmy to a training class just
once, from a slow moving man in the
park who showed us how to fill up
a soda can with pennies and shake it
in our dogs' faces. Timmy was mortified, peed on the spot. I didn't want to
buy one of the special collars he was
Clean Run | November 16

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - November 2016