Teddy is the Golden Retriever. All love and bravery and foolhardy energysotaut it seems as if it will break him in two. I got him after the divorce; he’s been at my side through much. Maybe he’s seen more; some jerk ran over him and broke his leg. Never stopped. Teddy has steel rods up and down his right front leg. Never complains. I do. I don’t know if they’ll ever catch the human flotsam who did it — a witness says he was in a newer BMW that never slowed — but I sure hope god is a dog.
Esme is the Boston Terrier. She came later. All brains and cunning and snoringlove. She will literally sleep in your lap for hours. I’ve timed it.
When their favorite toy, the plastic bone, goes into the pool, Teddy dives headfirst, temperature be damned. He grabs the bone, hoists it over the water as if it were electronic. Swims his pride to the side of the pool, where Esme waits and takes it, brings it to my feet. This is not a grudging relationship at all. i believe they love each other. They just bring their own strengths to the table.
One day, toy goes in, lands on a raft. Teddy dives in, scrambles on the raft to the toy like my love depends on his speed. Toy drops off, plunk, begins floating to Esme, patient at pool’s edge.
Teddy is frantic. Rolls off. Faster to swim than paddle this human contraption. Splashing and panting and seeming to grin. But the bone, it appears, will reach Esme first. So patient, she is.
Near the edge. Esme leans, opens her tiny mouth, which somehow can carry a toy nearly as large as she. Like Michael Phelps, Teddy lunges at the final moment, dives his head into the froth, straining to out-muzzle Esme. Somehow, he does. He splashes victorious, heads to the shallow end, where Esme trots to take the toy, to exact her patient revenge.
But there’s something to that sprint, isn’t there? To lunging and splashing and grinning even when it seemsjustoutofreach. Teddy will have that toy perhaps 30 seconds. So what? He could care less. Better to have dived headfirst, hold that beloved even for a second, yes?
Sometimes I envy what those hounds live every day.
To the little victories, however fleeting.
My precious
