A poem for a scruffy dog who urinated on precious items intentionally to piss people off and ate rancid fish rejected by hungry wild animals and other dumb stuff…
Yes, Basho
The poem is at the end of the post. I think poems should get prose explanations, as in Basho. I read that book in Ann Arbor Michigan in Great Books of the Far East many years ago and ever since then I have been sure that Basho’s way of writing poems is correct: explain the situation, when you wrote the poem, what its about, what was going on… then present the poem.
Butch, a house dog that would not stay forgotten
In the almost 20 years of Glencadia Dog Camp, there have been a number of “house” dogs that live here. While dogs come and go, the house dogs remain. Being dogs, all the resident farm dogs at Glencadia have adjusted to their strange lives. Hundreds of other dogs come and go during the course of a year. Some house dogs want to play with them and join the romp. Others have steadfastly refused to ever associate with the visitors.
On this blog I have memorialized only one of the house dogs. Gustav is written up here. This is manifestly unfair. This little scruffball would absolutely not approve?
You see that look on his face? He’s annoyed. He doesn’t want to pose for a picture. He doesn’t care about some dumb blog post either.
This guy is fine with whatever you want to do. You see why Gustav got a write-up and Butch did not?
Lotta, for one, didn’t think this was fair. He may have been a humdinger, but Butch was her dog.
This is Butch on a ferry heading to vacation. This would be an adventure on Martha’s Vineyard with Butch running miles to the ferry station… but never mind that incident.
Butch was supposed to be Ollie’s dog but he hated Ollie and peed on his Magic the Gathering cards. So, Gustav and Ollie made a team. That doesn’t mean he thinks being a pillow is part of his assigned duties.
He knew what he was supposed to do. Gustav knew that coyotes require a response and never did one bad thing his entire life. You could leave a steak on the coffee table, tell Gustav no, leave the house for three hours, and it would be there when you got back, even if it was in the morning and he was hungry. As you can see in the video of Gustav opening the latch in the barn, he was smart and had no intention of hanging out with the visiting dogs. He simply showed not the slightest interest in being in group play or seeing what the visiting dogs were up to. There was play going on and he simply declined to participate on most occasions.
There have been other house dogs (and there are four now!): Pippi, who followed a friend home in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Mortiz, also moved up from Brooklyn. And Picasso, the big yellow boy here with Gustav:
Picasso was one of a litter of puppies that was rescued from a shelter in the city when the weather was terrible in February. People were not adopting dogs in a snowstorm. This kind woman in Queens had a bunch of puppies in her walk-up apartment, and reached out to another customer to bring one up here, who was named Picasso.
Picasso, on the other hand, stole the turkey on Thanksgiving and ran off to the woods and ate the whole thing, only crawling back home in the afternoon, ready for his punishment… but not really sorry. He learned not to eat chickens, but that was a serious effort on everyone’s part. Every other bad thing a dog can do, he did. He checked off all the “bad dog” items on his bucket list.
Castrated by the Humane Society at only a few weeks of age, he never exhibited the adult male dog propensities for territoriality. Large and strong, he was also never the target of anyone’s aggression. He was so big but so gentle, he had the job of accommodating visiting dogs on their first day or two. My theory was if they couldn’t get along with Picasso, they couldn’t get along with anyone. Picasso didn’t love this job. He wanted to be with brothers, Gustav and Butch… but if that was his job, he would do it well. He grew up from the time he was a puppy for the rest of his life in the barn surrounded by other dogs.
Butch was vicious to Picasso — stole his food, snapped at him. It never occurred to Picasso to fight back, although he was 20 times bigger.
But I digress. This post is supposed to be about Butch. Lotta loved Butch, warts and all. She’s in high school now and Butch is long gone. We were having a fine time remembering some incidents, which inspired her to cook up this poem about him, many years later…
Butch
by Lotta Grannis Pflaum
One, two, three: three steps behind on barefoot summer days
I held the screen door open for the scruff without turning my head.
He was there, always there, following behind
So bitter and malicious, my beloved shadow.
An animal of animus expressed his hate with urine
On that which my brother most loved.
“Copy Artifact, my precious enchantment card!
I will kill this terrible Butch!” Haste, trample, reach:
High prices on eBay are inconsequential,
His premeditated villainy is rendered cute
By a strand of hair sticking straight up.
Unfair, of course, but so and so and so it is.
Uncoiling, his broad vexation fixated,
Eyelids narrowing, then open: he leaped, he snapped
At the hooves of a pacing pony Oslo until he did buck
And again, launching Butch most ballistically
Mouth agog I saw him fly, anticipating his demise,
But no, slightly bruised, otherwise he was fine.
He would heal, learn nothing, and yap at horse heels again
And leap at gingerbread houses to eat the chocolate.
Google says caffeine kills dogs,
So hydrogen peroxide advises…
One dose, two, he would not vomit until he could
Do so on your pillow. Where else?
In the spring, the ice melted away
Suffocated grass carp carcasses floated up.
Foxes feasted on dead fish until the sun did its rot.
They borrowed and bred, ejecting rancid flesh and bones:
The rejected refuse of wild, hungry beasts
Butchie ate, then wobbled and began to die.
Twelve hundred dollars later, he was fit and fine.
Conquering pony feet, forbidden drugs, and putrid meat,
With asymmetry and stringy hair, he had no breed.
Until time did him in one fall day, old and grey,
My father buried him any old place next to the manure.
He deserved better than that, or maybe worse.
When my brother’s dog Gustav died he got a proper tomb,
Befitting his more magnificent temperament,
And far lower maintenance costs,
And also better looks.
But the ghost of Butchie somewhere in the woods
Will certainly rob his eternal lunch.