The dogs in our lives have all come to us. They simply arrive, one way or another and the first time was the best. Nichol was down on the beach with her friend, Denise. The two girls were enjoying summer vacation. 1977. Nichol was eight. The beach was just below our house that overlooked Hood Canal and the not too distant Olympic Mountains. I think it was a weekend because I was home when a couple of smiling, laughing girls charged up the beach stairs, followed by a white dog with brown spots.
"He swam across the Canal, " Nichol shouted to me.
"Can we keep him Dad? Can we keep him?"
According to Nichol, this quiet intruder walked up to them as they were making trails along the low bank. He was all wet and so, they imagined the dog swam across the waters of Hood Canal, looking for some kids to play with. Convinced no one owned or cared about him, Nichol was determined to convince me he should stay with us, as her pet.
The previous year, I'd built her a rabit hutch and she was the proud owner of a rabbit named Thumper. Thumper was a good companion, but nothing quite like a dog. The rabbit roamed around the yard and came into the house once in a while, but he didn't run alongside the kids when they were riding bikes or sledding. He didn't ride in the car or sleep alongside Nichol, keeping her warm and smiling like a dog might.
Brenda and I decided the dog must belong to someone in the neighborhood, or maybe he came down the beach from the nearby naval base. A sailor's family might be missing this dog. He wagged his tail a lot. He seemed to smile when he cocked his head from side to side and he seemed calm and collected, not barking for the first couple of days.
We posted flyers and called vet offices, checking in all normal ways to see if we dould track down his people. To no avail. All the while, the sort of beagle pup stayed around our house, sleeping outside on the backporch, curling up on his own as if guarding us. Or, knowing he had won a place in our hearts? Not mine. At least not at first.
By about the third day, he acquired his name. Nichol told everyone about the dog, emphasizing the part about how he swam across the waters just to be with her.
"I'm calling him Swimmer," she would tell Gramma, her cousins, and friends.
Swimmer remained on the porch at night, slept quietly, and ate politely from a new dog bowl.
At the end of the first week in our lives, Swimmer had begun to tag along for walks, sniffing but not straying far from sight. He enjoyed Nichol's company more than ever, heading down the stairs when Denise came over to play their endless games of making trail and tumbling down the bank or wading in the shallows.
His name didn't seem so appropriate at first since he didn't leap into the water and go for a swim at any time. Apparently, he had found his dream child and was never heading out to sea in search of another home. And by the end of two and then, three weeks of searching for a possible owner, it was clear that someone had abandoned this pup. He had found a home. Nichol had acquired the pup of her childhood. Swimmer was a part of the family.
By the end of that first summer, Swimmer had moved in to the house, slept on Nichol's bed, and more or less let us know who was in control of the yard and surrounding neighborhood. He was, according to our newly acquired Vet, about a year old and a beagle mix of some kind. Maybe a bit of fox hound, but to be sure, a HOUND. He began to bark. He began to hunt and disappear, sometimes suddenly and for extended periods, especially at night.
Brenda, then as now, is a bird person. She loves nothing better than to entice pheasants, grosbeaks, and chickadees into the yard. Never mind that raccoons and other creatures love her mix of treats that, in those days ranged from 40 pounds of corn every two weeks to bushels of sunflower seeds. Swimmer probably thought she was feeding prey, just for him.
The first grand encounter was on a night I was somewhere off in the field. I'm a biologist and at the time was mapping the entire shoreline of the state of Washington. I'd be gone for a week at a time, leaving the family to fend for themselves, carefully guarded by our trustworthy pup. On my return, Swimmer would dance circles around the yard, welcoming me home to a story hour or two based on his antics the previous few days.
Thre was a small patch of woods up behind our house, separating the garage from a quiet country road. In the middle of the woods, a collapsing shed was falling under the weight of tangles of ivy. Hearing Swimmer barking in that general area one night, Brenda shuffled up the hill, entered the woods and found him crawling, vertically, up the ivy walls of the shed, a raccoon perched atop the structure, glaring down, confidently.
Raccoons and hounds have a long history, but Swimmer and this snarling bandit were probably encountering one another for the first time. To be sure, Brenda had not been in this situation before and didn't quite know what to do other than to try to yank the dog from the jungle.
The closer she got to Swimmer, the higher he climbed until, just at the last second, she caught hold of one of his hind legs and pulled him down just before the raccoon leaped down to the ground, running fast as it could to avoid another confrontation.
This would begin a long history of raccoon adventures, up and down the beach and into deeper woods where Swimmer would disappear for hours at a time. But he alwasy came home and loved nothing better than to charge into the woods behind the garage, certain a raccoon would be awaiting his presence at the climbing wall. None ever appeared on that old shed, but he would sniff it out often on his daily patrols to make the world safe from pesky intruders. Did he think we would adopt a raccoon?
"He swam across the Canal, " Nichol shouted to me.
"Can we keep him Dad? Can we keep him?"
According to Nichol, this quiet intruder walked up to them as they were making trails along the low bank. He was all wet and so, they imagined the dog swam across the waters of Hood Canal, looking for some kids to play with. Convinced no one owned or cared about him, Nichol was determined to convince me he should stay with us, as her pet.
The previous year, I'd built her a rabit hutch and she was the proud owner of a rabbit named Thumper. Thumper was a good companion, but nothing quite like a dog. The rabbit roamed around the yard and came into the house once in a while, but he didn't run alongside the kids when they were riding bikes or sledding. He didn't ride in the car or sleep alongside Nichol, keeping her warm and smiling like a dog might.
Brenda and I decided the dog must belong to someone in the neighborhood, or maybe he came down the beach from the nearby naval base. A sailor's family might be missing this dog. He wagged his tail a lot. He seemed to smile when he cocked his head from side to side and he seemed calm and collected, not barking for the first couple of days.
We posted flyers and called vet offices, checking in all normal ways to see if we dould track down his people. To no avail. All the while, the sort of beagle pup stayed around our house, sleeping outside on the backporch, curling up on his own as if guarding us. Or, knowing he had won a place in our hearts? Not mine. At least not at first.
By about the third day, he acquired his name. Nichol told everyone about the dog, emphasizing the part about how he swam across the waters just to be with her.
"I'm calling him Swimmer," she would tell Gramma, her cousins, and friends.
Swimmer remained on the porch at night, slept quietly, and ate politely from a new dog bowl.
At the end of the first week in our lives, Swimmer had begun to tag along for walks, sniffing but not straying far from sight. He enjoyed Nichol's company more than ever, heading down the stairs when Denise came over to play their endless games of making trail and tumbling down the bank or wading in the shallows.
His name didn't seem so appropriate at first since he didn't leap into the water and go for a swim at any time. Apparently, he had found his dream child and was never heading out to sea in search of another home. And by the end of two and then, three weeks of searching for a possible owner, it was clear that someone had abandoned this pup. He had found a home. Nichol had acquired the pup of her childhood. Swimmer was a part of the family.
By the end of that first summer, Swimmer had moved in to the house, slept on Nichol's bed, and more or less let us know who was in control of the yard and surrounding neighborhood. He was, according to our newly acquired Vet, about a year old and a beagle mix of some kind. Maybe a bit of fox hound, but to be sure, a HOUND. He began to bark. He began to hunt and disappear, sometimes suddenly and for extended periods, especially at night.
Brenda, then as now, is a bird person. She loves nothing better than to entice pheasants, grosbeaks, and chickadees into the yard. Never mind that raccoons and other creatures love her mix of treats that, in those days ranged from 40 pounds of corn every two weeks to bushels of sunflower seeds. Swimmer probably thought she was feeding prey, just for him.
The first grand encounter was on a night I was somewhere off in the field. I'm a biologist and at the time was mapping the entire shoreline of the state of Washington. I'd be gone for a week at a time, leaving the family to fend for themselves, carefully guarded by our trustworthy pup. On my return, Swimmer would dance circles around the yard, welcoming me home to a story hour or two based on his antics the previous few days.
Thre was a small patch of woods up behind our house, separating the garage from a quiet country road. In the middle of the woods, a collapsing shed was falling under the weight of tangles of ivy. Hearing Swimmer barking in that general area one night, Brenda shuffled up the hill, entered the woods and found him crawling, vertically, up the ivy walls of the shed, a raccoon perched atop the structure, glaring down, confidently.
Raccoons and hounds have a long history, but Swimmer and this snarling bandit were probably encountering one another for the first time. To be sure, Brenda had not been in this situation before and didn't quite know what to do other than to try to yank the dog from the jungle.
The closer she got to Swimmer, the higher he climbed until, just at the last second, she caught hold of one of his hind legs and pulled him down just before the raccoon leaped down to the ground, running fast as it could to avoid another confrontation.
This would begin a long history of raccoon adventures, up and down the beach and into deeper woods where Swimmer would disappear for hours at a time. But he alwasy came home and loved nothing better than to charge into the woods behind the garage, certain a raccoon would be awaiting his presence at the climbing wall. None ever appeared on that old shed, but he would sniff it out often on his daily patrols to make the world safe from pesky intruders. Did he think we would adopt a raccoon?
