The years with Odin pass by like the seasons that I daily walk him through, sometimes with subtle and barely perceptible changes like shadows elongating with the shifting sun, sometimes noticeable like a demanding gust of winter wind. An Australian Cattle Dog is not like a Labrador. This is not as popular of a breed, barely recognized by the American Kennel Club (AKC) 34 years ago in 1980. For perspective, Labradors were recognized in 1917, a whole 97 years ago. He is not exactly your average family dog, predictable and passive around strangers and children. He is intelligent and wild like the dingo that makes up part of his heritage, full of energy as is necessary for his lineage of cattle drovers, needing constant mental and physical stimuli to be happy and entertained.
This is how Odin tests me:
- He counter-surfs for food.
- He barks obsessively at the vacuum cleaner.
- He barks obsessively at the mailman, shredding my sheer curtains and raking claws across the leather sofa in attempt to show off his viciousness as a guard dog.
- He beelines to the garbage can after a decent breakfast of premium kibbles and fresh-cut fruit, lifts the lid, and peers in, just to spite me.
- He learns “shake paws” on the third try but refuses to ever do a full 360-degree roll.
- He prefers to stay right under my feet when I’m cooking, causing many dangerous accidental trips, sometimes with boiling liquid or knife in hand.
- He digs craters in my backyard to go after ground squirrels and gophers.
- He rolls in the dirt and burr-lined grass right after I bathe him.
- He steals other dogs’ toys in the dog park and prefers to play with anything other than what I bring in for him.
- He has this dirty-floppy-bone-toy and squeaky-ball obsession that has caused me to drag him home from the park on account of him locking down his jaws on these items and continuing to be stubborn when I tell him to give those back.
- He has several times set off the alarm by launching his body at the sliding glass door upon seeing a bird or squirrel, causing many panicked drives home to check if I’m being robbed.
- He is leash-reactive when not permitted to greet other dogs on his walk, rearing up on his leash with spittle flying like he wants to rip the other dogs to shreds instead of merely sniffing them.
- He is car-possessive, launching into shrill, half-crazed barks at random pedestrians, causing me to jump out of my skin as I am behind the wheel.
Over the course of the two years he's been with me, I managed to break a lot of these habits. He is the first of 6 dogs that I’ve owned in my lifetime that I did not raise from puppyhood. I adopted him when he was (an estimated) 3 years old, a full-fledged adult, and due to this, so much of his past is lost to me. Sometimes he would sit under the patio and stare into the night, and I wonder if he is remembering where he’d been or missing the people who had once upon a time loved and cared for him. I think up stories about him in an effort to shape his past and define his identity:
- He likes Indian food as he’d get out of bed to beg when I bring home carry-out.
- He will be forever grateful that I introduced him to persimmons.
- He could have had 3 siblings (or 4, or 5), some with erect ears in the true nature of cattle dogs, some with floppy ears like him.
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- Someone must have chased or thrown things at him when he was lost and wandering as he’d sometimes startle on his walk with tail tucked between his legs until I assured him that everything was ok, and to not be afraid.
- He must have known a baby in his previous family as he’d curiously inspect baby strollers brought into the dog park or come sniff at waddling toddlers, always with respect and care.
An old dog can indeed learn new tricks, especially a clever cattle dog. Odin learned to:
- Stay off the furniture
- Heel on a leash
- Shake paws
- Crawl
- Lie down (he’d always act like he doesn’t know this one as he hates doing it)
- Roll (but never a 360-degree roll)
- Wait, come, and eat, only on command
- Catch a Frisbee
- Retrieve a ball
- Stand on his hind legs
A dog can’t talk. He can’t tell me about his past. Actions are all that he has, and through actions, he gradually tells me that he loves me. He listens for when I wake up every morning, floppy ears alert for the sound of my footsteps. He nuzzles my hand when I sit lost in thought so that it would rest on the white blaze of fur on his forehead. He leaves his zestful play in the beloved ocean to come sit by my side on driftwood, pressing his warm body against me as together we silently watch the sun go down.
I met Odin at the animal shelter when I was dropping off donations once belonging to my previous dog that had just died. I didn’t think that I was ready yet for a new dog, but the volunteers at the shelter gently coerced me to meet the cattle dog with the brown eyes. I had never seen an Australian Cattle Dog before. With his coat dappled with black and white and his leopard-like spots, he looked part wild. Maybe even dingy and mangy to some, but he had warm brown eyes that melted me, and I said immediately to his foster mom, “I think he’s beautiful.”
We remember our lives in fleeting images called moments. The
more memorable ones remain in the banks of our minds, resurfacing now and again
in both mundane and unexpected ways--in the midst of laughter when we are full
of life, in the silent shadows on the verge of death, on the cusp of sleep, in
the cradle of dreams. I will never forget that moment, when I met Odin and we
locked eyes for the first time, the day his life began with me, the day I
staggered slowly out of grief and began my life anew.
