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OUT OF LEFT FIELD |
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An Appreciation of Cyrus Warmheart
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Bad dogs may be trendy,
but good ones are forever
of TheColumnists.com
I finally have gotten around to reading “Marley & Me.” I am a little late for sure because the book has been on the best seller list for more than 50 straight weeks, was No. 1 for 16 weeks and was No. 7 at last look.
It’s generally regarded as a story about a bad dog--the title’s subhead says, “Life and love with the world’s worst dog.” But it is more than that. It is the story of the dog and the family of John Grogan, the outstanding local columnist of the Philadelphia Inquirer. In Grogan’s words, “It is not a dog story. Not my story. But the story of the life journey humans and animals make together, and how the two shape and affect each other and become magically entwined.”
You can see from that passage what a fine writer Grogan is.
Marley is the Labrador retriever named after Bob Marley, the late Jamaican reggae singer whose music he and his wife, Jenny, fell in love with. He was, as the title says, a bad dog. He chewed on furniture, shoes and pillows among other things; he drank out of the toilet; he dug into trash cans; he uprooted flowers; he jumped on people, sniffed crotches; pushed against and broke screen doors. He flunked out of obedience school. Grogan describes this with wonderful, good humor, and if he exaggerated a little bit, it helped the tale.
Many readers seized on Grogan’s bad-dog boast initially mentioned in one of his columns. They regaled him with tales of woeful behavior. An impressive worst-dog candidate I would say was Larry the Lab, who “swallowed his mistress’ bra and then burped it up in one pile 10 days later.”
The reason for this piece is that all the instances of bad dog behavior made me think that something should be written about good dogs, specifically our own dog, who, were I given to the kind of hyperbole that worked so well for Grogan, would call “The World’s Best Dog.”
Cyrus Warmheart was a golden retriever, a golden golden retriever. He was named Cyrus because we got him from an airline couple--a pilot and stewardess--who put him up for sale because they were moving to a residence that didn’t allow dogs. They called him Sirius, after the dog star. That didn’t have any meaning for us, but so as not to confuse him, we came up with a name that would sound almost alike to him-- Cyrus. We soon added the second name, Warmheart, because that fitted him to a “T.”
I loved him immediately. We would buy the dog with a second visit if my wife, who could be described as more of a person-lover than an animal lover, approved. In any case, when we walked into the couple’s apartment, Cyrus (well, Sirius at that point) was standing in the middle of the living room with a parrot on his head. The parrot was leaning over picking at Cyrus’ teeth. When the parrot was dispatched, Sirius made a move that closed the deal. He walked over to Bobbie Isaacs and, in a gesture typical of golden retrievers, placed his paw on her knee. Sold American. This was in the early 1960s and I think he cost about $75.
Cyrus Warmheart lived with us for 13 years, helped us raise three daughters. He hardly did any tricks. He did perform one significant service. It took us only two days to train him to bring in the morning newspaper from the driveway. I took him out, put the New York Times in his mouth and said, “paper.” Back in the house I gave him a dog biscuit. The next day I went out with him, said “paper” and noted with satisfaction that he picked up the paper. He got a biscuit ever afterward when he retrieved the paper.
His service was never appreciated more than on nasty rain or snowfall days when he trotted out without hesitation and brought back the prize. One day the delivery man did not bring the paper. Cyrus promptly ran across the street to the Zibner’s driveway and brought us their paper.
At our daughter Nancy’s wedding in our back yard, Cyrus took a turn ambling down the aisle behind, I believe, the best man and bridesmaid. He let tots pummel him; he plopped himself down on the top step of our small pool on sultry summer days; he always took a place under the dining table when we ate, knowing that there always would be some leftovers for him. He barked maybe once a month.
When we were away for a year we left him with my sister in Brooklyn. Her cat took one look at him and hid in a closet for a week. By the time we came to retrieve him, the cat was pushing him around or nestling against him. Dianne Dunne reported that one day the neighborhood bully of a dog suddenly jumped Cyrus. He immediately took up the fight, the only fight of his life as far as I can recall, and quickly had the bully quivering, lying on his back in surrender.
He never did a bad thing. The one thing that might have been considered rebellious couldn’t be labeled so because we put temptation in his way that was above and beyond the call of animal obedience. At a dinner party, we ate a salmon mousse hors d’oeuvre in the living room, then retired to the dining room. We forgot about the salmon mousse sitting on a plate on a low coffee table. During the festive meal, Cyrus ambled into the dining room with what I instantly recognized as a guilty look. Yes, he had polished off the salmon mousse.
It surely was the thing he should have
done.
©2006 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel. The cartoon is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection,
1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This
column first posted Nov. 20, 2006.
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