Thrown retreads looking like black snails slumbering at the side of the road. White lines slapping up the SUV.
We’re on a mission that could have been dealt with using airplanes and a rental car. But some perverse reason impelled us to take a road trip to get a dog. Two thousand miles from Prescott, Arizona, to Grand Rapids, Michigan, then the same miles back, with a side jaunt to Toledo, Ohio, to look in on my sister.

We found a druggy Motel 6 on the last leg home, formerly a lush suite, within whose faded glory was a jacuzzi. Barb overloaded it with her traveling mixture of Epsom salts and baking soda, creating a bubblestorm. But as you can see she enjoyed it.
I’m burned out. And the work’s only just begun.
We thought to call her Scout, like Atticus Finch’s tomboy daughter. A friend wondered at the name, which seemed to her a boy’s name. Oh well, not everyone’s onto my literary allusions. After the obligatory period of doubting myself, I’ve decided the hell with it, Scout it is.
She’s a scrapper, like all Airedales, which she mostly is but for the quarter poodle. I’m not a poodle guy but went along. Barb wanted this kind of breed, a hypoallergenic dog that satisfies her aesthetic standard and spares me pet-induced sneezing, nose blowing, and wheezing when allergies are bad enough just living in Prescott. She found two breeders in the U.S., one in Tennessee, one in Michigan. We chose Michigan, figuring we could make a special trip of it, look in on Nina on the way back. She’s in a Toledo group home after a crisis that almost left her homeless. I wrote about my involvement in this harrowing adventure, soon to be released on Bob Gitlin Press. Thank God she’s all right.
The breeder sent photos of the growing litter. Barb picked the one she wanted. I found myself satisfied with the look of the dogs. They were so damn cute. So now we’ve got the dog.
Everything’s cool, right? I hope so.
“And we will know peace,” say the AA “Promises.”

Nina with Scout at a Toledo public park
Yeah? I had to get up at one forty-five a.m. because Scout was yipping in her crate and I had to run outside with her so she could pee. Good thing I was able to sleep more, till dawn. But the big problem came later, at sunrise.
I so value getting up early, usually in the dark, making coffee, getting online to read my newspapers. Been writing that book, so I might comb through it yet again. Or blog, as I’m doing now. My time. Now that easy routine is gone. It reminds me of when we had our last dog, the beloved pain-in-the-ass Rosa. But I wouldn’t trade this challenge for the year and a half of “ease” pending Rosa’s ascension to the canine happy hunting ground. Yes, we loved Rosa, and Scout has some big shoes to fill. But we already adore the curious little fur ball, who’s about ten weeks old.
I LEARNED A HARD LESSON. Today at dawn I got Scout out of her crate and let her knock around in the kitchen while I ground beans and started a pot on my cheapo drip coffeemaker.
“Fuck it. Nothing happens till I have my coffee. This, above all else, must be established.”
Had a hard time launching that new mantra.
I had her on my lap in the living room while I listened to the belching machine. I like to play with the furry pup, but when she mistakes my wrists and hands for pin cushions I’ve got issues. Since we picked her up in Michigan I’ve applied five band-aids. I threw her off my lap onto the living room rug, where she investigated the contents of the room, deciding which object presented the best grip-and-tear opportunity. You have to watch her constantly, ready to shoot out of your chair and pull her away from the afghan or pillow she would rip to shreds. Those razor teeth are how she feels her way through the world. At 68, how much energy do you have to continually “redirect” her toward a sanctioned chew toy? She has four: big and little rope toys, a plastic bone, and a squeaky fabric thing that lets her mimic the experience of crushing the life out of chipmunk. I do my best to keep her from chewing up my flesh or our house, ever fighting the urge to rest.

Me with Scout in the Toledo Metropark, perhaps uttering a silent vow to be tough on her for her own good
I got halfway through that first cup, letting her back up onto the couch, then batting her away, before I figured I’d have better luck if I fed her now, waited the industry-standard twenty minutes, during which I might better enjoy my coffee, then took her out to do her business.
So I set down her bowls of food and water, sipped coffee while listening to her crunch and slurp and lap from her drinking dish, then let her return to the living room with me.
Where she promptly pooped.
On the positive side, it was a solid one. Easy paper-towel cleanup.
I stood shivering in sweatpants, T-shirt, and moccasins outside the bedroom window, holding Scout on the end of a leash, having slammed the barn door after the horse fled. It was a blowy, chilly Prescott morning, biped and quadruped alike negotiating the stony, weedy downslope of the side lot Barb bought so nobody builds there.
A wakened Barb asked out the window how things were going.
“Fine. She ate. She’s shit, and she’s gonna pee.”
Not really a lie, is it?
Next feeding, she eats, then gets crated. She holds back there, lets us know if she has to go. I shall wait twenty minutes before taking her out and into the side yard; or throw her into the car right after eating, drive to a grassy place that mimics the turf of her Michigan provenance, and, by the time we get to Granite Park or Courthouse Plaza, she’s fully digested and ready to, uh, go.
Damn, this is work! I’ve got to stay on top of it. Figure out a way to run this dog’s life, not let her run mine. But, like the song says, I’m willin’.
I had such fun goofing around with her yesterday on the grass of Granite Park, running around like a damn fool and watching her scamper behind me. It’s nice to have a friend.