A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog Read online

  Warmed by a flush of pride, I told myself that if I could master this, then I might one day figure out how to use the coffeemaker. I have always had big dreams.

  We assumed that after a few minutes, Trixie would become bored with the movie and get off the chair. Five minutes passed, ten, and she remained riveted by the images on the screen.

  Gerda and I repeatedly looked past Trix, raising our eyebrows at each other, amused by her devotion to Sandra Bullock’s comical problems almost as much as we were by the—quite good—movie.

  Perhaps the size of the images or the clarity of the projection transfixed our girl. She remained in the chair during the entire movie. Except for two five-minute periods when she chose to lie on the seat and rest her chin on the chair arm, she sat upright. And even in the down position, she kept her gaze on the screen.

  The second time we used the theater, we ran another comedy, and again Trixie watched it beginning to end, sitting in a chair between her mom and me. I half expected her to ask for popcorn.

  Instead of another comedy, we ran an action film on the third visit to our theater. We were eager to see it because some critics called it cutting-edge, maximum cool, and said the lead character was “a James Bond for the new and much hipper millennium.” The movie was XXX, starring Vin Diesel, and those critics had probably called Dumb and Dumber an intellectual triumph.

  Again, Trixie sat between Gerda and me, attentively watching the screen. For about four minutes. Then she got down, settled on the floor, and stuck her head under the chair. She remained there for the remainder of the film, a more perceptive critic than those who had touted XXX.

  In recent years, if a film didn’t shine in the first fifteen minutes, we knew from bitter experience that it would be a rusted tangle of junk to the end, and we gave it no more of our time. That worked for a while, but we began to resent those wasted fifteen-minute blocks of our brief sojourn on this world, which could have been better spent hanging by our thumbs.

  Yet we were so convinced the praise we read for XXX could not be entirely half-baked that we sat through the whole dismal thing, expecting brilliance to burst from the screen at any moment, stunning us both emotionally and intellectually. Trix, head under her chair, must have been thinking, Do I know these people? What has happened to their judgment? What are they going to force me to watch next—Old Yeller, when the dog gets whacked?

  In subsequent years, she never returned to a theater chair. When we watched a film, she sprawled on the floor and dozed. If we had not destroyed her love of movies by running XXX, perhaps she would have become a major director.

  SOME OF THOSE experts who always make my brain itch tell us that dogs can’t see and/or make sense of images on a television or a movie screen because they haven’t the brain power to imagine the third dimension that is missing from a two-dimensional image.

  In our previous house, we watched movies on the big-screen TV in our family room. Usually, I sat on the floor, with my back against the sectional sofa, so I could give Trixie a long tummy rub and ear scratch.

  The screen was much smaller and the image less clear than what we would have eventually in our theater in the next house, but from time to time, Trix seemed to take an interest in the story. If she happened to be watching when a dog entered the frame, she stood and wagged her tail. It was the image that attracted her, because she reacted even when no bark or doggy panting alerted her to a canine presence in the film. Cat actors interested her more than canines. She had been raised with cats and liked them.

  One evening, a character rolled into a scene in a wheelchair, which electrified Trixie. She stood and watched intently, and even approached the screen for a closer look. I’m sure she remembered a time when a person in a wheelchair needed her, and when she served ably.

  She was not an assistance dog anymore, but a princess, and she wished to be treated as one. Even when watching a movie, I was expected to properly revere her.

  I learned not to sit on that family-room floor in my bare feet. If Trixie thought I had gotten too interested in whatever was on the screen and that I was giving her less attention than she deserved, she slipped out from under my massaging hand and went to my feet to lick my toes and distract me from the movie. The first time she tried this, I was determined to tough it out, imagining that she would stop the tickling if I didn’t laugh, if I remained intent on the screen. Judging by how quickly she reduced me to giggling hysteria, I would not long resist spilling my guts if waterboarded.

  LASSIE IS MORE famous than Trixie, but I must note that Lassie never wrote a book, whereas Trixie has now written three for adults and two for children. So there.

  Kate Hartson, Trixie’s first publisher, likes dogs. She is nuts about dogs. As far as I can tell, she knows nothing about current events, and I suspect that if she caught a TV news report that Earth was on a collision course with a massive asteroid, she would say, “Yeah, all right, I’ll worry about that later, right now it’s time to run on the beach with the dogs!” She talks more about her dogs than she does about her husband, Bill, and he doesn’t seem to mind. “The dogs are more interesting than I am,” he once said. They have had a series of stunningly beautiful German shepherds bred and trained by the Monks of New Skete.

  At one time, I worked with Kate when she was at Random House. She is charming, enthusiastic, and always full of ideas for new ways of publishing. Eventually she founded Yorkville Press, and while casting around for books to publish, she contacted me to ask if I had any ideas. I suggested a volume on Canine Companions for Independence and introduced Kate to the folks at the Oceanside campus. Eventually she published a beautiful book on CCI, Love Heels, that included a couple of hundred wonderful full-color photographs, and I wrote a foreword for the project.

  With my encouragement, Trixie had been writing pieces for our snail-mail newsletter and Web site. Kate saw these and suggested that we do a book by Trix, with lots of photographs, with her humorous observations about life, in her doggy voice. Following is one of the pieces that inspired Kate to think Trixie could be a successful author.

  My Summer

  by Trixie Koontz, Dog

  Dad teaches me to type. Hold pencil in mouth and type. At first is fun. Then is not fun. He says to me, “Write, Trixie, write. Write essay for Web site.” Being good dog, I write. Not fun, but I write. Expect treat for writing. Get no treat. Stop writing. Get treat. Carob biscuit. Good, good, good. Okay, so I write some more.

  Dad promises Web site visitors my essay end of July. Must give up important ball chasing, important napping, important sniffing—all to write. Work hard. Writing hard. So many words. Stupid punctuation rules. Hate semicolons. Hate; hate; hate. Chew up many pencils in frustration.

  Finish article. Give to Dad. Then I rip guts out of duck. Duck is not real. Is Booda duck, stuffed toy. I am gentle dog. Cannot hurt real duck or even cat. But am hell on stuffed toys. Work off tension. Rip, rip, rip. Feel pretty good. Cough up soggy wad of Booda-duck stuffing. Feel even better.

  Dad gives editorial suggestions. Stupid suggestions.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid! He is not editor, is writer. Like me, Trixie Koontz, who is dog. I pretend to listen.

  Am actually thinking about bacon. Bacon is good. Bacon is very good. I am good, too. People call me “good dog, good, very good.” Bacon is very good. I am very good. But I am not bacon. Why not? Mysterious.

  Then I think about cats. What is wrong with them? Who do they think they are? What do they want? Who invented them, anyway? Not God, surely. Maybe Satan? So nervous writing about cats, I use too many italics. Then I hit hateful semicolon key; don’t know why; but I do it again; and whimper.

  Dogs are not born to write essays. Maybe fiction. Maybe poetry. Not essays. Maybe advertising copy.

  Here is my advertising copy: BACON IS VERY GOOD. BUY BACON. BUY LOTS OF BACON. GIVE TO ME. THANK YOU.

  Dad gives me editorial notes for study. Eight pages. I pee on them. He gets message.

  Dad says will gi
ve my essay to webmaster as is. Webmaster is nice person, nice. She will know good writing when she sees it.

  Days pass. Weeks. Chase ball. Chase rabbits. Chase butterfly. Chase Frisbee. Begin to notice sameness in leisure-time activities. Pull tug-toy snake. Pull, pull, pull. Pull tug-toy bone. Pull, pull, pull tug-toy rope. Lick forepaw. Lick other forepaw. Lick a more private place. Still do not taste like bacon. Get belly rub from Mom. Get belly rub from Dad. Mom. Dad. Mom. Dad. Get belly rub from Linda. Get belly rub from Elaine. From housekeeper Elisa. Belly rub, belly rub. Read Bleak House by Mr. Charles Dickens, study brilliant characterizations, ponder tragedy of human condition. New tennis ball. Chase, chase, chase! Suddenly is September.

  Webmaster asks where is Trixie essay? Where? Dad lost. Dad got busy working on new book, got busy, forgot fabulous Trixie essay, and lost it. My human ate my homework. Sort of.

  All my hard word, my struggle, so many hateful semicolons. All for what? All for nothing. Essay lost. All for nothing. Feel like character in Bleak House.

  Think about getting attorney. Get literary agent instead. Writing fiction. Novel. Maybe knock Dad off best-seller list. Teach him lesson. Writing novel called My Bacon by Trixie Koontz, Dog. Already have invitation from Larry King, David Letterman, be on shows, do publicity, sell book, get belly rub from Dave. Maybe get limo for media tour. Ride around in limo, chasing cats. Life is good when you’re a dog.

  Based on material like that, Kate believed a Trixie book would sell. I thought Kate might have lost her mind. Six years later, I’m still not certain of her mental condition, but in my mind’s ear, I don’t hear the shrieking violins from Psycho when she’s around, just the eerie and disturbing music from Twin Peaks. Anyway, I agreed to work with her on Life Is Good, Trixie’s first book, and on other books thereafter.

  Kate came from New York to Newport Beach for three days with an extremely talented book designer, Tina Taylor, and an equally talented photographer, Monique Stauder, who eventually took almost 1,800 photos of our golden girl, including fantastic shots of her in the pool, swimming and aboard her float.

  From the day we met her, Trix posed for snapshots, and she had romanced the videocam when the Pinnacle crew showed up during her first week with us. But in those three days with Kate, Tina, and Monique, she revealed a patience and camera-awareness, no less professional than a top-ten model.

  Because I couldn’t always be present to oversee Trixie during the photo sessions, Linda filled in when I was busy. At one point, along the entry walk, where there were beds of vivid orange-gold flowers, Monique wanted Trixie to lie among the blooms. Linda was concerned about damaging the flowers, but she also knew that Trixie never went in the flower beds, as if avoiding landscape destruction were another rule of her personal tao.

  Sitting patiently on the walkway, Trixie listened to this discussion, and then settled the issue by crossing to the flowers, lying on the pavement, and gently lowering only her head into the blooms, so she would not damage any plants. Monique seized the moment: Trixie’s head, pillowed in the flowers—her eyes closed as if she is asleep and dreaming—is one of the most charming photos in Life Is Good.

  On numerous occasions, Short Stuff seemed to understand what was being said, and she posed as Monique wished. The most impressive exhibition of this uncanny awareness occurred on the south lawn, when Monique wanted to get several photos of Trixie wriggling on her back, on the grass, with all four legs in the air. I was present, as were Linda, Kate, and Tina.

  Monique had seen Trixie wriggling previously, when a camera was not at hand, and she assumed that I could get her to do this on command. I disappointed Monique when I explained that this was something dogs did of their own volition, when they wished, and I could not deliver such a performance with a word or gesture. No sooner had I said this than Short Stuff dropped to the lawn, rolled onto her back, and began to wriggle. Monique leaped at the opportunity and began to shoot pictures from various angles.

  “How long does she do this?” Monique asked.

  “Half a minute, a minute, never any longer,” I replied.

  “Oh, I want her with her head to the left, and she has it to the right, I wish she’d move it,” Monique said.

  Trixie turned her head to the left.

  Monique got the shots she wanted, and then said, “I wish she’d stop moving, just lay on her back with all four legs in the air.”

  Trixie at once stopped wriggling and remained on her back, all legs in the air.

  Kate, Linda, Tina, and I thought this was highly amusing. But then as Monique continued to express her wishes, moving around Trix, shooting from a standing position, then kneeling, and then lying on the ground, the dog did everything the photographer asked of her as soon as it was asked. We stopped laughing and fell into an astonished silence. Monique had been working with Trixie for a few minutes when I glanced at my watch and started to time the event. When Monique had taken every shot she hoped for, Trixie had been on her back, posing this way and that, for eight minutes. Add the three minutes that Trix clocked before I’d begun timing. That, we all agreed, was strange.

  Trixie’s Life Is Good went on to sell sixteen times as many copies as my first hardcover novel. She has since published two additional books for adults, a calendar, and has two children’s books coming from Putnam.

  The Trickster has become not only a busy author but also an entrepreneur. PetSmart, the national chain of stores, will have a two-month promotion of licensed products in the Trixie Koontz/Dog Bliss You line during July and August of 2009. We are in talks with other retailers about additional Trixie products, from toys and clothing to video games.

  Short Stuff has become a conglomerate.

  All author royalties and proceeds from the Trixie books and products are donated to the Trixie Fund at Canine Companions for Independence, which pays catastrophic veterinarian bills for the companion dogs of people with disabilities who cannot handle such large unexpected expenses. In 2008, seventy-one dogs received treatment that they might otherwise not have gotten.

  Gerda and I break into smiles every time we think about what a long shadow this little dog has cast even after moving on from this world. And she has just begun.

  Her books and other efforts are about laughter, love, finding happiness, maintaining hope, achieving peace, earning redemption, and embracing the wonder and the mystery of this world. As Reader’s Digest reported in its “Quotes” feature, Trixie believes, “Love and sausage are alike. Can never have enough of either.”

  XXII

  endings always come too fast

  OUR FRIEND CHRISTOPHER CHECK is a former marine, a devout Catholic, a writer, a speaker, a man of many talents, who crackles with so much energy that he makes my hair stand on end from a distance of forty feet. When he visited southern California to give the commencement address at St. Michael’s School, which is a project of St. Michael’s Abbey, Chris brought two Norbertine monks from St. Michael’s—Father Jerome and Father Hugh—to our house for dinner.

  I had corresponded with Father Jerome for a couple of years, but I had never met him. He generously wrote for me a lengthy account of daily life in a monastery, which was invaluable when I was writing Brother Odd.

  When Chris burst through the front door, fortunately breaking no glass, Trixie scampered straight to him, greeting an old friend. By the time she got the attention she deserved, the house electrical system adjusted to Chris’s presence, the lights stopped pulsing, and Trixie turned to the fathers, clearly fascinated by their radiant white habits.

  Her reaction to these two visitors could not have been more different from her reaction to X. Wagging her tail, wiggling her entire body, she offered them her belly without hesitation. During the evening, she stayed close to the fathers, even to the extent that, as we stood talking in the front hall, she sprang onto a sofa on which she’d never before perched, so she could be closer to our level, and at dinner she rested behind their chairs when usually she would curl up near Gerda or me.
r />   Knowing me so well, perhaps Trixie expected that when Father Jerome and Father Hugh stood up from the dinner table, their white habits would appear to have been tie-dyed. I must say I was most impressed when, at the end of the evening, those habits remained spotless.

  Gerda and I and our three guests had a grand evening full of stimulating conversation and laughter. One high point occurred when Father Hugh said to Father Jerome, “What do you think of this dog?”

  Father Jerome said, “She’s special, mysterious in her way.”

  “We’ve heard that before,” I assured them.

  The Catholic church has a long intellectual tradition that has produced some of the most rigorously logical and beautifully reasoned philosophical works in Western culture. In their modesty, neither Father Jerome nor Father Hugh would ever claim to be an intellectual (and what a ragtag mob they would be associating with if they did), but they seemed to me to be intellectuals in the best—if not the most common—sense of the word, which includes humility and honor in its definition. Trixie inspired an interesting discussion of the proposition, explored in many writings about faith, that when the supernatural steps into time, into our world from outside of time, it does not work through dazzling wonders; instead, it manifests subtly, through elements of the natural world. Like dogs.

  To us, Trixie was more than a dog. She was as a child, entrusted to our care, so that we might find in ourselves greater tenderness than we had imagined we possessed. But she was other than a child. She was an inspiration who restored our sense of wonder. She was a revelation who by her natural virtues encouraged me to take a new, risky, and challenging direction in my writing.

  I am in fact the fool who, throughout this account, I have said I am, so you may make of this what you will: I believe that Trixie, in addition to being a dog and a child and an inspiration and a revelation, was also a quiet theophany a subtle manifestation of God, for by her innocent joy and by her actions in my life, she lifted from me all doubts of the sacred nature of our existence.