I never wanted a dog. I preferred cats. But it was Christmas and he was a gift and I didn\u2019t know how to tell her I couldn\u2019t take him. She said the breeder was a lady in town. There\u2019d been an ad in the paper: English bulldogs, sired by a champion, $450 each. She\u2019d picked out the best one. \u201cHow much did you say he cost?\u201d I had a hard time keeping my voice from shaking. She didn\u2019t ask me to reimburse her, but I wrote out a check anyway. We were both so poor it didn\u2019t make any sense.<\/p>\n
I named him Emmett. That first night together, I put him in a cardboard box with a blanket on the bottom. He cried so much I had to take him to bed with me. \u201cYou miss your mama?\u201d I said. \u201cIs that what has you so upset?\u201d<\/p>\n
I held him against my chest and let him hear my heart beat, and he calmed down after a while. He slobbered, though, and drool got on my sheets and glued my fingers together. He tried to suck one of my nipples and I had to push him away. When he finally went to sleep, he snored like an old man with a deviated septum. Even worse was his intestinal distress. It got so bad I had to get up and go outside for some air.<\/p>\n
I noticed how he\u2019d whine and paw at his ear, and how he\u2019d give you a look if you tried to pet the top of his head, so I took him to the vet. The man tried to be gentle about it. Emmett had a bad ear infection, he said. His tubes were blocked and forming scars. \u201cYour dog\u2019s deaf,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s not just that. If we don\u2019t stop the infection, it\u2019s eventually going to kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGive him some medicine,\u201d I said.<\/p>
\u201cI will, but he needs surgery, and not the kind I\u2019d attempt here.\u201d<\/p>\n
I took him to the LSU vet school in Baton Rouge. When it was over, they carried him out to me wearing a big halo fitted around his neck. It kept him from scratching his ears. He was so excited to see me he peed on my pants and best Sunday shoes. I didn\u2019t have enough money to pay the bill. I had to use one of those cash-advance checks a credit card company had sent me in the mail.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard enough to communicate with a dog that can hear. Imagine what it was like trying to train Emmett. You could clap your hands together in front of his face and he wouldn\u2019t flinch, but I worked with him, I worked hard, and over time he started to obey sign language. If I caught him drinking water from the toilet, for instance, all I had to do was stomp on the floor and point at the door to get him to stop and leave the room.<\/p>\n
You could bathe him in the morning with the garden hose and some baby shampoo and by noon he smelled bad again. You could freshen up his water bowl three times a day and he was still going to leave ropes of saliva on the furniture. He\u2019d break wind at the wrong time, too, like when you were just sitting down to supper. And if you had guests over, you could count on him humping their legs. He\u2019d hop right on up there and go to town, a look on his face that let you know he was in the murderous grip of something that even he did not understand.<\/p>\n
I knew he needed a girlfriend, so I called around to see if anybody had a female bulldog they wanted to breed. After a few weeks a man showed up with a girl dog chained to the back of his pickup. \u201cYou got your papers?\u201d I said to the man. He didn\u2019t say anything; he just looked at me. \u201cEmmett\u2019s registered with the American Kennel Club. I\u2019m sorry for the misunderstanding.\u201d<\/p>
\u201cYou think he\u2019s too good for Madonna?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo sir,\u201d I answered. \u201cBring her on back.\u201d<\/p>\n
When they were finished, Emmett slept for two days. I wondered if he\u2019d slipped into a coma. He\u2019d given his best effort and made me proud, but I was even more impressed when, nine weeks later, Madonna delivered a litter of eleven puppies, nearly double the average for the breed. To celebrate, I grilled a couple of rib-eye steaks and fed one of them to Emmett. They were discounted manager\u2019s specials, a few days past their expiration date and turning color, but Emmett didn\u2019t complain. I popped a beer open and poured it in his bowl; then I had one myself.<\/p>\n
On weekends we often went for drives in my truck. Most days we traveled the country roads, but other times we visited the French Quarter in New Orleans. If it wasn\u2019t too hot outside, I put him in the bed and let him feel the wind. He liked to perch himself on the wheel well and have a look at all the people on the sidewalks. They\u2019d run over and pat the top of his head, his little bun-shaped tail shaking. Tourists fed him Lucky Dogs, beignets, and jambalaya. They let him sip from their go cups. The strippers and transvestites on Bourbon Street, the art dealers and antiquarians on Royal and Chartres. It seemed everybody had to run out and say hello.<\/p>\n
I was often mad at him for one disappointment or another, like the time he ate a frog, came in the house and threw it up on the carpet. But I can also tell you there were days when it seemed he was the only friend I had in the world. I\u2019d sit on the back stoop and read my bad reviews to him. A hurricane hit the town and I sat holding him close in the bathtub, waiting for the walls to blow away. When my girlfriend and I were fighting, I\u2019d take his face in my hands and whisper in his dead ears about how I had him and didn\u2019t need a woman anyway. \u201cYou\u2019re lucky you found me,\u201d I told him, even though I knew that I was really the one who had it good.<\/p>
He died on Thanksgiving Day, 1995, after a family dinner at my mother\u2019s house. He was only six years old. He\u2019d been sleeping longer than usual and I went to wake him up. I gave him a shake and said, \u201cLet\u2019s go, you randy, foul-smelling beast,\u201d but he was cold, his body rigid. His chin rested between his front paws, and his eyes were closed. We figured he must\u2019ve had a heart attack in his sleep after eating turkey and cornbread dressing with us, and after playing for hours with my nieces and nephews, who\u2019d pretended he was a horse and taken turns riding on his back. \u201cEmmett,\u201d I ran into the house screaming. \u201cHe\u2019s dead. Emmett\u2019s dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
When things settled down, my brother and I went to the shed and came out with shovels. There was a grassy place on the side of the house where we\u2019d buried our childhood pets. This was where we put him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t you get another one?\u201d people asked me.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know why,\u201d I answered.<\/p>\n
About ten years ago a friend called and told me she had something in her office that I needed to see. This friend is a professional art conservator; she repairs damaged paintings and pottery for a living. A client had bought a large ceramic bulldog at an auction, but the rare life-size antique, made in France in the 1890s, had been damaged in shipping. The client had filed a claim with her insurance company, and now the company\u2019s adjuster wanted to sell the dog.<\/p>
\u201cIt looks just like Emmett,\u201d I told her when I arrived at her studio.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to take him home with you?\u201d<\/p>\n
I keep him in a spot next to my favorite chair in the living room. I pat him on the head every time the doorbell rings and I go to answer it. As much as I enjoy owning the dog, I\u2019ve never for a minute been fooled into believing he was Emmett. He doesn\u2019t place his paws on the top of my feet when he wants my attention, and he\u2019s never once licked me so much that I\u2019ve needed a shower.<\/p>\n
I still prefer cats, yet I dream about Emmett. He\u2019s outside barking at a squirrel even though I moved from that house fifteen years ago. I hear him snoring in the other room and when I go there the room is empty.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard, all right. But I suppose that\u2019s what you get for loving somebody.<\/p>
He drooled, smelled bad, and had no manners whatsoever. But I loved him<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":51383,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2408,1783],"tags":[26],"authors":[1921],"issue":[2376],"recipe-type":[],"class_list":["post-330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-good-dogs","category-sporting","tag-good-dog","authors-john-ed-bradley","issue-april-may-2009","rubric-good-dog"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n