Friday, July 24, 1992

-iteth Shore News -

Chilco: The yodelling Chesapeake grows old

THE CHESAPEAKE Bay Retriever and I were discussing
old age the other morning, an event we never expected.

“*Not being personal,”’ | said,
**but there is frost on your mitz-
zle, and | have noticed you slow-
ing down a bit lately.”’

He moved his tongue around
inside his mouth and looked at me
with reproach. Reproach is now .
one of the commonest expressions
or that highly expressive face of
his. It’s one of the reasons we
prefer dogs to grizzlies as pets.

' Bears have very few muscles in
their faces and have just about the
same expression when they are

- happy and contented as when they
are ready to eat you.

People call them trea:herous for
that reason, but it isn’t the bear’s
fault, it’s just the way his skull
and sinew were put together.

The domestic dog is the op-
posite. What he feels is in his face
for all to read — happiness, love,

‘suspicion, anger, embarrassment,
mischief, fear, remorse and the
great gift he shares with humans:
laughter.

Namko’s Coolee Chiico now
often has an expression we saw on
his mother as she grew old. It is a
disturbing one. He appears ap-
prehensive, unsure of himself.

He is like one looking for love
but not sure where he can find it.
George Bush often Icoks that
way.

George’ s problem i don’t know,
but I know Chilco’s. He has lost a
good deal of his hearing to
icewater and the crash of 12-

. gauge shotguns.

Like his mother, Meg, he knows
that the world around him has
changed, but he doesn’t know
why.

People walk up upon him now
while he is sleeping, and he never
knows until they stand directly
above him and sometimes even
nudge him with a toe.

His fife has been spent ina
vivid awareness of everything that
went on around him, the smells,
the sounds and the particular
voices of people.

Paul.
St. Pierre

PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES

Now the awareness is no longer
vivid. Sometimes there is no
awareness.

Does he know that he has
changed or does he, perhaps,
think that the people around him
have changed and that they no
longer make the familiar sound
they once did?

Whatever his anxiety, when he
is not sleeping, which is not all
that often, the first expression on
waking is the George Bush face.
We must wait while he tries to ra-
tionalize the world around him.

“I know exactly how it is,’’ J
tell him, ‘“When the world of
sounds fades away you can never
be sure what to do. You pretend

to hear what you didn’t hear, and
end up looking stupid and clumsy.
You get part of a message, but
hardly ever all of it.

**People look at you and say
*The old boy’s failing,’ But maybe
the only thing failing is the old
boy’s hearing.’’

Truth is, that’s not the only
machinery breaking down in
Namko’s Coolee Chilco. He has
arthritis in his right shoulder and
limps for the first minute or two
when he wakes in the mornings.

He doesn’t wake as early any
more either.

One of his morning rituais is to
climb the stairs, poke a cold wet
nose into my face on the pillow
and begin to warble, whine and
growl in tones that have caused
our household to refer to him as
Chilcotin’s Own Yodelling Re-
triever.

Probably we should have devel-
oped the talent in him when he
was young. Look at what it did
for Gene Autry.

Heisaf ussy eater now, Al-
though he is still prepared to chew
up and swallow sticks and
bullrushes, he is extremely wary of
new types of regular food.

Recently he was introduced to a
new type of dog mash. It looked
exactly like other mash, namely
like moose turds, but he sensed it
was something new and therefore
bad.

He lifted six pellets out in his
mouth, carried them a few feet
away, dropped them on the
ground and poked at them with
his foot.

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Count | the re tos otbal

This happens to be almost ex-
actly what I did at an American
horel not long ago when I was
served one of their more revolting
breakfast foods made of sugared
gravel.

i didn’t carry the food away
and drop it on the floor, but I
stirred it with my forefinger and
growled. My wife says that was
just as bad and that bona fide
Americans in the dining room
were looking askance.

I said our world is full of

askance-lookers and a few more
won't topple the planet of f its
spin.

‘*Think of me as being like
Chilco, bad mannered but with
class.”’

Truth is, the dog and I are at
wn age when we don’t need any
more changes, in our hearing or
our meals. If cur faces don’t hide
our feelings, is that bad? Would
you rather have Kodiak bears
around?

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in one issue each week throughout the summer, you’ll be able to
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