Corporal Fips

It was a bright morning, and I could tell that Fips was hankering for a walk. “Aus-band?” Fips started jumping around, making it more difficult yet to put on his collar. I gathered up my keys and his leash and headed out the door.

Our apartment building is built in the form of a rectilinear “U”, with open air landings flanking the interior courtyard. Four large apartments along the base of the “U”, front out onto the lake. Two smaller apartments on either prong of the “U” look out onto the courtyard. The elevator shaft is located in the middle of the U’s base.

Typically, Fips will chase out the door, turn left and run to the elevator where he waits impatiently for that special grinding-click that tells him the lift has arrived. I’ve always been impressed with how quickly he connected a particular noise, to the approach and arrival of the elevator which he understands is the thing that takes him downstairs which leads to out to where all the sniff n’ piss takes place Anyone who says dogs don’t think, thinks less than a dog.

But this morning .....

Fips chased out the door as usual and suddenly came to a dead stop. There was a momentary silence followed by a very emphatic

Grrrrraaauff!

and

Grrrrrrrrr-grrrrrrr GrrrrAUF!!

What the devil....? I looked around to see what he could be barking at. I didn’t notice a thing. So I looked at Fips to see what Fips was looking at. He was staring very intently at the door to one of the inside apartments diagonally across from the elevator.

????

Grrrrrrrrr-grrrrrrr GrrrrAUF!!

Then I figured it out. He was barking at a large jack-o-lantern pumpkin that the occupants had put by the front door.

Fips was very disconcerted. Fips may not write, but he keeps his accounts. That head without a body was nothing he was familiar with or approved of. It had not been there yesterday. It was not supposed to be there and whatever it was... it was nothing too friendly either.

Grrrrrrrrr-grrrrrrr GrrrrAUF!!

Oh... Fipsie... It’s OK, It’s OK.... C’mon lets go walkie-poo

The elevator made it’s grinding click, I opened the door and Fips trotted in, having made his point and done his duty.

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Stoical Doggie

After taking Fips out for a walk, Michael came running back in, throwing open the door with a bang, and yelling “Fips got stung by a wasp!!”

“So?”

“On his tongue!!” Michael said with exasperation, “help me get it out.”

I ran over and held Fips’s head as Michael got some tweezers and pulled out the stinger. Fips is such a brave doggie, submitting stoically and trustingly to our ministrations.

“Well... all’s well that ends well,” I said.

Michael was not convinced. He worried that Fips, especially since he was still a puppy, could get an allergic reaction that would kill him. Michael’s worry was instantly contagious.

Down to the truck and back to Moraga. Michael holding Fips in his lap and both of us rushed and worried.

Smith examined Fips’s tongue and his swallow. He said that if Fips hadn’t had a more serious reaction by now, the chances were that he wouldn’t have one at all. He recommended some Benadryl for a day or so.

While there, he checked out the umbilical hernia which has gotten smaller. The left testicle is definitely "undescended" and will have to be taken care of. Smith recommends removing both. Michael gets sullen.

Dr. Smith is learning to handle us as soothingly as he handles Fips. Even though we’ve been to his office mostly for routine shots, we do fuss and worry about everything....worms, the umbilical cord, the missing testicle... and now the swollen tongue.

I hope Fips realizes that all this to-ing and fro-ing to Smith’s is because we love him. Probably not, but he seems to like going to vet. Since nothing painful happens, it's all just an outing to him.

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A Brief Separation

At the end of September, I left for a two week trip to Mexico. I had a wonderful time exploring the Oaxaca countryside, but I still missed the Little Mister. On the second day of my arrival, I called home. Michael said Fips had been a little subdued at first but was now fine. On my return, Fips seemed happy to see me, but did not fall into paroxysms of joy. I think I was the happier one. Instead, Fips simply reclaimed his places, under my desk and on the bed.

This would be one of very few times Fips and I would be apart.

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Some Things Can Be Slow in Coming

Back to Moraga for Fips to get his rabies shot. His fecal test is negative, but given that we want take him out into the country, Smith recommends Heartguard.

The umbilical hernia has not self corrected. Smith recommends repairing it when Fips is eight or ten months old.

Only the right testicle has descended. Smith can’t feel the other one. Smith explains that undescended testicles can become cancerous, so this too will have to be taken care of.

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Le Toilet de Fips

Fips spends a lot of time curled up at my feet under the desk. I can’t quite tell whether he is sulking or just likes this womb-like cubby-hole. I like having him there and hope he’s happy.

On the other hand, Michael does most of the outing and Fips is always eager for a walk, scrambling out from under and scampering down the hallway whenever Michael says whatever it is he says in German.

Fips is still a young puppy and Michael is gradually extending the length of their pad-abouts. We are fortunate to live on the lakeshore as this provides a nice greenbelt that is 3 miles in circumference, which allows Fips to sniff bushes and walk on the sidewalk, grass or dirt path along the water’s edge as he likes. The other day, Michael returned and proudly announced that they had walked up to Grand Avenue, a little over a half a mile a way. This is certainly building up Fips’s hind legs, or “gambies” as I call them.

Although not as much as Mike, I take Fips out as well. He is just as eager and runs to the elevator door where he waits, in evident impatience, for the exact grinding sound that indicates the lift has arrived. Once at ground level, he chases down the hallway to the glass front door where he waits with his tail wagging furiously. There is no point in trying to restrain him. and I just let him bolt forth.

Once we’ve chased over to the grass, the sniffing and pissing begins. But when it comes to pooping, Fips is the oddest dog I’ve ever seen. It was the first time I took him out when, as we were passing a large patch of ground Ivy, Fips suddenly stopped, sniffed and then carefully turned around, backed into the foliage and pooped. It was so discrete, I had to laugh.

Unlike other dogs, Fips never simply stops and poops wherever. He always looks for something to poop into or against, whether it is foliage, a bush, the trunk of a tree or, if worse comes to worse, the base of a hydrant.

A little dance always accompanies le toilet de Fips. He stops, sniffs, turns left and sniffs, turns right and sniffs, left again, right again, and when he has thus radar’d the exact spot, turns around and hunches for the poop. Michael said he did this from the beginning.

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Fips Explores the Earth

August is Europe’s vaction month and Michael’s friend, Harald-from-Norway has come to visit. We spent the week preceding, shampooing the carpet and putting runners down in the much trafficked hallways.

Michael got it into his head to show Canyon -- a communal collection of counter culture cabins on the other side of the Berkeley-Oakland Hills -- to Harald. “Oh, c’mon lets go and take a walk in the hills above your cabin,” he said, referring to the shack I had rented a couple of years before.

“Fips hasn’t had all of his shots,” I said. Michael thought about it and, not surprisingly, convinced himself that this was not an impediment to his plan. It can’t be any worse than whatever he’s exposed to around the lake here, and anyways....”

And so -- Harald holding Fips on his lap and Michael squeezed into the jump seat --- we piled into my truck and headed across the Bay. It was noon by the time we got there. We parked in the moist and shady redwood groves down by the Post Office and then headed to the ridge summit up a bumpy, cracked semblance of roadway that wound its way past “mothballed” cars and assorted dwellings in various states of repair and disrepair.

It was cool and two shaggy dogs came loping down the road to say hello and sniff up Fips, who didn’t get much of a chance to return the interest on account of his size and the fact that the other dogs just as happily loped off. We continued on; and, as we ascended into the sunlight, it became warmer. By the time we reached the summit, Harald had taken off his shirt. But the li'l puppy kept up the pace.

Although Fips was hanging tongue, he didn’t appear tired at all. He liked being with the pack and interested himself in sniffing mud tracks and under bushes. Aside from the environs around Lake Merritt, this was Fips’ first real smell of the world.

After making it to the summit and sniffing around its cluster of trees and carpet of leaves and dried acorns, Fips and party headed back down. By now the pup was getting a little tuckered -- he's barely past newborn after all -- but the increasing shade as we descended to the grove, reinvigorated him. Back in the truck, he zonked out.

A day or two later, Harald said he wanted to see the coast. I had work to do, and so Michael, Harald and the Fipster headed up to Drake’s Beach.

According to Michael, Fips was at first uncertain about the feel of the sand but soon got the got the hang of soft-padding and scampered about, the salt air (new smell!) filling his nostrils. He was not interested in the surf which seemed to intimidate him. But.....ooooh.... what’s this smell under the sand....?

Fips is part terrier - an earthdog. Does he look up with wonder at rolling hills or out with awe at the vast undulating sea? What were Fips' first impression of this Earth we live on? I can't say for sure except that the wide wide world we see is but cousin to the one he smells.

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Nothing but the Best

Chewed: One pair expensive English oxfords.

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Fips' Panoramic Perch

Fips had been curious to go out onto porch and even wandered down to the far end on the right. So I put up planter-barriers to keep him from wandering (and pooping) on neighbor’s porches.

More importantly, I had horrible visions of him poking too far over the ledge and falling off. He was fascinated by the motions outside and liked to stand by the railing and watch the passerby. A couple of times I caught his fuzzy snout staring down at me as I walked up the front entrance.

Mikey says he won't fall off; but I'm not so sanguine. I certainly do not want to keep him cooped up behind the glass. So today I put everything else on hold and put up some chicken wire. Now Fips can survey the panorama and I can rest at ease.

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Fips Gets Checked Out

We took Fips to Moraga to be checked out by Dr. Smith and to get his third DHLRP shot. Once he gets that, we can take him out in earnest, at least around the Lake. Smith has a very gentle manner and Fips seemed to like him. At least he did not quiver or seem ill at ease.

Everything checked out ok so far, although Fips’s umbilical cord protrudes. Smith doesn’t think it’s a problem for now. These hernias can self-correct, although there’s a possibility it might have to be reworked. According to Smith, Fips also has a slight overbite, but that too should not be a problem. Otherwise, he seems quite healthy.

Needless to say, Michael has been in doting mode, stocking up on all sorts of doggie accoutrements, from yeast pills to chew toys. He has bought nail clippers, brushes, flee combs and shampoos. He also bought a nice ceramic water dish and a lovely multi-colored wool collar which is quite dashing against Fips’ brown and wild boar hair.

I asked Michael if he was considering taking Fips to “obedience classes”. He gave me an impatient look. “What for?” “Just wondering,” I demurred. As far as Michael was concerned there was no need for such stuff as Man and Dog would reach their own ordained and natural equilibrium. The only thing a dog needed to be trained to do, he said, was to unquestionably give up anything he had taken into his mouth. This was necessary, Michael explained, because dogs had no way of knowing if that something was poisonous or hurtful.

I added that it seemed to me Fips also had to be trained to halt on command. Michael agreed saying that he already would not let Fips cross the street until told “jetz” -- German for “now”.

“So are we going to speak to him in German?”

“He’s a German dog”

“He was born in California.”

“I’m speaking to him in German.”

“Well please make sure he learns nicht zu pissen inside”

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Boingy Bongs

"Boing Boing Boing Boing..."

Michael walked in. "What are you doing?" he asked. "I've decided that Fips' hind-legs need to be strengthened," I said, "and so we're doing doggie leg-presses." With puppy on his back I bouncy-pushed on his hind legs as he springy pushed back. "Boing Boing Boing Boing"

Fips thinks this is fun for about 30 seconds, and it may condition his legs a somewhat but the real strengthening will come from Michael's long and longer walks and my hikes along mountain trails

.

Blink, Blink. Scratch, Scratch.

Fuzzy wuzzy; that’s what he was. I felt him up as Michael and Sue retreated to the kitchen to exchange paper and settle the deed. Eventually, I joined them and we sat at the table and talked over coffee, as the pup nosed around.

Sue’s life was dachshunds and her pride and joy was Herman her multiple-time, all time California Region champ. But she was a responsible breeder who carefully selected Herman’s dams and who sired him out not more than once a year, if that.

She also vetted the people to whom she parted out the litter. If I recall, Sue had had some reservations about the apartment and had wanted to insure that it was, in fact, sufficiently large. As I would later discover, it was at least as large as her ranchette house, and if we did not have private acreage we had all of Oakland’s Lake Merritt Park at our doorfront. At any rate, Sue’s vetting dovetailed nicely with Michael’s devious plan.

Being a breeder, Sue also had other priorities, the nose and tail of which was that she didn’t think all that much of the pup she had brought. It had something to do with the fact that he had been the runt of the litter, typically not the best breeding material. She also felt that his hind legs were on the weak side, so all things considered she knocked a hundred dollars off the price.

After a last go-over of feeding instructions and shot schedules, Sue left and Michael and I retreated to the living room to get acquainted with .....

“So what shall we call him?” I asked.

“Fips”

“Phipps ? What kind of name is that?

“F-i-p-s”

“What does it mean?”

“Nothing; it’s the name of a German cartoon monkey.”

“You want to name the dog after a monkey?”

“ It’s what we called our dogs at home.”

“So what is he, Fips the Fifth?”

“Third.”

Well, I hardly had much say in the matter, so Fips it was.

-o0o-

Night came and Mike and I retreated to our respective bedrooms. I unrolled my futon and got under the covers. Fips followed and snuggled by my side. I lay there in the dark enjoying how nice it felt to have this furry life-form snuggled between my chest and arm.

Blink, Blink ... Blink, Blink. I also felt that this could not be. With a certain regret, I got up and led Fips down the hallway to Michael’s room before returning to a now very empty bed.

Not for long. Fifteen minutes later, Fips wandered back down the hallway and crawled back to his place. “Oh hello, Fippsie,” I whispered, as I petted his head.

Blink, Blink. ... Blink, Blink. Really, this could not be. Again, I got up and carried Fips down to Michael’s room. “Maybe you should close your door,” I said, before returning to bed and turning off the light once and for all.

Scratch, Scratch...... Scratch, Scratch. I heard Michael’s door open and moments later, Fippsie was back curled up in my covers. Now I felt happy and terrible at the same time. This was so unfair to Mike; but it was just as unfair to Fips.

It had been evident during the day that his sisters’ biting and snapping had imbued Fips with an uncertain distrust of this life into which he had been born. What could be counted on, for sure, when you get kicked away from your mother’s milk?

Once again, Fips was being pushed away, this time by me.

Michael and I never talked about it but the last thing either of us wanted was for Fips to become resigned to life.

07/27/94

In the end Fips worked out his own solution. He would sleep with me until about four in the morning, at which time he crawl out from his jumble of covers and head over to Michael’s door.

Scratch, Scratch. .... Scratch, Scratch.
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A Fuzzy Thing Happened one Saturday

Dog. Going on months, I had been thinking about getting a dog. The chief impediment was that I could not make up my mind what kind. Earlier in the year, when we took the cat to the vet I stood for a long time before a large chart of “Dogs of the World” carefully examining the pictures of each breed and liking most of them.

Several indecisive weeks later, my roommate, Michael, brought home a book of Dogs of the World with pictures, specifications and little blurbs on what the breed was good for and bad for. I liked most of those dogs too and since most of them were good for something I couldn’t really think of a reason not to get one of whatever it was.

Living in an apartment, we obviously could not get an Irish Wolfhound or an Hungarian Ropemop, but that still left a huge range of dogs between “shorter Lab” and “more than Chihuahua.” I tended toward medium height, 30 pound, short-hairs or terrier types with a “standard” open face, doggie smile.

“Would you ever consider a Dachshund?” Michael asked somewhat tentatively.

"A dachshund? A yippy yappy weener dog? Are you crazy?"

Even more tentatively Michael mumbled, “They’re great dogs....”

“No way! I don’t want some hyperventilating toy thing running around and snapping at everything.”

No... I wanted a dog I could go running with, toss sticks for, maybe take camping; not some hysterical misshapen dwarf with back problems.

“Really, they’re great dogs,” Michael said, “we had them at home.”

“You had a dachshund?” I broke out into derisive laughter.

I could see that Michael took offense. “You don’t know what you’re saying. We had a wirehaired dachshund and they’re great dogs.”

I had never heard of a wirehaired dachshund. Micheal showed me what they looked like in the Dog Book and explained that they were mellower than the short hairs and very impish and funny.

“Well maybe so,” I said, “but I don’t want a dachshund.” .

-o0o-

Several weeks past and the dog issue remained in abeyance when Michael came to the door of my office to announce that he was going to Modesto.

“Modesto? What for?”

“There’s a breeder down there, who’s just had a litter of wirehair dachshunds.”  [1]

I got real emphatic. I told Michael that I did not want no dachshund. This was a joint decision and we’d have to agree on the dog.

“I’m just going to go look.”

“Well, I don’t know what for. I’m serious, Mike, do not bring back any dachshund. Promise me.”

He promised he wouldn’t.

- o0o-

Late at night, Michael came back. Alone. In the morning, he showed me a Polaroid picture of what looked to me like a bunch of fuzzy brown piglets and explained that the litter had produced only one male, the runt, where the arrow pointed.

“Lots of detail,” I said, sarcastically and handed him back the photo.

“Well I took some videos too,” he said.

" Maybe later."

“Oh...c’mon... It’ll just be a few minutes, give it a look.”

Michael was obviously trying to sell me on this dog. I wasn’t interested but figured I could at least play along.

The cam’s screen showed a not very clear picture of a largish hamster-like thing walking unsteadily and not very happily on some back porch pathway.

“His sisters are always biting him and pushing him away from their mothers teat,” Michael explained.

“That’s too bad,” I said.

“He’s very sweet.”

“Maybe so. I’m sorry he’s being picked on, Mike, but I really don’t want a dachshund, okay? I’m serious.”

Michael let it rest.

-o0o-

Ding Dong.....

I looked up from the couch were I was having a late Saturday morning coffee. “Who the hell could that be?” I wondered.

“It’s Sue, the breeder, from Modesto,” Michael said as he rushed to push the buzzer.

“The what?!! Michael!!!”

He was out the door, headed for the elevators.

“Michaeellll!!!”

Moments later, Michael reappeared at the door with Sue, a broad, cheerful woman in her fifties holding a black basket in her arms. As I walked toward the hallway, Sue bent down and let this fuzzy thing out of the basket. It all happened so fast.

It stood there in the hallway, a little uncertain, but looking straight at me, as I looked straight down at him. We moved toward one another and next I knew I was on the floor and he was in my arms.

[2]
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