This strokes me on so many different levels…This is one of them.
Once upon a time, in a galaxy…or an apartment complex not very far from where I am right now, I was a graduate student. And most of my classes were at night. I didn’t plan it that way, they just were.
I would get home between 11:00 pm and midnight, my brain absolutely ON FIRE because of all the information that I had just crammed into it (I LOVED MY GRADUATE CLASSES, I CANNOT THINK OF ONE I DIDN’T, EVEN THE ONES THAT SCARED CHALLENGED THE CRAG OUT OF ME) and I was also STARVING because I had been in a classroom for hours and hours and thinking is hungry work. Hubs was deployed, and it was just me, and Grendel, my beloved “Keeshond”. More on that breed designation to follow.
Now Grendel was not just a dog. He was a Noble Beast. He had dignity, gravitas, and so much character that when you looked into his eyes you could feel the presence of his soul…
When I came home, he and I would both enjoy a midnight supper, and I would hit the books…(Often, this would continue until past dawn.) Therefore, he would gravely importune me with his requirement for a promenade sometime in the wee small hours of the morning.
Did I feel nervous about going out alone, a tiny solo female in the darkness of night walking my dog? Me? Not at all! I would simply walk with my eyes and ears alert, knowing NOTHING that flew, slithered, crawled, or walked on two or four legs, (seen or unseen*) could EVER sneak up on Grendel, Noble Beast Extraordinaire…the few times we heard anything remotely suspicious, I would begin chatting casually, “Grendel, hurry up, if you would be so kind. Just because you are a wolf-cross, don’t think about being disobedient. I don’t care how big those teeth are…”
In the darkness, he DID look very like a wolf-cross, and at the time, wolf-cross dogs were all in the news…he was registered as a Keeshond but truly looked like a Wolf Spitz. Fifty pounds of love that left his paw prints on my heart, forever. I leave these photos of Tørben, our rescue dog. We got him when he was five years old, and in many ways he is built like Grendel, with coat coloring, size, muzzle, and heavy build. I do not have any of Grendel’s photos digitized…
No one ever came up to us, even on the rowdiest of weekends…Sadly, the neighborhood was becoming more and more disorderly. It wasn’t the same quiet neighborhood I had moved into before hubs had shipped out…
Still, I would walk about, talking to Grendel, making my “strange noises.” Grendel would just look at me and give a canine equivalent of a silent eye roll…until the night some hoodlums on drugs decided it would be a good idea to break into our first floor apartment. (Yes, hubs was still on deployment.) When the police found them, the trio needed a clean pair of shorts. “GOD DAMN…SHE GOT A WOLF IN HER CRIB” they were hollering.
The fact they still had the crowbar and sawed-off shotguns did not lend much credence to their ravings. The stink, though… (They had already tried multiple apartments before mine, (which is why the police caught them so quickly after Grendel chased them off, still carrying all their tools and weapons) but had the most success in their attempt before Grendel showed up, snarling, foaming at the mouth with his baying and howling, teeth gleaming as the snapped at the glass as though he was going to chew through it, spittle flying with the force of his fierce barking. To make matters more interesting, he was backlit, making him appear even larger that he really was! At the time, I thought he had lost his mind as he ran from window to window and finally a door. He was truly chasing them from pillar to post, not allowing them to concentrate on any one point of entry. I didn’t notice his bolting off at first because I had my headphones on (mine “went to eleven”) as I rocked out while writing about Shakespeare’s roles of women in his later plays. When I heard the commotion, I wasn’t frightened as much thinking he was throwing a fit about that “damned raccoon!” again, and was concerned I was going to get in trouble about the ruckus he was creating. It wasn’t until the police showed me how badly the window frames were pried apart, and the buckled door jamb, that I realized how truly perilous my situation had been. The way the volume of my headphones had been on, I never would have heard any intruders until it was far too late. Grendel saved me from possible fates I do not even want to consider.
Good boy, Grendel. Good boy. With him snoozing at my feet, every essay, paper, exam, and scrap of homework I ever turned in came back with stellar grades, and I gained insights on the material I read that remain with me still. I knew I could always walk making the strangest noises I wished, at any time, in any place, because he was with me. He was truly my familiar.
Still Tørben…but looking so much like Grendel with the happy expression. He doesn’t have that spark that made Grendel…more, but I love him for being him.
*Oh, THAT story? My husband and myself are firmly convinced to this day Grendel could see things on another plane, and would instantly go into “guard” mode at my feet…Old New Orleans houses certainly have the potential for entertaining unseen guests, but they aren’t the only places in the world where Grendel threw himself into “guard” position before me without obvious cause..But that’s a story for another time.
Again, the last photo is not Grendel (or Tørben)…although the grumpy expression is him all over. “I am trying to protect you, you’re the higher life form, can’t you figure this out?! I don’t ask for much, a little thanks would go a long way…! And a cookie. A cookie would be lovely. Oh, and a chew toy. And some skritches behind the ear. It’s not like I ask for much…! You took my BALLS, woman…! But do I hold a grudge? I do NOT.”