walking the dog

If we listen, we learn from our pets.


Fifteen years ago, I doubt I would have put the beach at the top of my list of favorite places. As a family, we visited there occasionally when I was young. But, as an adult, it was a place to go for legal and political conferences.


Professor Jiggs changed that perspective.


Thirteen years ago, I took him with me to a bar function at the beach. He was eight months old, but every Golden Retriever gene fired simultaneously. He had a passion for water, and that big pond was his to play in.


I doubt that I saw much of the conference. I certainly do not remember it. But it started Jiggs's love affair with the beach.


No soccer mom was as dedicated to her child as I was to driving that dog. For twelve years, I spent many a Saturday driving him to various beaches. Where he tried to teach me that all of my legal and political obsessions were nothing when compared to what mattered. The sand. The surf. The birds. But, most of all, the smells.


And that meant learning dog time. Living in the moment. "Those dogs coming down the road may never get here. I need to figure out this smell. Right here. Right now."


Some days, we would make the hour drive to Pacific City, he would get out of the car, walk around for five minutes, and be ready to leave. Other days, we would walk for hours until he was about to drop, but he refused to get in the truck.


When I started thinking about moving to Mexico, Jiggs had to be a part of that move. And the beach was going to be a big part of the equation.


And that was the genesis of Factor #10 -- long walks with Professor Jiggs before breakfast and after sunset.


I unashamedly lifted that notion from Nancy's blog. Nancy and Paul took their Pacific Northwest dogs with them to Mazatlan. They were an inspiration that Jiggs could do it, as well.


Those of you who have been reading the blog for some time know that the Jiggs portion of the dream has been tenuous since December of 2007. He started losing the use of both back legs. The muscle structure just disappeared until he looked like a hot rod creation of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth.


But he survived long enough to make the trip down. Then he survived the trip -- barely. And now he has made it through a month of health crisis to become a familiar sight on the Melaque beach.


Up until two weeks ago, I was allowing Jiggs to get accustomed to his new haircut. It was short enough that I could not take him out in the sun -- especially, the hot sun. So, we have been taking walks in the early morning, at dusk, and around midnight.


They are not aerobic walks. But they are usually substantial in time.

The best part is just spending the time with him.


He thinks the best part is getting to greet new people. Children are fascinated by his size. Almost to a child, they run up to him and ask me if they can pet him. How old he is. Is he a boy or a girl. Sometimes: Does he bite.


And he eats up the attention.


He tries the same routine with teens and adults, but most of them recoil from him. For the same reason: his size. If he were not a Golden Retriever, he could be a formidable dog.


When I was having trouble finding a veterinarian for him, I started wondering if I should have brought him. If I had remembered the first rule of dogdom (live in the moment), I would have stopped worrying. Because if I had not brought him, I would have missed the following two days together.


The first was last Tuesday. We got up early for our pre-breakfast walk knowing that a storm was on the way in mere hours. For some reason, Jiggs insisted on walking the beach that morning. The temperature was in the 70s, and he seemed a bit livelier than he had been for some time.


Just as we were about as far as we get from the house on our beach walks, huge drops of rains started falling and the wind started gusting. As far as I knew it was the leading edge of the storm.


But the petrichor had barely begun to hang in the air, and years fell off of Jiggs. He began running -- well, trotting -- and twisting in circles. He seemed to be saying, if this is a hurricane, we are going to enjoy it. As I told you earlier, he sulked all the way home when I pulled the plug on his circus act.


Kim of Boston made a comment this week that it seems as if I have confined myself to the house. I haven't. But I am certainly not getting out as much as I would like.


One reason I came to Mexico was to pursue my archaeology hobby. All of that is on hold for right now. I need to work out some sort of schedule where I can be gone on short trips during the day. For example, I could easily do a day trip to Colima. But not with Jiggs.


On Friday, I tried a little test to get both of us out of the house on a guys' road trip. We headed north to La Manzanilla, the littler beach town that introduced me to this part of Mexico. I had a nice conversation with a friend, and Jiggs got to meet his dog.


We then walked the beach at La Manzanilla. The surf is minimal there. Jiggs walked in the waves up to his belly. And that was good enough for him.


I had never been to the little village of Tenacatita, north across Tenacatita Bay from La Manzanilla. La Manzanilla makes Melaque look like Los Angeles; Tenacatita makes La Manzanilla look like San Francisco.


Tenacatita is extremely small. But it has an almost perfect beach for swimming. Nice sand. Shallow rise. Uncrowded. (Deserted would not be far from accurate.)


We stopped for another walk. I made a big temperature miscalculation. There is a wide strip of dry sand between the road and the wet beach sand. And that strip was hot. I ended up carrying Jiggs across it. He never would have made it, otherwise.


But once his paws hit the wet sand, he was prancing. He was even brave enough to lie down in the sand and let the waves wash up to him. (In Oregon, he let the waves wash over him. But that was a younger dog.)


One day while sitting around a Hollywood pool, Greta Garbo turned to Cole Porter and asked: "Are you happy?" Porter paused, thought about the question, and responded: "Yes. I think I am." Garbo looked off into the middle distance and said: "That must be very strange."

When asked why I chose Mexico, I guess I should answer it the way Jiggs would: because this a great place to spend today.


And like Cole Porter, I can say: Yes. I think I am happy. With life. With my dog. With Mexico.