Puppy Love– D-O-G:

It was summer, the year after I had graduated from the University Of British Columbia. Jean Chretien was the prime minister, Gary Kasparov was in the midst of a furious duel with Deep Blue, and Donovan Bailey beat Michael Johnson to prove that a Canadian was the fastest man in the world. I was a bad Generation X stereotype personified. I lived in a room in my parent’s house that was decorated with Star Wars wallpaper. When I was a kid it was the coolest wallpaper in the neighborhood, when I was in high school it was unique, when I was in university it was campy, when I had graduated from university and was desperately searching for a job it was a reminder that not all things in life turn out according to plan.


Unfortunately, I had realized five years too late that when the employment councillor had recommended that I go into education because of the great job opportunities; what he had really meant was that I should take five years of expensive training so that there would be someone qualified to cover a history class every Friday when the regular teacher was away. Nevertheless, in spite of employment being sparse and student loans being difficult to pay off, I can not complain that it was a bad year. I had been reunited with high school friends and I was able to talk to the girl who was the first real love of my life at night on the phone.
I had never been much of a dog person. I had always fancied myself a cat lover. We had had both dogs and cats growing up, but the dogs had always been mine and the cats had always been my brother, Jon’s. When I returned home from university, my brother had started the family that neither of us was destined to have by bringing home a baby Akita. He had named the dog
D-O-G.

By the time that I met him a year had passed, and he was no longer a little bundle of puppy fluff. The dog that I met was a pure breed Akita who already weighed over a hundred pounds and was growing by the day. He was a dog who ate enough for two and whose body was barely big enough to contain the heart that loved everyone around him.

I ran every day that summer to train for a job fire fighting with the B.C. forest services. We did not miss a single day on our training schedule, every day I ran and that huge, fluffy dog insisted on coming with me in spite of his heavy fur coat and the heat of summer. I would like to tell you that our hard work paid off; but two people had better times on the beep test, and jobs were limited and times were tough. In spite of this though, I gained something more valuable than a high paying job, though at that time in my life it was just barely so, I gained a friend who would do anything for me.

I was hired on to substitute teach in the September, and it turned out to be the right thing to do long term. Even though work was sparse, life was good. Every night I would call Nicole who was in her final year at U.B.C., and during the day I would get to teach if I was lucky. If I was somewhat less lucky, I would have the day free to spend as I chose. Some of those days I spent with D-O-G, and the more time that I spent with him the more I was convinced that I wanted a dog of my own. Of course, that would have to wait because my parents did not want another dog and I was barely making enough money to support myself let alone a dog.

Nevertheless, I often saw D-O-G during the course of that year, and he was a catalyst for some instinct deep within me. The seed had been planted in fertile ground and I would have my own dog.