By Banah Isaac Wright’s Hollow, New Hampshire
March 2, 2023
Baron
He was the most stunning dog you could ever imagine, but he wasn’t that way when he came. He was a scared bag of bones. We met when Bonnie-it’s always Bonnie-found him at a friend’s rescue shelter, and came knocking on my door, because she knew my family had lost a German Shepherd named Baron when I was a kid.
Jewel was over a year old at the time, and was exhibiting signs of separation anxiety when I had to go to work. I say “signs.” She didn’t like being left alone, and she was stating her case plainly. I came home, twice, to find the living room floor littered with, strewn everywhere, bags of beans, split peas, rice, blackeye peas, lentils. She had taken them off the kitchen shelves and ripped them to pieces.
I was so mad I was speechless. Good thing. Silently I pointed to the mess. Silently I put her in her crate. Silently I swept, vacuumed and cleaned it up. Quietly I let her out. She was subdued, but the next day she did it again. I knew it was separation anxiety; she never did destructive things before, so I said, “Hey God, we have a problem. I think Jewel needs another dog.” I mean, the cats weren’t doing it for her, obviously.
Enter Bonnie, that November afternoon, right on cue.
“There’s this dog-he’s a Belgian Tervuren Sheepdog, and his name is Baron. He belonged to a supposedly good family, but the husband lost his job and started to drink. He started beating his wife, and one night Baron had enough and attacked the guy. The guy beat him off with a chair-you should see his head-and the cops came. The wife is in the women’s shelter and Baron is over at my friend’s shelter. You’ve got to go see him.”
Of course, we went immediately. Tom came out and led me over to a doghouse. Baron was chained there during the day, and he was pacing back and forth, eyeing us. Tom walked up and put his arms around the dog. I approached slowly and held my hand out, and Tom said “No, you’ve got to put your hands on this dog, so he knows you’re not scared.” So I did, and this huge longhaired black and fawn beast with the skin hanging in loose folds and the bloody wounded ear quieted at once. We had an instant bond. He didn’t want us to leave.
I said he and Jewel would have to meet, so the next day we came over and did the introductions, or they did. The two of them were smitten, tails waving, leaping around, absolutely besotted.
Well. If Jewel liked him, there was the answer. I told Tom I would take him, and left my oldest smelly sweats with him so he could get a good whiff of his new home overnight.
Next day, I told Jewel I would be “right back.” And drove off to get Baron. I’d brought an old leash, unhooked him from the chain, snapped on the leash, and he jumped right into the truck. He crowded as close as he could get, and I just kept talking to him all the way to the hardware store.
He had a beat-up leather collar I was keen to get rid of fast. Bad smells, bad memories. I selected a royal purple collar with a matching leash. Then, his very own food bowl, and a big water dish, because now I had two dogs. And a treat, a big one. When I got back to the truck, I poured water for him, and he drank like no tomorrow. Off came that nasty old collar, on went the royal purple. With his black hair and magnificent head, it transformed him. “You’ll never be the same again,” I told him. He sat erect now, eyes straight ahead, all the way home.
I put the leash on to go inside. “Here he is, Jewel,” and they were so happy to see each other you’d think they’d always been together.
I had to go outside to do something, so Jewel came, and not knowing if he’d stay yet, I left Baron inside. But there burst out of him the most heartrending cry, deep, long, desperate, and so, I said, ” You want to come? Will you stay?”
No need to worry! He never left. The two of them played like puppies. He leapt upon me, kissed my face, ran all around, huge feathered tail waving, black hair and fawn-colored legs, silver undercoat, streaming like a banner. When I called, he came. Running. Jewel too. That very first day, I learned something I never knew existed. Hearts have elastic strings. We were a triangle of heartstrings. They moved like a unit, poetry in motion, and if I called, they’d both come running, at a tear, at attention. “Did you call?”
Early on, it became evident Baron had digestive trouble. It was a very nervous stomach. Anything commercially cheap, or pork, God forbid, was out of the question. It took a month and the kitchen rug hit the dump before he was better, and even after that, occasionally that poor tense gut would erupt.
He went to my vet’s in the first week for a checkup. His leash manners were perfect, and I’d combed all the mats out of his hair. The bloody wound in his ear was healing. But, at his size, he should have weighed about 100 pounds; on the scale he was 75 pounds. My vet, a wonderful no-nonsense Old-Yankee-stock farmer with a heart of gold, listened as I told Baron’s story. When I got to the part “so one night the dog had enough of the guy beating his wife and attacked him,” he shouted “Good dog!” and scooped the astonished Baron up onto the exam table. He ruffled his head, checked him over, and gave him his shots. All the staff admired the hero. Baron always turned into a wimp at the vet’s; I’d have to hold his head in my arms, but he rather liked it there. They liked him.
In fact, he knew he had a very good thing with me, and Jewel. He became very protective. If someone came to the house or even the truck, I had to keep a watchful eye and hand until people were settled. Then, he would come and greet them properly. But no one would ever have tried getting near the truck when he and Jewel were in it alone, ever. Or the house. A very few people , my Dad, Bonnie and her girls, could do it and he was just fine. And he was beloved at the boarding kennel-but I wasn’t there. He got friendly. Then, I’d pick them up. At first, they’d just stand there, dazed. Then, “Oh, it’s really you!” You could almost hear the words. Jewel would bark like crazy. Baron gave the same heart-tearing howl cry I’d heard the first day, and suddenly we’d all land in a heap on the kennel floor, crying, slobbering, hugging like mad. Then we’d go, and all the staff had to say goodbye. One girl would say, “Goodbye, Baron,” and he’d kiss her gently. “Did he give you any trouble?’ I asked. “Oh no,” Beth said, “they were wonderful. I wish all dogs were like them.” We’d walk out of there and cram into the little Toyota pickup truck, so proud. My dogs were stars!
At home, once Baron’s health was restored, he became the most magnificent dog. Together, with Jewel’s leggy elegance and their colors blending perfectly, they were a sight I couldn’t get enough of. That’s not to say they didn’t come in with half the forest stuck in their long coats. The grooming sessions were endless. The results were worth it; shining blackened silver and fawn, tawny red-gold, all flags flying, chasing each other round and round, change directions, do it again, come in, flop on the floor, wiped out.
Jewel never ripped another bag open again. Instead, she did that to her stuffed animals. She really thought she had something on him there, which she didn’t. Toys were not his thing. But when I’d come home with a new one, she’d take it, a gleam in her eye, tail up, and she’d have a little prance. Then, in front of him, she’d rip it to shreds, kill the squeaker, and have the stuffing all over the living room, and he’d watch, unperturbed. It was a lot easier than cleaning up rice, and the remains rested in her toybox.
But if they got a marrow bone- Aha! She knew where to have him. I would display the bones. They would sit. One bone went to each waiting mouth. Jewel hit the floor and demolished hers. Baron took his, head lifted grandly, tail on parade. He had to take his outside. Where he hid it, or so he thought. Immediately upon finishing hers, Jewel would have to go out. The little wretch would find his fine, meaty bone, and consume it right in front of him. He never minded. He loved her; she could have anything.
Baron loved the cats, and they loved him. They would curl up right in his side and sleep, while he watched over them tenderly.
We’d go on hikes, do the loop, down the four-wheel, up the ridge, through the woods, down again, home, all summer, every morning. There’s a small pond, just the right size for a hot dog. He’d go in, up to his neck and soak in bliss. then climb out, happy. Jewel wouldn’t. She didn’t like deep water.
Now, porcupines. We had a few brushes with them. The first two, with painful extractions, were bad enough. I could get the quills out of Jewel, but Baron would get upset; it hurt. I was hurting him. So, every time, he would land at the vet’s, get knocked out, and de-quilled, and come out groggy, but calm. You’d think he’d learn. But no, he had the urge to conquer.
One morning, on top of the ridge, I spied him pawing at something. It was the most enormous porcupine. Jewel was standing next to me. I looked at her and said, “Don’t you dare…” and the look she gave right back was the most disgusted “Do you think I’m crazy?” Baron came over in a minute in the most horrifying shape, so full of quills, in terrible pain, and we were a mile from the house. I leashed him and we walked home at a clip we’d never done before. Got the keys, popped him in the truck, and he rubbed his wrecked face all over my gleaming new white sweatshirt, in agony all the way. Joseph took him right off. They came out an hour later, Baron stumbling from the anesthesia, but quill free. He never did it again. My sweatshirt was toast.
The two of them truly loved hiking in the woods. We would fairly often run into wildlife. Sometimes we’d go to a nearby State Park, where dogs were permitted to run loose if they were trained well.
One afternoon we took a fairly long trail, and they were loose, but I had the leashes ready in case we saw people, or anything. I don’t know why, but neither one of them noticed the immense Moose with the Rack, right in front of us, but their noses were to the ground. “Baron. Jewel,” I said in a low voice, snapping my fingers. Unbelievably, they came instantly, and I had the leashes on before they had any notion of what they’d missed, and when they did, they stood still. The moose, more alert, had left abruptly, looking neither right nor left, he and those long legs headed down the slope and gone-it only took seconds. Really, I couldn’t believe how good they were, and I told them over and over. When they got loose, they sniffed around but didn’t give chase. They never would have caught up, anyway.
We did have a younger moose stop by the house once. In those days, I was in the habit, since there was so little traffic, of taking Baron and Jewel out for a quick run in the early morning. I’d get a cup of coffee and wrap up in my big red bathrobe. They’d run, I’d stroll. There was a noise. We turned. There was a moose-a very tall young moose with little short antlers. Baron was next to me; I grabbed his collar. Oh, he wanted to go! Jewel went, barking wildly. I’m screaming; she looked the size of a squirrel next to this thing. It was too much for the moose, the red wacky dog, the red screaming human. Exit, Stage Left, straight up the mountain, headed out. I was shaking like a leaf. What if he’d kicked her? Baron was busy checking footprints. There is more than enough excitement on a dirt road.
I never knew just how old Baron was. We estimated about three years when he came. The stomach trouble never cleared up completely, even with a home-cooked diet and good weight management. His insides were just on high alert so much, and I can only guess that that was at the root of what finally did him in.
It was early in May, when he was probably 10, that he started having some gut trouble again, acted uncomfortable. I called the vet, but then he seemed to recover. And then, one evening, he came walking across the living room, lopsided, unsteady. I’d never seen a stroke in a dog, and it was late. We’d have to go in the morning, if I could get him into the truck. ‘
But it didn’t matter what I thought I was going to do. He got worse rapidly, and went down. In the morning, flat out on the kitchen floor, he really couldn’t move. There was no one around; no one was home. I couldn’t lift him. He was in pain, tense. Jewel lay in the kitchen door, watching. I’m stroking him crying, praying, “I shall walk before the Lord in the land of the living.” I wanted a miracle so bad, to see him get up and be his beautiful self. But he started to heave, and cry and retch, and then, as I was holding him so tight, sobbing and saying my Scripture verse, Jewel made a little cry.
Baron left. He was not there.
He wasn’t hurting anymore. I knew. He really was walking before the Lord in the land of the living.
But we were stumbling around, bereft and dazed.
Later in the day I was able to get ahold of my neighbor Jane. It was a foretaste of what we would do with Jewel a year later. We put him in the back of the truck, because he was too huge lying down to put anywhere else. It was Jane, her five strapping kids, 80 year old Bob, the shovels, and the edge of Jane’s pasture, in the shade, near the brook.
Never was I so glad for friends. When he was six feet under, I found a big rock. Bob said, “That’s a good rock.” It was. I planted orange daylilies later, and daffodils. He was next to Jackie, Jane’s old dog. It was a good place for Baron to rest.
Jewel never ripped a stuffed animal open again. If I bought her one, she’d hold it in her paws and rest her chin on it. Baron wasn’t there to watch.
But now? Now they run free. Sometimes, I can hardly wait to see them.
fromanislandinnewhampshire 