DOGS OF THE CROSSING: TREATS FOR YOUR BEST FRIEND

The dogs of The Crossing smile on Sunday morning. Actually, they smile every day. If there is any true happiness in The Crossing it belongs to the dogs. The people leave in the morning for the drudgery of the real world—clients, time clocks, students, appointments, and classes. The dogs see us off lovingly from the driveway. “I’ll be good,” their long, sloping tails seem to wag. “I’ll take care of things while you’re gone,” their sincere looks reassure us. “Come back soon!”

And then, well, we suspect the dogs have pretty dynamic social lives once we leave and their day begins. It is an open range in our neighborhood. A great deal of their time is spent sunning themselves in the middle of street. When a car comes down the road, they look up at it begrudgingly. The car must stop as the dogs slowly pull themselves up from the pavement and walk in a leisurely manner to the side of the road.

My dog Jubilee sometimes gets up from her post in the road’s center and wanders over to Concetta’s house. This is also where Scully lives. Jubilee picks up Scully’s dog food filled dish in her mouth and carries it back to our yard. She lies in the tall grass and nibbles. Scully sulks on her porch, not having the nerve to hold her ground against my she-bully Husky.

The dogs’ day usually begins at Lydia’s house, the unofficial mayor of The Crossing. She starts her own day with a morning walk along the river. With pockets full of dog treats, she heads out of her fenced yard, followed by her two dogs, Marengo and Billy. Yes, she seems to have named one of her dogs after the ex-husband who continues to reside with her. She swears it wasn’t intentional: “He just looks like a Billy.”

The other dogs meet her in the street for their daily morning snack, one of many to come as the day progresses. They even have the mailman and the meter reader trained to deliver them snacks on their rounds.

Rocket, the lanky Golden Retriever-Lab mix, will lope along behind Lydia on her walk. Jubilee will not leave the neighborhood and abandon her watch. Scully is a wild card. Maybe she’ll stay; maybe she’ll go. Mostly Scully will choose whatever situation is most likely to yield a game of fetch. She’s one of those compulsive retriever types.

Lydia seems to like dogs more than she does people. She is a tall-angled woman with a regal mass of curly red hair crowning a very Roman profile. Her sharp blue eyes scan for information as she walks the neighborhood surrounded by her pack of dogs. "Who is that man on Concetta’s porch? What the hell is Gus building now? I wish I could take a weed-whacker to that mess of weeds in their yard."

Marengo, a Pitbull-mix, was discovered by Lydia about 10 years ago. Lydia found her up in the desolate area above us where the old train tracks used to run. Marengo was skinny and wild, living off marmots, which she hunted down with the savagery of a hyena. Though she’s been tamed by Lydia, it is wise to call her name before entering her domain. When she comes at you full throttle, teeth exposed and barking ferociously, you wonder if she remembers that only yesterday you were petting her head and if she ever longs to sink her teeth into something living, as she did in the wild days of her youth.

Billy is another of Lydia’s orphans. He’s a miniature collie whose mellow and kind disposition is in stark contrast to Marengo’s fierce demeanor. Lydia shaves him in summer when it gets too hot and his fur starts to mat. It’s not a very becoming look for poor Billy. In fact, he looks more miniature anteater than collie.

Lydia writes anonymous letters to neglectful dog owners in The Flats, the crime plagued area right above The Crossing. In broad daylight she marches to their back doors and tapes the notes where they are sure to find them upon returning home after their hard day’s work.

“I’m your dog,” the letter proclaims. “Why do you leave me outside all day tied to this chain? All I want is to be loved.”

Rocket belongs to Hank and Morgan, but since the arrival of their triplets, he has been having sleepovers at other dogs’ houses, where he gets more attention. Pre-triplets Rocket truly fit his name. Bounding over fences, he seemed more gazelle than dog. He was a nuisance. He used to steal my wooden porch “art.” I called it art, though no one else probably saw it that way, (pieces of driftwood I collected on the Oregon coast.) Rocket dragged all my wooden treasures over to his yard, where he gnawed the wave-twisted driftwood into fetching sticks. He dug holes in all our yards. When we drove through The Crossing he loped dangerously near the front wheels of our cars. At the crossroads we would mutter, “We need to do something about that dog.” Even by Crossing standards he was undisciplined.

Postpartum Rocket, on the other hand, is depressed. His house has been taken over, first by screaming babies, and then by the troublesome toddlers they became. His ragged sleep-deprived owners have no time for him. Now he mopes around the neighborhood with a drooping head, his spirit crushed. Rocket goes from house to house with sad, wrinkled eyes, his boyhood luster gone. He spends a great deal of time with Gus, Shawn, and Gus’s big Shepherd, Zoë. Rocket often spends the night in Gus’s house, even sleeping in the bed where Gus’s ex-wife used to sleep.

“It seems unhygienic,” we shrug while gathered at the crossroads.

Ralph’s dog Maui used to live in the Crossing, but now it seems he’s dead. We haven’t seen him in a couple of years. It was painful to watch him hobble down Falls Ave. with his arthritic legs and ulcered skin, his red hair matted around big fatty tumors. Legend has it he also might just be a little burned out from having marijuana hits blown into his face while visiting Lydia’s hippie parties.

He had one great moment of passion in his elderly days. When my son, Marcus, adopted a prissy and hyper little Dachshund named Tasha who he dressed in a sweater and adorned with a spiked collar. One day Tasha pranced about the neighborhood with her slender tail especially rigid. She sauntered about provocatively with her tight little back end high in the air. She was in heat.

The fire of her instinctual procreative urge penetrated through to even Maui’s dulled senses. He made his way down Falls Street, despite the midday sun and his many maladies. For a moment, he was but a strutting young pup. He bobbed his graying head curiously and even mustered up a little bounce in his walk. He sniffed about Tasha’s firm little body and there seemed to be a little sparkle coming from his usually faded eyes. Feeling that it just wasn’t right to allow this mangy old dog to have his way with this sweet young thing, Marcus ushered Tasha and her frantically wagging tail into the house. Poor defeated Maui slowly made his way back to his saggy porch and the dish of dried generic dog food and waited out his last days.

A dog’s life, even in The Crossing, has its sorrows.

The dogs of The Crossing become legendary after death. That was especially the case with Nose. Nose passed away nearly 15 years ago. Nose was deaf and blind. He belonged to Lydia, Billy, and their girls, Shalia and Megan. Billy the handy-man wrote a series of children’s books in which Nose accomplishes great feats and even does a little bit of yoga.

Our Doctor Gus believes his deceased dog Clovis, a Terrier-type dog with a corkscrew tail, had Buddha spirit. He maintained a special peace with all the other dogs of the neighborhood. Gus imitates the manner in which Clovis sniffed the air and meditated on his surroundings. “One day I said, ‘Clovis, you want to ride?’ Clovis began to run toward the truck and then just fell over dead. I cried for weeks.”

Gus has built a shrine where Clovis is buried. A figurine of a fawn adorns the grave and a statue of St. Frances Assisi, saint of animals, gazes kindly downward. One hand extends and seems to sweep out with an open hand to all the dogs in The Crossing.

Doggy Treats:

• 2 cups flour- (you have the option of using 1 cup white flour and 1 cup whole wheat or 2 cups white flour.)

• 1/2 cup peanut butter

• 2 eggs.

Mix these three ingredients in a bowl, adding water sparingly until it reaches a consistency where the dough can be rolled. Place the dough on parchment paper so it isn't quite so messy. Use cookie cutters. Place on an uncreased cookie sheet. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.