{"id":183,"date":"2015-04-17T23:11:30","date_gmt":"2015-04-17T23:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kathrynberlabooks.wordpress.com\/?p=183"},"modified":"2015-04-17T23:11:30","modified_gmt":"2015-04-17T23:11:30","slug":"the-orange-dog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/2015\/04\/17\/the-orange-dog\/","title":{"rendered":"The Orange Dog"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Orange<\/a><\/p>\n

The best dog I\u2019ve ever known doesn\u2019t have a name. To the man who occasionally feeds her she\u2019s just a whistle. To my son who adored her, she became Orange Dog for the color of her coat.<\/span><\/p>\n

I should add that I haven\u2019t seen Orange Dog in over a year. I\u2019m not even sure in the rough and tumble world of dogs she lives in, that she survives to this day. And I have no way of checking on her wellbeing because Orange Dog doesn\u2019t exactly belong to anyone except herself.<\/span><\/p>\n

I should mention that Orange Dog is a potcake dog and perhaps a word or two about exactly what that means. In the Bahamas (and also Turks and Caicos) the potcake is iconic. They are the descendants of an interbreeding of dogs brought to the islands by\u00a0waves of colonizers over many hundreds,\u00a0even thousands,\u00a0of years.\u00a0The name derives from the food the dog was traditionally fed by the Bahamians\u2014 the unwanted crust of rice and peas left over on the bottom of the cooking pot. These were the scraps that tied man to dog. But the potcake isn\u2019t totally reliant on man; it supplements its diet through foraging.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back to Orange Dog. She came with the house, we were told by the owner. I think the reality was the house came with her. This house was on one of the many outer islands in the Bahamas\u2014a gorgeous strip of land one hundred and ten miles long and one mile wide, vanishing to mere yards in places. Also coming with the house was another dog whom we shall call Black Dog for the purpose of this story, because we did. <\/span><\/p>\n

Black Dog was a decent fellow and God knows he thought the world of Orange Dog, but he was old (so old that at one time we were positively convinced he was dead). Perhaps he\u2019d seen enough of life to have lost a bit of his enthusiasm for it. But kudos to him that whenever Orange Dog got it in her head to go off on an adventure (which happened frequently), Black Dog dutifully followed along.<\/span><\/p>\n

She was overjoyed to welcome us to the home she\u2019d adopted. Black Dog, not so much. It wasn\u2019t that she expected food from us\u2014whatever man to dog food existed was tossed carelessly by the gardener on the driveway whenever he came. <\/span><\/p>\n

Our first night in the house we were all awakened at 3 AM by pandemonium outside our windows. Naturally, we\u00a0feared the worst\u2014a murder, WWIII, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It turned out to be Orange Dog and Black Dog vs. a roving band of potcakes (probably 7 or 8 in number). Using military tactics that would turn a WestPoint graduate green with envy, the Orange and Black defended their territory against the marauders who came seeking the food left out on the driveway. <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a military tactician but the Orange and Black did all that stuff like \u201csecuring the perimeter\u201d and \u201ctaking the high ground\u201d to counteract the \u201chammer and anvil\u201d and \u201cencirclement\u201d of the marauders. Alright, that last part I admit to copying from Wikipedia, but you get the point. As we cheered them on from our windows (okay, as we grumbled about being woken up in the middle of the night) Orange and Black finally vanquished the intruders.<\/span><\/p>\n

The next day when I suggested removing the food from the driveway at night to relieve the dogs from the nightly assaults, the food was simply removed. Period. No matter. Orange Dog pivoted to rats and possum which I assume she shared with Black Dog because he continued to live. We added whatever human food we could to the mix. After all, it was our unfortunate suggestion that robbed them of the food they were receiving before we got there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Did I mention the sorry state of Orange and Black Dog\u2019s coat? Flea ridden. Clumps of hair missing from incessant scratching. It was heartbreaking. And Orange Dog showed signs of multiple litters although she was quite young.<\/span><\/p>\n

But she bonded with us instantly since we came with the house. We generally pet her with our feet, not willing to trust what we might pick up through our hands. She didn\u2019t mind. She rolled over and luxuriated in the human connection through a foot rub. She particularly bonded with Lucas probably because he loved her so.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Lucas went surfing, Orange Dog (and therefore Black Dog) went with him just to make sure he was okay. As he paddled up and down the coast on his board, they followed along on the sandy beach, carefully avoiding the water. When Lucas was quite far from the trail leading back to our house, Orange Dog became concerned about Lucas\u2019s sandals on the beach. At that point, she decided that saving Lucas\u2019s sandal was probably more important than saving Lucas himself since she had no interest in getting wet and, besides, Black Dog was most likely complaining about putting forth all this effort on behalf of the visitors. <\/span><\/p>\n

So Orange Dog picked up Lucas\u2019s sandal and carried it all the way back to our house where we eventually found it, unchewed, near the front door. She probably asked Black Dog to carry the other one because, after all, she only had one mouth for carrying purposes. But Black Dog couldn\u2019t be bothered with these new humans who were so dumb as to mistake him for being dead.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are many other Orange Dog stories but the stories weren\u2019t what captivated us. It was her spirit, so completely open and trusting and yet fiercely independent and truly joyous. We should all wish for such a spirit. We should all pray for such a friend.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think about Orange Dog all the time. Lucas does too. We hope she\u2019s well and that Black Dog is still by her side, reluctantly participating in her adventures. Steadfastly assisting in her defense against marauding bands of intruding potcakes. We wish God\u2019s speed to the efforts of the Bahamian government and the Bahamas Humane Society to spay and neuter the potcakes, and perhaps administer a bi-annual dose of flea and tick preventative medication. Sometimes I wish we could have brought Orange Dog back with us but Lucas reminds me she would never be happy without her freedom to roam, and roam she did. We\u2019d run into her miles away from her house in the unlikeliest places. <\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps one day we\u2019ll go back and see Orange Dog again. Or perhaps one day you will. If you ever do, please give her tummy a tickle on our behalf. And maybe just a dose of flea medicine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Orange<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\"Orange<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \"Orange<\/a><\/p>\n

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The best dog I\u2019ve ever known doesn\u2019t have a name. To the man who occasionally feeds her she\u2019s just a whistle. To my son who adored her, she became Orange Dog for the color of her coat. I should add that I haven\u2019t seen Orange Dog in over a year. I\u2019m not even sure in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}