Stella Barks

I've set up a Google alert that sends me an email once a week if my name turns up as a search result. Lately it's been this one over and over. Which reminded me of a posting about Stella I wrote in September of 2006 when I was going through dog withdrawals but which I never published. It seems awfully deep and moody which probably is why I never published it.

Stella is a good dog. She’s not a great dog, I’ve met some great dogs, but she is pretty awesome just the same. I mean, god knows, I’ve known worse dogs. I’m sure everyone has their stories. But I get along with dogs and I got along great with Stella. She was smart for the average dog and had a lot of good qualities above and beyond most dogs. But Stella’s real failing was that she barks. A lot. Which is ironic because when we picked her up at animal control she was the only dog not barking. She was just sitting there, doing the opposite of barking. That was the quality that initially drew me to her, her not barking-ness

But Stella does bark, it’s in her genes. She’s half Shepard, half Akita and all guard dog, and those dogs bark. So complaining about Stella barking is like complaining about the sun being bright or the night being dark. It is what it is. I could teach her a million tricks. I could place a bowl of barbecued steaks in front of that dog and she wouldn’t touch it, for hours on end, until I told her to go for it.

But as soon as someone knocked at the door there was nothing I could do. Nothing I could do. Because Stella barks. I didn’t know that when I first met her in that cage, perhaps she knew what it would taken to be let out of there and to come home. But that is they way it, she, is. I suspect she can’t change it anymore than I can, so really I just hope she has found someone who doesn’t mind the barking and I think she has, which is great. Which is really what we all want, someone who doesn’t mind when we do the things we can’t help but do, and someone who we, in turn, don’t notice doing such things.