Dammit The Amazing Wonderdog

It's rare to see an animal so devoted to a person. When Chicken was in New York last summer, Dammit and I were walking off-leash down Army. A man in work-clothes and a cap, with his head tilted into his phone, walked by and she trotted away behind him. She looked back at me and said, 'Well, it's been fun'. When I told her it wasn't him, she slowly walked back to me. They were not just a man and his dog, they were business partners.

She did everything wrong with impeccable accuracy. Sitting on the bus accelerator during loading, revving the engine to an almost self-combusting level--sending Chicken into a radically self-expressive bus-tizzy. Cooperatively sitting three-quarters of an inch away from the bull-clamp at the end of a tied leash. Always smack-dab in the center of precisely where you want to be, hoping you'll trip and drop some food. She was the most cunning dog I've ever met.

Dammit was a working dog. All working dogs need a job. If you don't give them one, they will make one up. It's in their nature. Dammit's Job was to chase bubbles. She loved it and approached it with voracity all the way until her last days. Even though she couldn't jump, hear, or see, she barked, lunged, and bit at the bubbles cascading around her.

She asked me to do this with her. I couldn't believe it. But she had everything else she wanted: fresh water, food, walk, treat, groom...she kept sniffing my calf and walking over to sniff the big soap bottle, back and forth, until I got the picture. Once I picked up the little bottle for blowing bubbles, she obediently sat down with her tongue hanging out, eager to get her job done.

Thank you for everything, Dammit.