Cinnamon

Above all I love dogs, no: above all I love doggies. They're like little children, except that they have no wiles or potential for evil. Just the natural, instinctive feeling of self-preservation and living in the moment. Oh, if only I could live in the moment; if only I could react spontaneously; if only I had no agenda that tempted me to lie, to cheat, to manipulate, to deceive. When I look into my doggy's eyes, I see no need for deception, no need for manipulating other dogs to get that bone, no need to steal money in order to buy a nicer doggy bed, no denying that I've had sex with the neighbor's dog. Everything is in the open, everything is honest because there is no need for anything different.

I remember that this love affair began in June 1970.

"Look at the puppies!" exclaimed Jarilyn McCartney as she, her sisters, her brother, and her parents gamboled from their 1968 Dodge Coronet station wagon. "Here they are! Marjoram, Rosemary, Nutmeg, Dill Weed, Thyme, and Cinnamon." Each member of the family brought one of the puppies into the house on that bright, sparkling day nearly forty years ago.

"Mom, can we have one, can we have one?" I asked.

"Yes, Jimmy," she answered; I always hated being called Jimmy; it made me feel so small. "We've already arranged that we're going to take Cinnamon. Except her name's going to be Heather for us, not Cinnamon."

I saw my mother hold little Cinnamon, a 5-pound, 6-week old shetland sheepdog. My heart melted with love and jumped for joy!  "A doggy of our own!  A little play toy!  Someone who'll join our family ... and actually be younger than me!  Someone who is even stupider to me, someone who'll rank even lower on the totem pole!" I thought.

And so it began, my forty-year love affair with the poochie. There was Heather, who lived just a lightning-quick 11 years, and her successors: Lucy, a sheltie we got in 1982 who lived almost 15 years, dying in my arms at the veterinarian; Lizzy, the third sheltie I got in 1997, who lives to this day with my ex-partner; Augie, a neurotic crazy spin toy of a sheltie, Lizzy's little brother, who died unexpectedly last year at 8 years; and my own current doggy, the itinerant Chester, my 5-year old little boy of a shiba inu. He's my shiba "oh no!"

No matter what happens, I know I can always count on my doggie, and always have -- from Cinnamon to Chester.