Taking Swirl to the Symposium

Tomorrow we are going to the Midwest Sled Dog Symposium in Curtis, Michigan. It’s being put on by the people who used to own our dog, Swirl. We’re taking him along to say hi to the other sled dogs and because if we leave him here he will eat all the pens and soap in the house.

I’m worried that his former owners, the sled dog kennel where he was born and raised, will think he’s too fat. Or too thin. Or unhappy in some way. He’s had a big coat blow (that’s the northern dog term for massive shedding) and his normally thick bushy tail isn’t. This bothers me and I’ve been obsessing about his tail all day, looking at it from afar like I do my car when I convince myself that my left front tire is low again.

And then there’s the no balls thing.

We took him to Pet Fest in Milwaukee and a pair of vet techs saw his shaved right leg where he’d had an IV and asked what surgery he’d had. When we said we’d had him neutered, they fist bumped the air. Yes! they said, the best thing you could have done for him, avoids a ton of problems. Still, I feel like he lost his wilderness sled dog self and wonder if his former owners will see right away that Swirl’s been citified.

Because he’s been finding weird things to chew – like pens and soap – we’ve been trying to run him more. Today on the beach, he ran up and then alongside a group of five women having a girls weekend in Grand Marais. They stopped and petted him, looked around, and studied his tags as if it was improbable that such a fine dog would belong to the two people in hand me down jackets lagging behind. I called him back to us to show he was ours but, of course, he turned tail and ran. Not for long, though. Soon he looked back to see where we were and then came barrelling across the sand to skid to a stop and turn around so I could scratch his back. It made me feel like a sheepherder in Ireland who could, with a whistle, have her dog turn on a dime and fetch up an errant sheep gone off in the woods. That is a special feeling.

So my goal tomorrow is to bring my dog to see his old kin and do it without apology. I am hoping he smiles with his tongue hanging out as if he could have never envisioned being so happy. And I hope he jumps back in our truck and doesn’t have to be hauled away under protest. Like he’s homesick or filled with regret.

My daughter thinks I’ve gone around the bend about this dog.