Durant Diary: Entry #6

Durant is sturdy and thick. Everything about him says tough and resilient. He could live on his own in the forest for months. You can tell that just by looking at him. He is really just a profoundly healthy and able animal.

But his teeth are worn away. In some places, his teeth have been ground down to maybe a third of their normal size. It’s as if he spent his whole life chewing on caribou bones or tire irons. We know that in Alaska he liked to carry his metal bowl around, so much so that his musher sent the bowl to us ahead of his arrival in Milwaukee so he would have something familiar, like one might tuck a beloved teddy bear in a toddler’s hospital bag.

We kept the bowl on the back porch. Every morning, he’d throw it in the air, and we’d hear the rattle from upstairs. It almost seemed like a joyful thing. And then a few weeks ago, we saw two splits in the metal, and we threw the bowl out lest he cut his mouth on the ragged edges.

Was he happy when he was grounding his teeth down or bored? Was he waiting to be harnessed so he could run? Was chewing on his bowl or the nearest concrete block a comforting thing? I don’t know.

I know this though. He’s taken to sleeping on the floor next to my side of the bed. He seems to have evicted Tempest from that spot although the eviction process itself was subtle and gentle, nearly imperceptible to the humans. He comes to my side when we wake up waiting to be petted instead of bounding about and when we sit with coffee on the back porch, swaddled in hoodies and knit hats, he tucks his head under my arm while I rub his back.

He is an old dog. He is my old dog. And he is on his way to becoming beloved.