Pets

I can’t tell you how much I miss this guy. I didn’t even realize it myself until last night.

This is Ian. He was my best friend for a short period of time and in a way, he still is. I remember finding this one lone dog hair on my suit during a TV shoot a few years back. I don’t remember what the show was – I’d been booked as an extra, and it was not unlike any other show I’d been involved with. I wore dress pants and a business shirt with a tie, because it was an office setting. I was just a guy making copies or something in the background, and when they went to reset the scene, I sat down and experienced a moment that I’ll never forget.

Ian had been gone for about four months. He’d left suddenly one day, when I wasn’t home. Heart problem, the Vet said. Never saw it coming. I had these suits I wore for doing the “background acting” gig, which is the technically correct term for “extra”.. do you know how hard it is to keep dark suit pants free of dog hair with a Sheltie around?

It’s impossible.

I’d always be finding some reminder of my friend whenever I went to work, no matter how meticulously I rolled that hair removal roller thingy over the suit. After four months though, it was pretty clean. The pants had been to the Dry Cleaner a number of times since he passed, so there was no reason for a little gray hair to still be lingering.

But there it was.. plain as day. I plucked it off and stared at it, and then the tears came. I had to leave the set, I couldn’t let them see me in this state. Being a lowly extra, they didn’t miss me.. believe it or not. They did another take without me and I managed to sneak back in unnoticed after having gotten myself together.

That’s what he meant to me.

I don’t easily trust people who say, “I’m not really a dog person.” That’s not to say they’re bad people.. I just don’t warm up to them so quickly. We went to this guy’s house once, and he had three little pups he kept out on the back porch. I thought he’d put them out because we were having a meeting and he didn’t want us to be disturbed so I said, “Hey, no need to banish them to the yard.. I love dogs, let ‘em in!” But it turned out they weren’t allowed in.. they’d “ruin the furniture.”

Geez man, it’s just furniture.

There were some dog people on the TV last night. I’ve talked before of our blogging pals, Jim and Rene, and how they drop in on us here in Palm Springs whenever they come blowing through. They travel in a rig, and they used to travel with a swell furry fellow named Jerry, but Jerry has passed from us too.. he and Ian are running around up there somewhere, leaving little hairs on clouds. I guarantee Ian’s leaving more hair than Jerry.

PBS aired this show last night on the bond between people and their animals. Jim, Rene and Jerry were prominently featured in not one, but two segments of the hour long program. Fortunately, you haven’t completely missed it.. it’s available to stream for free at the PBS website.

The show looks at how we interact with cats and dogs (sorry ferret, fish, bird and turtle people.. I guess there wasn’t enough time). It explores the odd psychological glue that binds us with our furry kids, and makes them so special. It got me to thinking of Ian and his predecessors.. Rufus, Bear, Goofus, Belle and Dopey. Oh, and there was Pancho too.. he was a little long-haired Mexican Chihuahua.  Mean little cuss, but I loved him anyway.

It’s a fascinating bond. There’s a scene where Jim has taken a mouth full of water from a drinking fountain and is spitting it upward so that Jerry can lap at it. So cute, yet I don’t think I’d lap at Jim’s stream. I’m not even sure Rene would, but that’s what’s so cool about dogs – they just don’t give a darn about convention and how things look. Now, if Ian were still around, he’d lap at my stream without caring who was looking or taping it for a TV show. Nobody else would, though.

Ian was not only my pal, but he looked out for me too.  During my Hollywood years we lived in a Sherman Oaks apartment complex and he’d take me for walks several times a day. I almost got in trouble one morning because there’s this gorgeous young actress named Morena Baccarin, who wasn’t so well known at the time but was still really hot, and she decided to go for a walk with her dog at the very same time that Ian took me.

He was never very social with other dogs and Miss Baccarin’s proved to be no exception. He lunged and growled, causing me to apologize profusely and dig my heels in as I pulled him away. She smiled understandingly and said, “that’s okay, he’s a beautiful dog!” as she quickly headed off in the opposite direction.

Morena Baccarin, sans dog

Thanks Ian! I’m an old married man, so who knows what would have happened if I’d gotten into a conversation with such a lovely girl? Probably nothing, but one can never be too cautious.

We’ve had cats too. We currently have two cats and we’ve had past cats. We have no dogs at the moment. Yes, I sound like a person who works at a small pet store.

This is Tazzy..

Coffeesister, aka my wife Dorian, aka the woman who wants me to “shut up about that slut ho Morena Baccarin already,” swears that this little guy was a fluffy angel sent from heaven to guide her through deep despair. I think she’s right. He left us too and, just like Ian, it was way sooner than it should have been. He was a kind-hearted, warm and considerate little soul in a tiny package of fur. Another similarity to Ian is that he left a lot of that fur behind, and in a bit of similarity to me, Dorian will spontaneously burst into tears should she find a tiny orange hair stuck to a pillow.

They have some kind of brilliant magic, these fur-people, and they use it to make us better. They manufacture memories and leave us with life lessons. Jerry helped Jim and Rene grow spiritually, and Ian helped me grow up. Tazzy was a comfort and companion to Dorian when she most needed it.. his timing was impeccable.

I think you’ll like the PBS show about cats and dogs. It’s nothing deep or scientific.. it just kind of looks at the relationship between us and them and says, “Huh, how about that!”

“Why we love cats and dogs” at PBS.ORG (the entire program, but for just Jerry’s segment, select part two. Keep in mind they have a segment at the end also)

Interview with Rene about Jerry (check out the awesome video at the bottom)

Dorian, Dave, Jim, Rene and Jerry in Palm Springs

RhodesTer on Twitter/Subscribe to this blog

{ 13 comments }