When Cape Cod dogs lived differently

Case in point; Bucky

A dune shack on North Beach; good place for a Cape Cod dog, one ear up

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Many of us have dog stories, dog relationships. One amazing thing we learn is that even the healthiest dogs live full lives within a compressed bracket of ours; we join them as puppies, share time as they mature, witness them grow old, then wish them goodbye.

This life cycle is one of many things they offer us, teach us.

My first Cape Cod dog showed up in a great Cape Cod way. Forty or so years ago, the day after my birthday in September, a handful of friends trucked north to Great Island in Wellfleet to walk off a hangover. Coming along the beach was a young woman with a gaggle of dogs. She told us that two were hers, three she had rescued because summer people leaving the Cape come Labor Day had abandoned temporary “pets.”

This doesn’t happen anymore (I don’t think), but back then it was an ugly annual event. She had become a foster parent.

A shaggy black and white pup, one ear that stood up with interest, alert brown eyes, cute enough to be on an Alpo can. That was that. Kathy named him Bucky.

Cape custom at that time was not to keep dogs inside unless on supervised walks; dogs had more license than they do today (though Bucky never had a license per se). That suited us because we encouraged free spirits, and it definitely suited him.

We lived in Orleans on Town Cove, close to downtown, so he would slip down to the water and come back muddy, then embark on a late afternoon trot to the back door of a nearby ribs restaurant where the chef would slide him a big bone. Bucky would come home all proud, bury the bone in the backyard, and forget about it.

I got nervous about his roaming so took a cement block, tied a stretch of rope to it (ball and chain), and hitched it to Bucky’s collar. The next day, coming home from work, I saw him in town lurching along, dragging the cement block. I tried a fencepost, a tree; he learned to chew through the rope, often as not sitting and staring at me when I got home, making clear that his location was his choice, not mine. One time we crated him to get on a plane; the last I saw of the crate going down the conveyor he had his teeth on both sides of a plastic slat meant to allow for air, and when we arrived he had chewed through one slat, then gave up.

That dog loved to get in a canoe. Living on Town Cove, we kept one above high tide and at day’s end we’d jump in. In the spring, before the water got too warm, I’d paddle to a little island where mussels set so thick the water turned black, tie a rope from the canoe around my waist, jump out careful not to cut my feet, and get us a nice dinner.

Bucky would jump out too, make his way to shore, then wade back and begin diving face-first, musseling. He’d come up with something or other in his mouth, soaked hair flattened over his eyes so he was blind until he could wobble back to shore and shake out. Usually he had a rock, sometimes a brick or even a mussel. Using an underwater camera, Woody caught him, eyes open, hard at work:

Photo by Woody Metzger

At the time I was playing a lot of tennis at my buddy Tommy’s house near Crystal Lake; two sets, two beers. Bucky would come with me, roaming around a cranberry bog fed by the lake. I’d keep half an eye on him until mid-way through the second set when it got as serious as it was going to get, and I’d forget about him. That was his cue to vanish.

My sister had a house on the back side of Rock Harbor, and I wouldn’t bother to yell for him, I’d just drive over there and he’d have beaten me to their doorstep. To do that, he had to cross Route 6. How? Sneak around the rotary? I never figured it out.

Photo by Tom Cronin

All this is about Bucky’s wild and crazy side, but he was a loving, wonderful presence around the house, gentle (most of the time), an amazing companion in the way of conscious, spirited dogs. Speaking of spirit:

When he no longer was moving, barely eating, we made the devastating decision to put him down, as they say. I had been carrying him around those last days and did so for the second-to-last time, to the car. The vet met us in a parking lot and it was a sad, humane end.

I drove back to the Cove and picked him up one more time. Here’s the amazing thing:

In my arms he felt completely different than how he had felt moments ago.

Why? What was different?

The only thing I can say is his spirit had departed.

I dug a hole, wrapped him in his favorite blanket, and buried him. Unlike those cow bones he lugged around, I’m sure his are still there. A grape arbor also planted is laden come fall when I stop by around my birthday.

That was a dog’s life, and one more thing:

Dogs don’t have much chance to live like that on Cape Cod anymore.

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