A dog’s life

 

This pup (Canis lupus familiaris) is around 27 months old. She weighs about 40 pounds, and though she is short in stature, she is thick of muscle and bones. She stands twelve-and-a-half inches tall at the withers. Her name is Daphne and she is a cocker Spaniel, an English cocker Spaniel. Spaniels, obviously, started as Spanish hunting dogs. Daphne is not very Spanish. Cockers were Spaniels bread in England specifically to hunt woodcock, and so we get the name. Daphne’s more English than Spanish. But now for all that she’s an American pup, if not an American cocker Spaniel per se, like Lady from “Lady and the Tramp.” But maybe she is a lady, and maybe I am a tramp. We don’t eat spaghetti together. She eats Dog Chow and I eat human chow.

More to the story, the very small white pine tree (Pinus strobus) just off her left haunches is around 20 years old. It stands threeand a-half feet tall if I straighten it out. In almost every way it is delicate. Excepting for the plasticity – the suppleness – of its thin smooth trunk, and except for its desire to survive – its resiliency.

James Egan has tried to give Daphne a happy life. A dog’s life. Judging by the smile on Daphne’s sweet mug, it seems as if he has succeeded. Photo courtesy of James Egan

This small, struggling 20-year-old tree has had a difficult time of it. It was transplanted as a seedling like so many others. But it was transplanted in a mature maple woods, where the summer maple leaves in the highest canopy block the sunlight. Without sunlight the tree will be slow to grow, be stunted, or will die. Often if there is a break in the top canopy hazelnuts (Corylus cornuta) or shorter maples (genus Acer) will spring up and create a middle canopy that will likewise block the sun for the fledgling pine.

This tree was husbanded carefully like so many others in its first year in the woods. A short cage, just a couple feet tall, was staked around it to prevent the white-tailed deer from nibbling off its buds and needles and arresting its development or killing it.

But this tree, just as so many others, was forgotten, or maybe the tree was remembered but the fact that it was caged was forgotten. In the fall a short narrow cage becomes a basket for the falling maple leaves, and the leaves rest atop the little tree. In the winter the snow gathers in the cage’s basket, and year after year the young pine is weighed down and disfigured and eventually the cage will collapse – a branch or a tree will fall on it, or the stakes – often they are wood or bamboo – will rot and the powerful winter winds and snow from the northwest will tip it over.

Still the tree may survive. It may be leveled – by the collapsing cage, or a fallen branch, or a footstep. But it may survive. Some do. But all added up – with the deer, without sunlight, with the competition, without tending, its chances are nearly as slim as a dog’s chance in hell.

Daphne may be too fat. Dog Chow may not be nutritious enough. She may have been pushed too hard as a puppy. She might not get enough exercise. The bugs may drive her crazy. The raspberry brambles and long grasses may wear her down.

But I’ve tried to give her a fighting dog’s chance in hell to live a dog’s life.