Reading MERLE'S DOOR

I've been reading Merle's Door by Ted Kerasote. It was a birthday gift from my dad. We both love big dogs. I currently have a dog who is half golden lab and half(almost certainly) husky. Except for her excitement for dogs passing by, squirrels, bunnies, cats, and raccoons, and anyone newly visiting us, she is docile and kind of sleepy. She'll get very excited for the first few minutes that anyone new comes through our door, but give her three minutes and she'll be contentedly lying under the table. I love my dog.

Kerasote is an excellent observer and explainer, backing up his observations with actual scholarly research. He's both amusing and instructive. I've read 300 pages and I'm bracing myself for the end. His dog Merle is unique, intelligent, affectionate, and getting old. When I started to read this book, my wife looked at me and said, "The dog's gonna die." She's not insensitive. It's a well-known fact that most dog stories end with the death of the dog. Marley and Me is the most recent commercial success to put us dog lovers into tears and I know that the last fifty pages of Merle's Door are going to be the best kind of difficult.

They say that tragedies like Romeo & Juliet are supposed to be considered uplifting because they make us think and bring out the best in us. I've taught that for years without thinking too much about the lift to the spirits. I never really feel that. I see the lessons it teaches and I do feel the "lift" of excellent drama expressed in poetry, but I don't feel the moral lift that experts say I'm supposed to get. It sounds silly, but dog stories help me to understand what I'm supposed to be getting from tragedy. When I read a good dog story and, as always, the dog dies, I feel sad, but also the urge to be a better person, to love better, to enjoy what I have more. All of us only have so much time, and dog's lives are so short that they teach us about the importance of every moment. It's a cliche, but everyone who loves a dog knows that their lives are short and they make us look at ourselves. When Ted Kerasote is 48 in the book and Merle starts to show his age, I look at my own 45 years with resignation for the things that are behind me now. My dog is 5. When I turn 48, she'll be 8, just like Merle in the book. It's only coincidence, but when my dog starts to show her age, I know I'll be right there with my own aches and pains. They've already started. I also know how difficult it is to lose a beloved dog. I'll never forget the last walk and the last time I held my boyhood dog Barney. It's burned into my consciousness affecting the way I see the world. Dogs guide us in more ways than one.

Enough seriousness; the limerick war is apparently raging, complete with trash-talking and all sorts of erroneous claims. I must get back and do my part.

There once was a limerick war

Combatants joined in more and more

With insults in verse

The rhyming was terse

Laughing casualties rolled on the floor.

One said, "It's the best kind of war,

A fight without maiming or gore.

I call you a twit,

You make my sides split

With rhymed, metered trash talk galore!

The professor, composing his crimes

Was attacked by a dancer in rhymes

Her rhythm was bad

As a Hosbond in plaid

But she learned and we're in for good times