Belmont

I was near Belmont High School, a mile or so from where we had our first apartment in L.A., when I noticed Belmont snuffling along. I crouched near him and he came over to see if I had any food, but I didn't, so he kept snuffling along. I wasn't sure if he was just out for a wander, like so many dogs in L.A. are (though I didn't quite HOW common that is, at the time), or if he was lost or homeless. So I followed him. I followed him for many blocks. He even went into a yard at one point, and I thought, "oh, he belongs here" but then he came out and continued snuffling along. So I picked him up. He was heavy or I was weak. Possibly the latter. It felt difficult to carry this little dog in my arms the mile or so back to the apartment, but I did. I don't know what was going through my mind. Just that the thing you do when you see a loose pet is you try to take care of it, maybe? I didn't have a good idea about what else to do. And I don't really know why I didn't think I could open the door on my own... maybe it was locked and I didn't think I could get my key out? I didn't want to shift him because he seemed comfortable in my arms as he was? That attitude towards him persisted. I think we often held him in the way he chose, even if it was a little uncomfortable for us. Certainly the way he draped himself over both of us wasn't always the most stable position. Ha. Anyways, then he was in and we didn't have dog food, so I made him some pork.
We wanted to do the right thing, and we found out the "right" thing is to take them to a shelter and put your name on the list so that if no one claims him, you get first crack at adopting him. So we did that. In retrospect, I...I dunno. I guess I'm glad that we could feel sure that there was no one out there looking for him, or at least no one looking hard enough that they're calling all the shelters. But he came home with kennel cough, poor baby.
We tried to do the right things some more. We had a studio apartment, but it had a narrow kitchen, a bathroom and a walk-in closet. We tried to give him his own space, in the kitchen, but no matter the barriers, he got through and came to our bed.. There was no door to the kitchen, but there was a doorway. First we tried a baby gate, but he leaped over it. Then we tried putting the baby gate higher, and blocking the bottom with a cardboard box, but he tore through the cardboard box. Then we tried laying down chairs, but he climbed them and leaped from the top into the room and onto the bed.
I confess to trying something I now regret, growling at him to establish that the bed belonged to us, the bigger dogs.
It didn't work anyway. Much later, as we were reading up more about how he behaved, we learned he was a "social climber" doggy personality style. He mellowed substantially many years later when we got another dog that was totally submissive. He just didn't like being on the bottom of the pack hierarchy.
We talk a lot about how we got him. Origin stories are fun. But he was with us for 14 years in a way that no other pet I've had has ever been. He crossed the country with us multiple times on road trips. He climbed to the Wisdom Tree with us for several 4th of July's. We learned that first year that he hated fireworks, as we sat in our apartment worrying about how much he was shaking to the sound of them. He was entirely inconsolable. Climbing up to the wisdom tree kept us far enough from the sound that he didn't shiver. In these later years, he lost a lot of his hearing, and didn't react to them.
He still knew us, though, and could see us. Even last week, when he was outside so he could go without his diaper for a bit, if I got close enough that he could see me, he'd walk towards me.
He did tricks when he was younger. I felt so proud of him and us, and had some big dreams of him performing his tricks to wild applause. He had a wonderful dance, up on his hind legs dancing in a circle. He rolled over on command, and shook and sat and laid down, and stayed kind of sometimes. He would jump on command, and even jump high enough that I could catch him in my arms. I don't remember when the last time we had him do any tricks was.
He loved his Kong, but had a definite preference for purple. That's ridiculous, you may say, dogs don't see color like we do, if he preferred one, it must have been for another reason. Well, we lost his purple Kong when we were on one of these long road trips, staying at a friend's place. So we bought him a new one at the petco. Same design, same brand, same everything, but they only had orange. He didn't care for it, particularly. So when we had the opportunity, we bought him a new purple one, and he loved it again right away. Maybe whatever purple looks like to a dog was just more familiar to him because his first Kong had been that, but there you have it.
He loved peanut butter, which he could have, and he loved chocolate, which he could not have. Oh, but he could find chocolate. stayoffthetable was the password for our WiFi, Belmont, because he could get on tables that didn't seem get-on-able. Remember that doggy door-leaping? He was AGILE. I don't know how he got the chocolate he did, but you don't know how many times we looked up how worried we should be for the amount of chocolate he'd discovered. The scariest time was when he broke into my parents' suitcases and scarfed down some dark chocolate. That resulted in an emergency vet visit that my parents thankfully paid for. The funniest time was when he ate nearly an entire back of mint M&Ms. Luckily there's not much actual chocolate in those, so we just monitored him, and cleaned up minty-smelling puke and diarrhea. I think he had no regrets about chocolate.
I'm trying to remember everything. Everything. He peed on me once. That was surprising and funny. We stopped at a gas station on one of our cross country trips, so he could pee and we could gas up. And I don't know what he was thinking, but he lifted his leg on my leg rather than...anywhere else. Was it just that I smelled like something familiar? Was he expressing displeasure of some sort? Did I smell less familiar than usual for some reason? Who knows.
He was an excellent ball chaser, but you had to get creative if you didn't want to do any work yourself. The trick was to throw a second ball just as he was almost back to you from the first. He'd drop the first and it would continue towards you with enough momentum that you could easily grab it, and be ready to throw it just in time for him to be returning with the second ball. We played in the hallway at our second L.A. apartment quite a lot. He played a little bit here, but he was already slowing down by the time we moved.
He hated the rain. He was a real L.A. dog, and absolutely appreciated that the climate here is mostly dry. He was just palpably miserable when he had to go for a walk in the rain.
We never bathed him. I remember being asked how often we bathed him because he seemed like such a clean dog, and the answer was never. In the last two years we did a few times because of the diaper, and I guess once or twice many years ago, maybe he rolled in something? but so rarely, we went years between having to put him in water. He was not a water dog. I don't know if he ever swam. Not that I remember.
He came camping with us and slept in our tent.
Oh, he tore apart a corner of a door in our second apartment because we figured we could close him in there and not worry about him getting on the table or getting into chocolate or whatever. He was determined enough that, though he didn't actually get through the door, much of the door was destroyed. That's when we first started putting him in a kennel when we had to leave him at home.
When I found him, he was missing a patch of fur on his neck. And he didn't bark at all for the first couple weeks, and we worried that maybe whoever had him before had done something. He got over that, and had a sharp bark that matched him well. The fur grew back. It sometimes got worn off if he wore a collar for extended periods of time, but we mostly let him be collar free and it grew back in.
We loved his big ears that stood straight up all the time. He had no issues with us playing with his face. petting his ears, moving them around, playing around with his teeth and lips and just generally being pests as we cuddled with him.

He loved to poop in tall grass. I imagined he was waiting for the sensation of it tickling his butt but before he'd settle in to poop. Sometimes he'd sniff while he was pooping. I imagined it was like reading the newspaper while sitting on a toilet as some human might do. Once he pooped a turn that stood on its end. That was when he was younger. I think we took pictures. Last week he did it again, almost. He pooped a turd that leaned against the wall.
I don't know how I feel about euthanasia for pets. I still think we could have had more days just holding him in our arms and feeding him chicken. I know it's the strong belief of many that it's the only kind end for animals, but I don't know how one reaches that conclusion with such certainty. I just don't know.
Stina told me about a walk she took him on where a child called him Bone-Chewer, and I think people said chupacabra about him sometimes because he did have that otherworldly look about him. Catch him in some photos looking so dignified, though.
He was content to be held like a baby. He loved licking faces. I think he especially loved licking scruff. My beard now is too long, and when I had a beard this long, the hairs would get stuck in his mouth and he'd have to take a break, but when I'd go through the scruffy phases between beards, that's when he'd lick for hours on end, if he could. He liked licking arms, too.
His name was Belmont Ratface Scavenger Shadowmage.
Oh! Grates! For the longest time, he didn't like walking across grates on the ground. He'd leap over them if he couldn't go around them. He got over that eventually.