“If you find something dead, roll in it so you can share the sweet smell with someone you love.” —Luke
Images Courtesy of Ginny Neil.
I think I will always feel the absence of my dog Luke most at this time of year. He was always a great companion, eager to go on walks or just sit in the sunny spot behind the house with me. But what he loved best was decorating.
Our sense of what made for a great aesthetic was wildly different. I dug in the dirt to plant flowers. But, Luke believed soft soil was designed to hide his latest finds until he decided exactly where to place them on the lawn.
Mostly he decorated with bones. He approached the expanse of fields and forest around our farm like an antiques dealer at a flea market. His thorough approach yielded an impressive array of deer carcasses, assorted bovine and ovine bones and even whole forelegs of various dead animals with hair and hooves still attached.
Whenever I relocated one of his lawn ornaments, Luke sulked for a day or two, and then went in search of something he could roll in. He and I argued about his decorating style. Luke insisted that his focus on natural materials leaned towards Zen, or perhaps Modern Country because of how well he repurposed old objects. I called it Maximal Canine Hoarding.
If a hunter dispatched a groundhog within a mile or two of our house, Luke let it age for several days and then dragged it into the yard. I usually discovered these offerings before they became overwhelmingly offensive, but if I was preoccupied as I mowed, I might be awakened from my daydreams by a grinding noise and a fan of ripe guts and flesh spewing out from under my feet. This was Luke’s own form of Bath & Body Works bliss. He chased down the gore and wriggled ecstatically on his back in the macerated mess.
If, by chance, I discovered a rotting body and removed it, Luke brought it back and buried it in the flower beds for further aging. One year, I was planting some hostas when I noticed a small mound of mulch in the back of the bed. I reached out with my ungloved hand to smooth it down and raked my fingers through a well-aged corpse. Luke seemed puzzled by my strong reaction to his gift. The smell lingered on my hands for several days.
Luke has been gone for about three months. He is buried under the old apple tree on the hill. He died in a freak accident. A tiny part of my heart went with him. As I work in my lawn and gardens, the hole left by his exuberant collecting is particularly visible. Or maybe I should say the lack of holes.
The lawn is smooth. The bones are all outside the fence in the woods and pastures where they belong. The vultures are now enjoying their rightful share of any dead animals. And, my hands don’t smell like ripened death. Funny how the things that drove you crazy can be some of the things you laugh about the most when you remember a good dog.
I have another beagle. His name is Rex. He is a good dog, too, but he is nose-driven and spends most of his days, and some of his nights, baying after invisible rabbits. He is sweet and gentle and loves a good belly rub, but I am a momentary distraction for him, not the focus of his being.
As I mow, I spot the ghost of Luke under the forsythia bush grinning with anticipation. Thankfully, there are no grisly bits in the last of his leftover piles but, if there were, I think the smell would make me smile because it would mean he was still here, putting his own unique touch on my yard. Good-bye, old friend. I miss you.
The story above first appeared in our May / June 2023 issue.
