Boomer - an actor, a gentledog, presente! 

     My wife, Linda, and I have lived in our present hovel in the West Ward of Easton for 24 of the 33 years we’ve been in the Lehigh Valley. This puts us within easy earshot of every barking dog in our immediate neighborhood. At times, especially during the long, hot summers, the din makes me think I’m in a large kennel at the SPCA. More about that later. 

     One bright clear summer morning about twenty years ago,( I worked 4-midnight, so my mornings and early afternoons were free) I stepped out on our back porch to breathe the cool air before global warming set in for the day. I sipped coffee and luxuriated in the sounds of the birds chirping in among the branches of our lilac bushes which grew to the size of trees. Then I heard a bark to my right. Not being a dog expert, I had become something of a cognosciente of dog barks. There were the welcoming kind ("glad to see you"), the self-proclaiming and celebrating of life kind ("I’m here, world, and it is great; just look at me"); the "If you can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch kind " (the low, menacing, warning deep base growl); and the cries of distress (yelp, whine, wimper, plead, harsh non-stop bark). The bark I heard was of welcome. I looked to my right and, two doors down was the Gary Cooper of dogs. He was doing the same thing as me, except for the coffee. He was young, about a year old, and looked like a smaller German Shepherd, but with a face like a Collie. I was star-struck. He looked at me. I gave him the time of day. He returned the favor and ran off the porch to show me what he could do with a piece of rawhide. I swear he must have made this game up himself. He would toss it in the air, it would come down on his back, and before it could hit the ground he would wheel around and catch it. Then he would look at me and I clapped my approval, and he would do an encore, over and over again. I would learn later what a showman he was, at the beach at Sandy Hook, and on stage at Montgomery Theatre in Souderton. 

     The young, working couple who owned him were gone all day. There were apparently housebreaking issues that hadn’t been resolved as yet, so they kept him outside on a long chain, with his water and food bowls under the back porch where it was shady. But he was so full of (urine) and vinegar, so full of energy, that he invariably ended up tangled in the chain and unable to get to his bowls. I had begun buying dog biscuits (we had 3 cats) and tossing him a couple each morning. So I could go over to him, untangle his chain and make sure he could get to his water. Eventually I began walking him on a leash, and then would take him to the tow path and let him swim in the canal. I would leave a note on the couple’s door as to our whereabouts so in case they came home unexpectedly, they wouldn’t call the sheriff. What was unexpected was their response. 

     One day the young man came over and asked me if I wanted the dog. I asked him why? He said they "wanted to get a bigger dog." Talk about a schizophrenic reaction: I on the one hand thought he was crazy for not wanting to keep this beautiful creature. On the other hand you never heard such crawfishing out of even the most charlatan of politicians. I said I didn’t think it would work out what with the cats, etc. etc.. He said, "O.K.", and took the dog back to the SPCA from whence they had taken him. 

     Well, then began a ten day succession of phone calls from me to the SPCA to inquire about the dog, and to inform them that under no circumstances should they put the dog down. If he wasn’t adopted and push came to shove, so to speak, they were to call me and I’d take him. At the end of the 10th day, my wife had had enough. "For God’s sake go get him. We’ll work it out with the cats." 

     When I got to the SPCA (this was before their renovations) the staff person led me to a large kennel housing I can’t recall how many dogs. Someone was hosing down the concrete. The barking was loud and nonstop from all the dogs. I spotted him and his mustering out began. When I got him to my car, a hatchback, I put him up on the back and he was so relieved he immediately… 

     On the way home we stopped at the Canal Museum and took a walk, and he a swim in the canal. And thus began thirteen years of walks and swims: The tow path, Hugh Moore Park, the river, the canal, Easton Cemetery, Sandy Hook, Cook Forest, Conneaut Lake, West(by God) Virginia, The Catskills. Where we went he went. In the car he sat between me and Linda with his cold wet schnozz alternately against the windshield or against our cheek, barking at oncoming cars and cows and horses. A bit of heaven. 

     Near the end he was gimpy with old age but when I auditioned for the role of Candy in "Of Mice And Men" at Montgomery Theatre, I took him with me. The play directions indicated that a live dog could be used or it could be done with dog barks on the sound tape off stage. Boomer was cast, and he got a better review than I did. 

     Did I forget to tell you his name? On one of the first nights he was with us, we were racking our brains trying to think of a name that would be appropriate. We would sound out a name and got no reaction from him. Then, suddenly, we were both in tears and choking from an unseen and unheard emission of flatulence in the room. I am an old fart, but I was innocent of the charge. My wife asked me, "What was the name of that RCAF pilot who won that contest during WWII?" I told her, "Paul K. Boomer." She said, "BOOMER!", and with that the dog’s eyes lit up, his ears stood up and he had his name. 

     We had thirteen years of a bit of heaven with Boomer. When I see how too many dogs are treated in our neighborhood today, left to bake and wilt in the sun, tied up, caged, barking, yelping, whining, I can nod my head in agreement with Chris Barnes (column of 26 July). But I’d remind him that you needn’t go as far as Atlanta to see a Michael Vick with dogs. There are enough tortured dogs in our neighborhood to keep a dozen animal control officers busy, and I think there is and has been only one in all our time here. 

     Let me wrap this up with a quote from Song of Myself from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman: "I think I could turn and live with the animals, they’re so placid and self-contained. I stand and look at them long and long. They do no sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the night and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things , Not one kneels to another, Nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth." I would add, except maybe in the West Ward of Easton, where so many clueless humans who somehow acquired dogs or cats or birds and tether them, starve them, cage them and make me wonder how the myth got started that homo sapiens is the apex of evolution. -Bernard J. Berg This article was first published in the Easton News, 8/9/2007