Why "Whistling Dog?" It was simply a lesson in synchronicity.
Many years ago, while searching for a name for my own music publishing company -- I used to write and perform songs -- I remembered I had a friend whose dog would smile, very cartoon-like. "Smiling Dog" sounded goofy. "Singing Dog" seemed obvious. I thought "Talking Dog" was a bit mundane.
Songwriters love to give weird names to their publishing agencies. It makes them seem eccentric the way artists are supposed to be (and wish they could be) in this society, instead of the way survival instincts sometimes force us to be: alternately desperate, obsequious, half-heartedly competitive and incompetently mercenary. That's harsh, I know. I did leave Hollywood for New Mexico.
Anyway, "Whistling Dog" seemed just right.
Fast forward about five years. I have just moved to Albuquerque. Two friends of my landlord and I are painting the small house I've rented. I hear a commotion across the backyard in the alley: a screeching of tires, a yelp, a gasp, the gate slamming, car tires grinding on gravel. The screen door opens. I look up. Kendra, a beautifully boyish woman with short blond hair, is holding a small yellow haired bundle of puppy, huge brown eyes frightened and uncertain, its tongue sideslung, fat and pink.
I'd always wanted an old yeller dog. I expected Kendra to keep the pup, but she wanted me to take him. She and her partner, Jenny, were cat people. She'd been tossing a bag into our garbage dumpster in back, when a car tore down the old gravel alley in front of her, with this small pup chasing it. He got bounced once trying to grab the tire, right into Kendra's arms practically. Just a month or two old, he belonged to a woman who lived three doors down. She didn't want him, and had left him outside in her unfenced yard, hoping he would leave. Poor little guy was so loyal and afraid when she left, he'd tried to chase her car. So, I kept him.
First thing I noticed about him was his intelligence, and his wariness around me whenever I fed him. His behavior seemed almost feral to me. I had to leave the food and walk away, or he wouldn't approach it. Second thing I noticed about him was the oddest: he talked. Constantly. He had comments on everything. It wasn't English he spoke, of course, but sometimes it sounded like he was trying to wrap his limited larnyx around English words, like the Jetson's dog, Astro. "Okay," comes out "Row-raah," but you get the idea pretty quickly he understands not just your words, but your sentences. And he sort of sings his words, all over the scale.
He does bark like any normal dog, but if I come home later in the evening -- beyond his normal dinner time of 6 p.m. (sharp, what a clock watcher he is) -- I usually get a severe scolding at the gate to our property. Now nearly 14 years old, he's beginning to sound like an old Jewish man sitting in a deli somewhere north of Miami Beach, endlessly complaining about his bunions, his hips and his sciatica. He's even getting a little senile now, and often forgets where he's going, and even who I am at times. But he is still stubborn as hell, which is why my friend Marty named him "Bull" a month after Bully was carried through my back door in Kendra's arms.
Fortunately, the sing-song talking he's renowned for among our neighbors, friends and family has not slackened one whit. If anything, he's grown into a wonderfully crotchety and lovable chatterbox.
For years, I had wondered what kind of mix he was. The neighbor lady who gave him to me said she'd obtained him from someone else who said he was a cross of Chow, Sharpei and something else. She thought German Shepherd. Our vet thought Akita. Clearly he had the purple tongue that showed his Chow heritage. As a pup, his neck and forehead displayed very fleshy, Sharpei-like folds. Those long ago disappeared. What remains is a curled, bristly tale, a smiling face, and a yakkity-yak mouth. Oh, and that odd reluctance to eat with anyone else around.
Flash forward one more time to last year (2004). I'm watching a show on unusual dog breeds on Animal Planet with Mark, my ex. There, in front of us on the tube, is a gaggle of Bullies, acting and yakking exactly like he does. Same coats, same eyes, same tails, same smiles, same sing-song dialogue that almost sounds human. Carolina Dogs, the announcer called them. "Singing Dogs," is their nickname. Essentially they are American dingos, native to North America. And damned reluctant to eat with anyone near their food. His behavior matched theirs to a T. Not just his appearance.
I think their kind may be native to the world. Dogs that look just like Bull can be found all throughout rural New Mexico and the Southwest, chasing after cars in dust clouds down old dirt back country roads. If you visit the Valley of the Kings, across the Nile from Luxor, in Upper Egypt, you will find dogs that look just like Bull snoozing on the ramp to Tutankhamen's tomb. Trust me. I know. I've been there, and i have the photographs to prove it.
So, was it coincidence, prescience, dumb luck or something else that poked me in the pineal gland to call my music company "Whistling Dog," then gave me an actual singing, whistling, chatterbox companion for the past 14 years?
I don't know. But I believe more and more what Whitley Strieber learns from his grey abductors in his book Communion: "Life is God's dream."
By the way, they are all over the Giza district as well. If you visit the Pyramids, you will very likely come away with a strange rash on your thighs, even if you don't ride a camel. don't worry. It's just flea bites. From all the dogs.
One of those little things they don't put in tourist brochures.
The camels have fleas, too, by the way.
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