Photo courtesy of Darren Alff
I believe that my father’s spirit animal is a dirty white shaggy dog. My father has been in the hospital for the past week. The diagnoses so far has been congestive heart failure. I joke around with all my nicknames for him; Jorge, Thing, Homer. However, because he is an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner (ANC 7E01) when he is performing such duties, I call him “The Commish”…yanno after the early 90s show about a New York police commissioner. For my readers that are not from D.C. and aren’t familiar, ANC Commissioners are elected officials that are liaisons between the residents of a neighborhood and the city government. It’s not a paying gig. It’s just an active leadership role and one that can be of prominence within the neighborhood. A large part of a commissioner’s role is troubleshooting; which may include calling the humane society about a stray dog that refuses to leave your yard. As my father is recuperating, this duty was left to my mother and I.
I noticed the dog the day after Independence Day. He seemed to have come out of no where as I saw the medium size straggly shaggy dirty white dog slowly waddle down the alley and sit in front of my neighbor’s back fence. I was outside with my dog, a rambunctious Yorkie. I was hoping my dog didn’t spot “Shaggy” because the last thing I wanted was for my dog’s short man’s complex to kick in with his strong boisterous bark and wanting to sniff Shaggy’s butt or whatever. Surprisingly, my dog didn’t see Shaggy, but once Shaggy saw my face he calmly got up and squeezed through the bottom open space of our gate. As if I were seeing a strange human walk into my yard, I followed Shaggy yelling, “Hey! You don’t belong here! Get out!” I even went as far as opening the gate for him to turn around and walk out. Shaggy stopped his waddle, looked back at me with his tongue hanging out and for minute I could have sworn he rolled his eyes.
I continued:
“Get out! This is NOT your Yard.”
Shaggy turned his butt towards me and continued his waddle. He slow waddled along side my car and eventually crawled under and plopped his dirty shaggy white butt down. I guess my car wasn’t good enough, because he eventually got up, and made his way to my father’s truck and sat underneath. He sat there for the duration of the afternoon. The longer the dog lingered, his presence began to scare me.
I am a fan of the now finished (for good) Showtime series, The Big C. It’s a show where the main character, Cathy, is going through the ups and downs of (skin)cancer. In its final season there is an episode in which Cathy checks into a hospice. At the hospice there is a fluffy white cat name Gladys. Gladys is known as the grim reaper, because every time she goes to sit underneath someone’s bed the person dies. At one point Gladys keeps lingering around Cathy’s room and it takes a minute before she finally sits underneath Cathy’s bed. Eventually Cathy’s brother Sean, kidnaps the cat and takes it home, but by the end of that episode, Gladys escapes and returns to the hospice and guess who’s room she finds and whose bed she sits under. Yep! Cathy’s!
My mind couldn’t help but go back to that whole fictional scene. Still, as I was on my way to the hospital later that evening I literally stooped down and told that damn dog.
“If you’re some kind of omen you need to leave. Ain’t nobody leaving anytime soon.”
Shockingly…or not so shockingly… I felt my voice crack. Shaggy, still laid up under my dad’s truck, just stared at me. I knew that crack would come out of me sooner or later. I had been holding it in. I think I’m still holding the biggest crack in. While I am leaning on my faith and being prayerful, know in my head and my heart that he is the best of care with a top cardiologist…as I told a friend of mine, I don’t think people really realize that no matter how grown you are, when a parent falls ill you sort of revert back to feeling like a kid and this initial panic mode or phase ushers in. Eventually you find a way out of this stage, but when that initial shock hits you feel all kinds of ways. Thankfully as we’ve been getting updates about my dad and just in constant communication with him, this phase has been weening off. Right now, along with my mom, I’m just coasting.
When I returned from the hospital that evening my mother told me about her “conversation’ with Shaggy. Apparently he growled at her. She put the water hose on him and Shaggy left the yard….temporarily. Later I opened the front door only to see Shaggy sprawled out on out nicely manicured front lawn. My mother tried to chase him away again. Shaggy only got up to moved three inches to his right and flopped right back down; head back and feet nearly up in the air. I kept a check on him and at one point Shaggy walked to the front gate. He couldn’t squeeze through the opening, so I called myself coming out side to open the gate for him. Shaggy saw me coming, and instead of being a good dog and let me open the gate for him he turned and waddled his behind back to the grass and laid back down. I left him alone. Somehow my mind resigned to the idea that maybe this was my father’s spirit animal – this unorthodox lazy guard dog – watching over us. After all, he use to joke that his ideal dog for a pet was a shaggy-like mutt.
The next morning my mother couldn’t take it, especially since he growled at her. The humane society sent an officer (or dog catcher) over. Poor guy. He looked so fresh and clean when he knocked on our door. But by the time he caught Shaggy, the dog had given him a run for his money. Shaggy was back underneath my father’s truck when the officer came. He was able to coax him out. At first Shaggy did his usual; blatantly ignore the officer and waddle on his merry way. But the closer the officer got with the lasso to catch him with, Shaggy’s pace picked up and he began to bark. Before I knew it, Shaggy was faster than the speed of light. After chasing Shaggy around the house for at least twenty minutes, the officer finally cornered him on our front steps. Still Shaggy wasn’t going out without a fight. He plopped down and the officer had to drag him a few feet before stopping at the curb, giving him a treat and walking him across the street into the van.
Later at lunch, my mother and I ran into my uncle. We told him about the ordeal. Leave it to my uncle to say what was already in my head…. the dog was my father’s spirit trying to watch over us.
So this is what The Commish does when he is out of commission…he sends a bum dog to guard us as if our Yorkie isn’t enough.
Mahoganie: Musings East of the Anacostia River 
Posted on July 8, 2013
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