When We Got Capucine

or, Three Years a Young Dog

We were living on a rural highway in Oxford Mills. I quit being a ski clothing salesman and started freelance writing. Karine quit being a plant nursery worker and landscaper and had just interviewed for an environmental planning job with a consulting engineering firm.

Cap was a purebred Bernese Mountain dog from Maniwaki. Her body would grow to be covered in long black hair. She wore a bib, an apron, and socks of white. She wore rust brown leggings, gators, and butt feathers. Her black tail was hairy, sensitive, and expressive—with a white paintbrush tip that spiralled at the end. Her snout and forehead featured an hourglass of white—with a brown beauty mark on the right of her nose—and around her eyes the rust and black mixed into a mask.

Her irises were dark brown. We gave her a name for a little girl, or a stuffed animal, or a French super model. Capucine literally means nasturtium, a bush or vine plant with edible (but spicy) leaves and flowers in red, orange, and yellow. Our spicy little girl.

Often, behind a Berner’s floppy, silk-soft ears on the nape are little patches of white called “the Swiss kiss”. Cap’s Swiss kiss was five white hairs.

Very early on, we realized that she was a great dog. This was in November 2014. Karine got the job and I had to start dishwashing to supplement the freelance. Karine’s mother’s friend had adopted an eight-week-old puppy and didn’t have the time, she realized. But I was adamant. “I don’t want a dog,” I said. So much work, so much worry. And Karine kept bringing it up. This country house, this whole acre—with no dog?

One day, my wife-to-be crept up punchdrunk and mumbled, “Jooooe, I think we have to get this dog…” Our fates were sealed. We got a puppy.

If you didn’t know her, you would have quickly realized that she was pleasant. Sweet in nature, content to smell the wind. Stubborn sometimes, insistent on staying put to smell the wind. Hungry as a hound of hell. Once, she swiped raw chicken off the counter right next to me as I prepared dinner. Only once—then she got sneaky about it.

She wasn’t crazy about kids until she found out they dropped food everywhere, of course. Quiet and relatively calm, she rarely barked, even when other dogs were barking at her. Sometimes she got jealous, when I played with other dogs or little boys or little girls. Cap had some kind of hang up with sledding, skiing, biking—moving at a clip—that she could simply not condone. She barked a lot at that. Sometimes she was quite agitated—usually around food, or at the idea we might leave her behind.

Almost nine years ago, on a dark autumn night, we picked her up in Gatineau and drove her an hour and a half home. A teddy bear come to life! That first night she slept in our bed. Big mistake. We were cursed with loving cuddles for the rest of her life.

Agile. Fast. Unaffected by cold. Obstinate. Funny, my God. She napped a lot. She was affectionate but not needy. She became a close companion to Karine and to me. She’d lean her body against you or sit on your feet because she loved people, but she was also a bit anxious.

It must have felt good to have her fur stroked, her chin scratched. I’d massage her chest and her head would rest on my thigh. Good dog.

Where She Fit

When you get this nine-week-old Bernese Mountain dog, you have to figure out how it fits. Her dog shape in your human house. Her crate, her kibble, her leash, her bowls. Her sticks, her toys, her shedding hair. Which door do you rush out? Where does she sleep? What is her name?

Capucine. Pronounced ka­·pew·seen.

First nickname: Puce (didn’t last long).

Second nickname: Cap (stayed strong).

Every syllable good for luring, scolding, or praising: Ca! Pu! Cine!

Nicknames to come: Caca, Capu, Baba, Booboo, Booboose, Capz, Mademoiselle, Honey Badger, Cowbear, Little Muskrat, Trash Panda, Swamp Donkey, etc.

Mispronunciations by others: Capuchin, Ca-poo-see-nee, Kapuskasing, Coccinus, etc. etc.

Diet: kibble (her favourite), raw food (didn’t last), home cooked meals (pork, rice, cabbage, tomatoes, sunflower oil, etc.), rabbit scat and anything rotting (that we couldn’t stop her from gobbling).

Fond of: Pulling. Sitting on feet. Walking with Karine and I. Apples, banana, raw meat, cooked meat, cured meat, pita bread, sourdough bread, all breads, sticks. Socks (not for eating). Squirrels, cats, Karine, myself, people. Swamps, ponds, lakes. Cedars (rubbing into them).

Immune to: fireworks, thunderstorms, vacuums, the vet, and going up and down stairs, hills, and mountains.

Disliked: baths, shrimp, boisterous dogs, and being left alone. The worst was being left alone in plain sight of everyone else—pure torture for Capucine.

For us, it was near torture not to be with her.

She improved every day. Even on the worst days—the scares, the worries, the last days—she was a blessing. Bon chien.

To own a puppy requires relearning about the world. Sticks are toys again. You have to buy food and medicine and poo bags and actual toys. You have to pay attention to what she is paying attention to. What is that bug? What is that leaf? What is this clump of dirt under the couch? What is that putrid squirrel corpse? What is this fresh frog corpse? Better roll in it! Is this houseplant edible? Is this table leg edible? Is this soiled tissue edible? (No, technically, and yes.)

Fact: our dog was gorgeous. People stared, cooed, and crossed the street when they saw her. Other Berner owners told us stories. She was a stranger magnet.

To my new-dog-owner eyes, everything suddenly had the potential for danger. Perhaps this is a parental instinct. Cars whizzed, bunnies bolted, squirrels squirrelled, and so on. To me, learning to be a dog owner meant learning to deal with my

ANXIETY

which I countered with doing over-the-top things.

Mud in the house? Wash her feet in a rubber-bottomed bowl when we get in.

Burrs all over? Cut down all the thistle I can see on our walk.

Toddlers and bikes and other dogs? Avoid them a lot.

Prone to hip dysplasia, heart problems, cancers? Make her real food. Feed her apples, bananas, clementines, and other good things.

I was kind of right: having a dog takes some effort. But Karine was completely right: what we got, with a few tablespoons of work and worry, were heaps and heaps of

JOY.

Joy from a puppy is like water from a spring fountain.
Tiny tail spinning round and round,
Back legs running faster than the front,
Mouth open, tongue lolling,
How can anything beat a prancing weeks-old puppy at that game?

Did I mention she was a good dog?

She always ate her food. Once, I fed her before dropping her at doggy daycare with her dinner in a plastic bag and the man thought it was her breakfast. She ate it immediately, no problem, and could have had thirds right away.

She was sprayed by a skunk only twice. She only saw one porcupine. No coyotes. She chased one fox. A deer another time. She was never stung by a bee or wasp. We weren’t sure about using an ingestible preventative like Bravecto until we found a tick swollen to the size of a nickel on her back. Then we used Bravecto all the time.

She was gentle, never even slightly damaging the hundreds of shoes, gloves, and socks she stole. Loved being chased. Did not fetch.

She came, stayed, sat, lay down, and went to bed on command. “Au lit,” we said and she’d waddle to it, most of the time. The most common things we said to her were “off” (drop that! Don’t touch that! Leave it!) and “on rentre” (get inside the house, now). Most of the time, these worked. “Reste,” I said and walked to the mailbox and back. She stared at me the whole time and always stayed. Good dog.

Perhaps her favourite activity (after eating) was walking with Karine and I. Just around a few blocks, and over a grassy hill or two. She also loved frigging with the leash. She also loved running. She was a dog! But did you know dogs contain multitudes?

She loved the outdoors but also the couch. She loved to be with us but also liked her independence. She let us sleep in but woke me most every morning around 5:45 a.m. Two paws on the beds, four paws on the bed, a furry body lies down next to mine. A tail thump or two. But then she just nestles my shape and we both fall asleep. Her brown, white and black head at my feet and her white and grey paws in my face. Sometimes the claws are at my eyes, sometimes catching a nipple, and always smelling like corn chips. Why do dog paws smell like corn chips?

When she really had to go—because she ate something bad—she’d mewl at 2 or 3 or 4 a.m. “Emergency!” she yipped, so quietly and quickly that Karine could sleep through. Good dog.

Steady Reliability

Having a dog that wants to be near you is like eternally playing hide and seek. Capucine was very good at keeping tabs on us, and fairly adept at finding Karine who hid behind doors, on kitchen counters, under desks.

She is aware of you always. She lies down with the right vantage in all directions. When you move around the house, she moves with you. When you close a door behind you, she will be waiting for you to come back on the other side.

Her presence was a steady reliability as ours was to her. Her quotidian reminder to us was, “I just want to be near you,” and her paw would seek out our feet. Sometimes in a crowded a dog park, she’d be parading around, avoiding hyper dogs and smelling patches of pee. She’d look up and turn her head quickly, unable to find Karine nor I. She’d start loping in a random direction, head swivelling, ears perked up, scanning the crowd.

We’d whistle or yell her name and when her eyes locked on ours, her whole body changed: from alert, stalking hunter to relieved, floppy goofball. Her ears would drop and her tongue would pop out of her mouth, like a cartoon dog.

This one bad time, when we were young dog owners and she a young dog, she ate a corncob. We had to take her to the Emergency Animal Hospital. Vet techs swept her away into the back and presented us with estimates and approximations in a tiny side room. They would do x-rays and maybe operate. In the waiting room, we watched other pet owners cradle their sick cats and dogs. It’s best to keep her overnight, they said, but you can say goodbye.

She was leashed to a tiled alcove in a room full of whines and barks. Masked surgeons in medical scrubs floated by, with metal tables wheeling and lights blaring. Capucine wagged her tail when she saw us and strained to leave when we pet her. Her eyes were red and bulging and she panted incessantly. It felt worse than betrayal to leave her. We cried in the van before we drove away.

The cob passed without incident and we got her back the next day. No operation necessary. Karine sat in the back with her as we drove home. Coming down from meds, she was confused and still scared. Even at home, she whined with every breath, aloof. Like she was still straining. Like something still hurt.

I sat on the kitchen floor, rested against the pantry door and pulled her to me. She slid in between my legs and her head rested on my stomach. I stroked her ear with one hand and rubbed her chest with the other, and she fell asleep there. That healed a lot—my hurt and hers.

What an incredible connection to have with a dog.

I made her food, and you’d think that’d connect us even more. But not really. She preferred kibble to my boiled ground pork with brown rice, tomatoes, cabbage, peas and sunflower oil. Sprinkle some white powder on top, with a fish oil pill or two, and mix it all together. I got good at making a week’s worth of food in just over an hour. It took me a bit longer to do the dishes, though.

I don’t have to make that food anymore. I made burgers with her pork last night. There is a Cap-sized hole in our house, in our lives. We are still trying to see how to make our days fit, without a 4 p.m. dinner time, without an early morning jump into bed, without the kleenex, the muffins, the bananas and the butter being swiped. She’s been gone for two months now but we still trip over her absence.

Our dog died during a summer of acrid forest-fire smoke, tornado warnings and task-based therapy. It was the summer of the lane swim, the dragon boat festivals, the Laser sailboat, the bike trip to Montreal, during which our dog died. Our dog died on the first day of rain after a dry spell, in late June, and she died at home.

“It was always a joy to see her in your front garden,” wrote our neighbour in a card. “Your special bond was obvious for all to see. We hope your happy memories help you through these tough days ahead.”

Luckily, we have quite a few. She was almost nine. Today is her birthday. I would trade quite a lot to have had another year, another nine.