The term “rescue dog” brings two images to mind. One is semi-comic—the clichéd St. Bernard with a brandy cask dangling from his neck, looking for Alpine day-trippers lost in snowdrifts. The other one reverses the roles—I’m thinking of those devastating images from ASPCA ads with Sarah McLachlan and Eric McCormack, and those incredible folks who actually rescue dogs from excruciating pain and neglect. I admire them for their heartbreakingly difficult work. Otherwise, the use of the word “rescue,” when applied to just doing something decent, like adopting a dog from a pound, or from a neighbor who is moving, strikes me as somewhat vainglorious. It just doesn’t rise to the level of heroism. A reminder: we get something out of it, too. We get a dog, a friend, a confidante, and for me, another thing to trip over.
Growing up as an army brat, I never had a dog. Not that military service prohibits dog ownership; it’s just that we moved around an awful lot, and to paraphrase an old axiom, “If the army wanted you to have a dog, they would’ve issued you one.” As a young adult living on my own, I resumed a peripatetic lifestyle, frequently traveling for television and movie work. I did, however, welcome a few dogs into my life. Two dogs in particular stand out: One I met recently, close to home; the other crossed my path years ago, halfway around the world in Southeast Asia.
For much of the first part of 1988, I was in Thailand filming Casualties of War, a grueling, often lonely experience, even in the chaos of a film production. Tracy and I were engaged to be married soon after my return to the States, and I missed her on a cellular level. One day in April, on location in a village called Phang Nga, on the island of Phuket, I observed a family gathered by the beach. A small black-and-white puppy of indeterminable pedigree, a short rope leash dangling from his scruffy neck, romped around them. The family kept shooing him away. I’m a sucker for underdogs, literal and figurative. I crouched down and called him over. He bounced toward me as if he’d known me most of his life—which, at that point, he practically had. My driver, Wanchai, attempted to convince me that the puppy was not a pet, but protein, destined for a soup pot. Wanchai was probably taking the piss out of me, but it was true that the family didn’t seem to be emotionally attached to the dog, at least in his current, non-entrée form. He wound up tagging along with me all day, and I decided that I wasn’t going to leave him behind. I offered the family the Thai baht equivalent to ten American dollars, and they accepted.
It soon became obvious that my new friend was a pestilent mess. On my next day off, I brought him to a veterinarian on the island. After de-worming, treating his mange, and riddling his body with a gamut of shots and vaccinations, the vet suggested I name him “Sanuk,” a Thai word on the order of “peace” or “shalom;” an expression of goodwill, spiritual and emotional. I liked it. Sanuk stayed with me all through the spring and summer, right up to the point that we finally wrapped our marathon production and departed Thailand for home.
Sadly, there was no way I could subject Sanuk to the prohibitive quarantine process involved in exporting an animal from Asia to the United States. Two other dogs were living at the Amanpuri Resort in Phuket, my base during filming. Both belonged to the hotel’s manager, and the hounds tolerated Sanuk as they would an exasperating kid brother. The little pup thrived there—why wouldn’t he? Swimming pool, palm shade trees, and scraps from the kitchen. I appealed to the manager, who generously promised to take in Sanuk. Back in the U.S., I married Tracy, and every now and then I’d think about the little black-and-white puppy. She would have loved him.
A few years later, a friend mentioned that he had just vacationed at the Amanpuri in Thailand.
“I met your dog,” he reported.
“You met my dog? A little black-and-white pup named Sanuk? Is he okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. “He looks happy. Only they don’t call him Sanuk. I guess they gave him a new name.”
“What is it?”
“Michael J. Fox.”
Gus was born in a shelter somewhere in the South. The litter of puppies was shuttled to another shelter in New England, where a very nice woman from Colorado adopted one of the males, and took him to her family’s summer home on Martha’s Vineyard. She soon discovered an allergy to dog hair. Through an oddly serendipitous series of events, I met Gus and brought him to my own home. Some may deem this a “rescue,” but I don’t. I didn’t rescue Gus. You can argue that he rescued me, but he’d be too modest to make that claim. Gus and I just found each other. Lucky Gus, lucky me.
The Chilmark Store on Martha’s Vineyard is a place to grab a slice of pizza or a cup of coffee, and settle on the porch. On any day in season, a cross-section of the hordes of summer people gather there to shop, snack, and chat, and maybe see one or two of the famous folks who spend time on the island. The person you’re reaching across to grab a straw at the condiment counter could be Jake Gyllenhaal, or James Taylor, or Larry David—although he might smack your hand away. This is definitely where the cool people hang out. I tend to avoid it (not so much the store as the scene).
My friend Clark Gregg, along with his wife, Jennifer Grey, and their daughter, Stella, were vacationing with us. On the way home from playing golf, Clark suggested we pull into the Chilmark for a frozen coffee. I groaned. I wasn’t in the mood to run across Alan Dershowitz holding court with his entourage, but it was a drippingly hot afternoon, and a frozen coffee held appeal. We emerged, coffeed up, and stepped onto the porch. On the store’s weathered, shingle-clad wall, they have a bulletin board for people to post ads; babysitting services, guitar lessons, yard work, upcoming concerts, and community events. Through the clutter, a photograph caught my eye: a puppy up for adoption. The ad described him as a three-month-old, black-and-white Great Dane–Lab mix named “Astro,” after the dog in the Jetsons cartoons. I didn’t say anything or take the number down, but I had Astro on the brain.
That night at dinner, Tracy said to me: “I saw something interesting today on my bike ride. I stopped by the Chilmark Store, and there was an ad on the bulletin board…”
“For a dog? Astro?” I interrupted.
She put down her fork. “Yeah. Astro, the dog. How did you know?”
“You saw it too?” I asked. “We gotta meet this dog.” And then I added, “I hope he doesn’t have the name ‘Astro’ imprinted yet.”
Life with Gus (né Astro) is a revelation.
Late summer, 2008. I don’t realize until Sam leaves and Gus shows up, that I have gradually been paring away at the physical side of my life. I can’t run in a safe, reliable way anymore; my leaping and jumping are suspect; and I am a menace on the golf course. But I can still walk for days. Sam and I drifted away from doing anything much more physical than hiking, biking, and jumping in the pool. The latter, curiously, is the only thing Gus won’t do. As much as he looks part retriever, his aversion to water clearly identifies him as a hound dog: lazy, but game for anything except the pool.
He has a similar negative reaction to the beach. He is restless, agitated, and has a psychotic break anytime Tracy or I, or one of the kids, disappear into the waves. Waiting desperately for us to emerge, he paces a trench in the sand, emits low, soft yelps, and searches frantically for someone to help. (Anyone? Anyone?) But he is not concerned enough to venture in himself. Eventually, we join him back on the beach, towel off, and try to talk him down. (I told you he’s not a rescue dog.)
Once back in the city, our days begin early, with a 6:30 a.m. walk through Central Park. Still in shadows, the sun rising in the east, we patrol the horse trail surrounding the Reservoir. When we reach the turn at the power station, the path straightens out toward the halfway point. The sun begins to find us, and we quicken our steps. On the days when I can’t make it to the park with Gus, the chore—though I wouldn’t call it that—goes to a hired walker. The dog walkers in our neighborhood obviously work for the same company, and they’re ubiquitous. About every other trip to the park, we run into a dog that Gus knows, and there’ll be a good five to ten minutes of butt-sniffing, tail-wagging, mock aggression, and me listening to a dog walker chat about grad school.
For any dog lover, or simply any sentient human being, there is nothing quite like the energy of a puppy. It winds you up and wears you out at the same time. Still, Gus can get worn out and want to take a rest on the West Side. We’ll do a lap around the Great Lawn, and then park ourselves on a bench for Gus to receive his admirers. Everyone loves this dog.
Tracy comments, “You know they’re not stopping because of the dog; they’re stopping to say hello to you.”
“No, you don’t get it. I’m invisible. All they see is forty pounds of four-month-old, black-and-white puppy, all ears and feet and tongue, and they fall in love instantly.”
After a sufficient period of adulation, we wend our way across Central Park West at 81st Street to drop in at the Bull Moose Dog Run, on the north end of the Museum of Natural History. It is pure bedlam. Lots of dogs, lots of breeds, with lots of helicopter owners who should have calculated that bringing Precious to a dog park would likely result in encounters with other dogs. Gus, not through fault but by nature, is a madness-multiplier. His energy and conviviality bring him into contact with everybody, two legs or four. This is where I have to play my secreted liver treats wisely; I need to bribe him to get him out of there. Usually, a schnauzer or two comes around for a piece of the action. I shoo them away, wrestle the leash onto Gus’s thick, meaty neck, and we are eastbound.
Gus and I have regular times and regular routes, both in the city and around our neighborhood on Long Island. In less than a year, he grows from forty pounds to one hundred and fifteen pounds. I don’t have to bend an inch in order to rub his ears or scratch that spot between his eyes that he can’t access. When I stop, he persistently head-butts my hand. He’s so enormous now, our neighbors, city and country, comment on the sight of the two of us: a small man walking a horse. I’d give a desiccated liver treat for every time I’ve heard, “Why don’t you get a saddle for that thing?”
Dog owners will recognize the relationship I’m describing. It’s beyond owner-pet; it’s an interspecies communion. I read somewhere, and have proved it through actual practice, that if you can maintain eye contact with an animal, especially a dog, for more than thirty seconds, a definite bond exists. Not to sound too creepy, but I can hold Gus’s gaze for minutes on end. It’s like he’s awaiting instructions. He also responds to ridiculous verbal cues. “Gus,” I’ll suggest, “go grab your blanket.” He’ll bring me the brown one and I’ll say, “No, no. The red one.” And he’ll respond by fetching the correct color.
There’s a scene in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, one of my favorite films from one of my favorite directors, in which Brad Pitt returns home to his bull terrier, and lectures to him while opening and preparing cans of dog food. It’s not what he says to his canine roommate that stands out to me; it’s the recognition of the relationship, the intimacy and the respect that these two share. Spoiler alert: In the end, Brad’s hero pit bull comes to the rescue and alters history.
I’ll have to screen that scene for Gus sometime.
All of this is not to suggest that my relationship with Gus replaced or supplanted in some way my relationship with my son. There’s obviously no sane way to compare the two. But the ache that I felt when Sam went away was eased and extenuated by the completely different role that a Great Dane‒ish mutt now plays in my life. He keeps me moving, he keeps me present, and in an important way, he keeps me honest.