NOtes etc.

Recently I was given an opportunity to sift through every single item in my house (another story). This of course will take weeks to get through but I thought I should share with you some notes I found from the first two weeks of life here at Casa de Stella. It seems she wasn't always the good dog she is (mostly) now. It seems time erased some of the bitter cursing of those early days and now suddenly again I'm reminded that she was once living on a carnival lot eating leftover, lamp-singed chicken-on-a-stick. It's hard to believe we made it all this way.

 9/24/08 - spent an hour in the crate. Barking.
                  ride in the car
                  Barney's house, he petted her- fine, Dale petted her-
                  electrician walked in - no barking yay.

*Stella has been trying all day to rip out the underside of the chair in my office. Slept in the bathroom while Michele and I walked. 
COMPLETELY CRAZY. wouldn't listen, wanted to run and jump and bite me, barked incessantly at neighbor John. generally obnoxious. exhausted (me)

9/25/08 - awake 6:30 (outside pee break) - back to bed.
               8:30 - crazy, tearing up the side of the bed/my pants
                          constantly testing the limits. gnawing things
                outside to pee. back in - peed in front of the crate. Drove to   B's house in Kentucky. Stella slept. B got in the car with us, no problem. Smiley growling at her all day pretty much. Long walk, checked out cows, cemetery, tobacco field. Ran around until we left. Came in the house. Peed. Slept. Woke up, peed before I could get to the door. help.

9/26/08 - awake 6:00 (went outside - thank you God) still wrecking underside of office chair. Pulled her out four times - she peed in the living room while I ripped off the chair liner and threw it out. then barking at cat. I am an idiot. cleaned up pee six(?) times today.  * buy more Nature's Miracle now

 I can't imagine the dog Stella would be if she'd stayed on the carnival all this time. The odds weren't in her favor but dogs are a lot heartier than we think. Apparently people and office chairs are too.

Love and Moon PIes

I found this photo attached to an old e-mail. The subject line said: "Uh...I got a dog".

There should've been a big "D" right before that "Uh" part. Check out Baby Giraffe there in his glory days.


Warning: What follows is icky sweet, like deep-fried Moon Pies. I'd offer you a glass of milk if I could.

Dear Stella:

I love it when you lie upside down and your lips fall open.

I love that you can fall asleep while someone is grinding your toenails off.

I love it when we pass by Big Mean Dog's house and you don't bark back.

I love it when you sit at the crosswalk and then when all the cars stop, you take the leash in your teeth and try to trot me across the street.

I love it when I stop the car and you step up onto the console long enough to lean your head against my head.

You make it easy to forget that mouthful-of-shit feeling I get sometimes.

I love that when we go out in the morning, you hesitate at the door to let the cat go first and I love how when she rubs against your legs it makes you shiver a little bit.

I love the look on your face when we're out walking and I pull out your tug toy.

I love that four days a week we come home soaking wet or covered in mud or both.

I love how you race from side to side at the creek - right before you run out in the water. It's like you're building up your nerve.

I love that metaphorically speaking, I do exactly the same thing.

I love knowing that when the Devil is asleep, your people are my people.

I had a dream we lived in Mexico. Remind me to get a Tetanus shot before we go.

The Family Tree

photo by Melissa McGee, 2008

The best ground score I ever found on a midway
(title inspired by a question on Facebook)

There once was a bitch living at the winter quarters of a carnival in Tampa Florida. Now before anyone starts firing off names.. this particular bitch was of the canine variety. She belonged at the time, to a carnival electrician named Juan. I'm not sure how it all happened but eventually she met a nice male dog and they got along fine until he got her pregnant at which point I'm almost a hundred percent sure he ran off looking for some other bitch.

Same as it ever was. (I'm kidding of course)

Time moved on.

A couple of weeks before the carnival was set to leave for Streator Illinois, this girl (I hope someone will stop by and offer up her name) gave birth to a beautiful litter of bouncing baby puppies. They all went on the road together and I wish I could tell you that each one of them lived happily ever after but the only thing I really know for sure is that that tiny little white stripe in the middle of the dog pile, traveled through ten states, ate a lot of pizza, lived in a truck, was given to a girl named Stephanie, made a gazillion friends, was almost stolen in Lincoln Nebraska, came to Nashville, and moved in with a tail-free cat and a woman who proceeded to write and photograph every mundane bullshit thing she ever did after that.

It can't possibly be as exciting as it used to be for Stella but (as someone said) she still gets up every morning wagging her tail and I'm reminded of all the wonderful characters that (to me) she represents.

Many thanks to Juan for the heads up on the photo, to Melissa McGee who shot it and to Stephanie & Billy (on the right) for letting her go. Anyone who was there is welcome to correct any factual mistakes I've made or add any details to this post in the comments.

Meanwhile, take a ride on the Skywheel. It's almost as good as the real thing and guaranteed not to mess up your hair.

First day of spring

When Stella went to puppy school she had an autograph book. It was basically to encourage us owners to socialize the dogs. We carried it with us and asked people to pet the dog and sign the book. The dog who got the most autographs, won a tug toy. Stella had seventy-two autographs and a tug toy in her mouth when the book finally fell apart. Now you might say, wow that chick has a lot of time on her hands and in fact, you'd be right but the good thing is that since I work for myself, it gives me lots of opportunities to take her along. I say all that to say this: I've decided to make her another autograph book - only with pictures, which brings us to Walter.

Walter is another one of Stella's regulars. I've known him for about thirteen years and written about him some on my other blog but in a nutshell, he was driving down a country road one night and a skunk changed his life forever. It took years for him to be able to walk again and only then with a stick. For a long time he was able to live alone but people tended to take advantage of his generosity and last year he finally moved into a group home where he mostly studies the Bible and writes poetry. On Friday (the first day of spring) I picked him up and the three of us went over to Shelby Park for a couple of hours. We sat next to the river and got to see the General Jackson drive by which was fun. Stella looked at it like it was the Kraken at first, but she got over it.

By the way, if for some reason she doesn't pass her CGC test and/or the test to become a legitimate therapy dog, we plan to strike out on our own (could you tell?) Thanks for stopping by. Happy spring.

Here's a video of Coney Island troubadour, Amos Wengler singing "Hot Dog Time" at Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest, July 4, 2009 (Chestnut & Kobayashi were the contenders. Chestnut won).

Fair Game

I think this dog could track a french fry from a mile and a half away. I'd put her in search and rescue school in a minute if there was one nearby and I could afford it. Her goal every day is to smell everything we can get to before dark, nothing more. I can hide a thimbleful of peanut butter anywhere in the house and she goes straight to it. She could care less about walking if it doesn't involve her nose on the ground.

One day last week she bolted out the front door when I opened it to speak to a young man selling gutters. It scared the crap out of the guy but of course she meant no harm. Knowing full well that dogs have gotten shot by police officers for less, we had a pretty serious training session right after that and for now anyway, she's got the idea down. Stay means stay (for the 200th time).

As far as walking goes, and french fries for that matter, we try to change up the places we go so it doesn't get too boring or predictable. Occasionally, we even go back to the fairgrounds. It's spacious there when the flea market isn't in town and a good portion of it is fenced in although I don't usually let Stella run free there.

Sooner or later, we end up on the midway side, sitting on a curb watching traffic in the same exact place we met a year and a half ago. She's very attentive to the landscape and I tell myself (anthropomorphizing at length) that she remembers how fun and crazy her life was before me. Whether she does or doesn't is secondary I suppose, to the fact that when we stand up and walk away we're totally in step with one another. That is until her nose drags her to that next Smoky Joe wrapper.

Unfortunately, we won't be able to cruise the Tennessee State Fairgrounds forever. Despite the fact that there's a viable plan to improve it, there's also a group of moneychangers who have managed to convince the Mayor that it costs the city money. The truth is, it's a historic piece of property, one of the very first in Nashville. It has consistently made money for the city for over a hundred years. A commenter on a local blog recently referred to it as a "sh*t pit". This of course, is nothing shy of bigotry. The fairgrounds is a sea of asphalt and grass, like all fairgrounds. He was talking about the people who visit. They aren't his people. I'm guessing he's one of the same guys that wants to pay the poor people in that neighborhood twenty-five thousand dollars for their houses so he can flip it for a hundred and fifty, promising buyers from the start that the rodeo, the fair, the flea market, the race track and the roller derby girls, along with their uncouth clientele will soon be a thing of the past.

Until then, me and Stella are going to sit on that curb like a couple of old drunks and sing love songs to a Skywheel that isn't there.

Old Friends

Last week while the fair was going on here, Stella and I took a stroll down the midway a number of times. As I mentioned before, it was almost like she never left there. She can dive under a bally cloth and come out with what's left of a chicken-on-a-stick like it was put there for her. Anyway, we were just out there by ourselves one day, it was early in the day and an old friend in a golf cart came riding by. At first he waved, then he spotted her and turned back in our direction. He studied her for a couple of seconds and said, "Is that Billy Winn's puppy?" I confirmed his suspicion, happy there was someone left who might recognize her. Turns out, Ritchie had fallen for Stella much the same way I did. He'd spent a large part of his summer last year bringing her rawhide chews and little stuffed animals from his joints.

"Hey girl," he said,"you remember me?"

They greeted each other and although both of us wanted her to remember, it was impossible to tell if she actually did or not. He said the first time he saw her she bolted out from under the truck barking like she was the resident guard dog and that eventually he visited her enough times that she got to know his golf cart. He said that when they left Nashville last year and got to Louisiana, he noticed her missing and went looking for Billy fearful that he'd lost her somewhere along the way. Billy told him that she stayed in Nashville with me and despite the fact that he was crazy about her, it's doubtful that he'd thought about her since; until he spotted her on the midway a year later, at the Tennessee State Fair.

The morning of our first day

Part 2
(continued from Part 1)

Two hours later, I return to the truck. The puppy is alert and lying down, front paws resting over a length of power cord that stretches thirty feet, from the ride to the generator. Between her paws I notice (and this is a twilight zone moment if there ever was one) there are two gaping holes she has chewed into the rubber, large enough that I can see the paper covering the copper wire below it. A quick glance at the generator confirms my fear that it still has power running through it.

"It's going to be a miracle if you make it through this day", I say, picking up the power line and moving it out of her reach. She stands up and wags her whole body at me, oblivious to the violent death that might've been her future. She is major-league cute and already I know that she will own me from this point forward.

Power lines wait to be packed away on teardown day

"Someday little girl, if you live long enough," I say, "I'll tell you a story about a dog named Lucky, who should've been named Sparky. You get me?"

She barks, twice this time. Sassy, not fearful like before.

"I can't pet you now," I say. "I have gasoline or something all over me but I'll be back to get you soon, I promise."

I take a minute to look around for other hazards and make a mental checklist: wet towel, water bottle, food bowl, water; all within reach. Beyond that just some cupcake wrappers, a few cigarette butts and the elusive chicken bone. A few steps later I kick the chicken bone even further off and in an ironic twist, announce to no one: "I'm talking to a dog now as if it understands me. Perfect."

Seventy-two frames later I hear a truck honk across the midway. It is Billy in the cab waving for me to come get the dog. He gets out of the cab to untie her leash and while he's getting the knot undone, I mindlessly ask if he smells gas.

"Yeah diesel," he says, "when the fuel man filled up the truck it got spilled on everything, even the puppy, so you might have to give her a bath."

He hands me the long red leash and it all makes sense. The wet towel she was lying on all that time was soaked with fuel. All the boss man would've had to do was flip his cigarette at her. No weapon necessary. The water bowl, that was fuel too. I thank him and the girl, then asleep in the truck, sincerely and head across the midway with the wildly energetic puppy bounding along ahead of me. We stop twice to say goodbye to friends, many of whom (unbeknownst to me), I will never see again. The puppy's food bowl and towel are smashed flat in a matter of minutes as the big truck that was her home for the last three months, is positioned to meet its load. I have myself a dog and a new friend. For both of us, life will never be the same as it was before this moment.

The morning of our first day

Sunrise on teardown day, September 15, 2008

Part 1

It is teardown morning at the state fair. This is the morning after the fair closes, where you have a number of show people (aka carnies) who worked the day before running carnival rides, spent the entire night tearing them down and now it's daylight and they're all hungry and pissed and at the mercy of the sun and each other. The chances of getting screamed at or injured seem to be much higher, on teardown day.

It is the day I've agreed to take the dog and like everyone else, neither I nor the dog have slept for the last twenty-six, going on thirty-some odd hours. Stella didn't have a name then. They called her chola or more often just - the puppy. She is tied, by an eight-foot leash, to a big rig that is not only her home but also home to a spectacular carnival ride called the Vominator (really, that's just my pet name for it). She is three months old.

As soon as the sun rises I shoot a few pictures and like a nervous new mother, I go over to check on her. I have a nagging fear that three hours before becoming my dog she'll be backed over by a truck or knocked in the head by a sledgehammer, purely by accident.

Her truck is parked behind a different ride nearby. I can hear her barking madly from a distance though, amid the harsh grind of generators, and steel slamming into steel. Before I can actually see her I hear someone, a man's voice, screaming at the top of his lungs for her to "shut the fuck up".

Enter huge, ill-tempered, sleep-deprived, boss. El jefe. He's trying to pry something loose on the back of the ride, wracking the muscles in his arms and upper chest to their limit and driving his own blood pressure into sixth gear. He has a cigarette in his mouth and a wrench that it takes two hands to hold onto, in his hands. The puppy - naturally terrified of the chaos and his cursing, is barking out-of-control, just a few feet away. Spitting distance. Hammer throwing distance. It's all I can do not to run.

Once I'm physically on the scene, both the man and the dog, stop barking. This has something to do with mothers, I suspect. The puppy and I sit (for the last time) under her trailer bed together and when she's calm, I promise I'll be back for her in a while. She barks after me, but only once. From a distance I watch her lie down behind the big truck tire on a wet towel. Billy said the night before that he'd yell for me when he got ready to move the truck and I stand right in the middle of the midway and pray to God, he won't forget.

I notice my hands smell like gasoline and I wonder what I could've gotten into.

(continued)

Lessons 1 & 2

When Stella was about four months old, we enrolled in Kat Martin's Puppy Manners and Positive Play class. It's hard to say who learned the most during those few weeks, me or Stella. As I recall there were some things I learned that were not so terribly positive but well worth knowing. They had more to do with the humans than with dogs though. For example, there were eight people and six dogs in the class. We were asked to introduce ourselves and our pups to the group. Not realizing how it might effect Stella's experience in the class, I proudly told the group that my dog's name was Stella, that I'd gotten her from a friend at the Tennessee State Fair and that she was a pit bull. There was this long dead quiet moment then during which three of the remaining seven people turned the color of milk. I thought one girl was actually going to pick her dog up off the ground but her husband stopped her and I knew then that I had made a wrong turn. These people were young and well-educated yet like me, inexperienced as dog owners. I didn't blame them for their response. They didn't know. Six weeks earlier I had been them.

(Note: Recently I found myself at a charity luncheon where Jane Pauley, quoting someone else, said: "Once your awareness is raised - it can't be lowered." Maybe it was the iced tea talking but I thought it was one of the most profoundly simple truths I had heard in a long time.)

It didn't help that Stella outweighed their puppies by something like sixteen pounds. They were each roughly the size of a Dorito and while Stella wasn't aggressive, she could be pushy when it came to playing. It didn't take long for her to realize she had an advantage. There was a boxer puppy, close to her size who, because he was a sweet, tolerant dog, ended up being her only friend for the duration of the class. The others were herded into a little circular fenced area. During times when we were allowed to let our dogs off the leash, Stella's favorite thing to do was to run circles around the fence and get them all barking at the same time, like maniacs. She was like that girl in school who always got you in trouble and then wondered why you didn't think it was funny.

Despite her antics and the general neuroses of new pet owners (mine included), the class was fun and well worth it. I'd recommend it, even to veteran dog owners.

Check out Dogs and Kat.

Also, Jane Pauley's book is Skywriting: A Life Out of the Blue


This photo was taken around the time of Stella's graduation.

The Long Introduction

We used to be a two cat family. It was me, Louie and Gigi. I was always Louie's girlfriend but Gigi loved him anyway. He made it known that he was merely tolerating her.

When Louie died it was traumatic for both of us but Gigi and I got to be better friends through our grieving. We watched Animal Planet together which was odd seeing that I'm not much on watching television. There aren't any cat shows on Animal Planet so we watched dog shows and talked about what dipnoids they were. The dogs, that is. Gigi always watched the screen, fascinated.

A couple of years before that she'd come face to face once with one of the neighbor dogs, Ginger. An overzealous puppy then, Ginger asked for and got herself a nose whipping that day. I'd never heard such bawling in my life from the dog but I found it interesting that Gigi didn't leave the scene of the assault. She seemed to want the dog around despite her violent outburst. I got in my mind, for no particular reason, that Gigi might actually be friendly to the right dog.
I don't think she was in any way, prepared for the dog that I brought home. A dozen pounds headed for sixty, this animal was not nearly so tolerable as the ones we'd seen on tv. For one thing, we couldn't turn it off and it seemed to suck all the air right out of the room. Then of course, she also had me, saying clever things to her like:

Gigi, it's probably a good thing you don't have a tail...

She became disgusted in a matter of minutes and went to the basement - for six months.

Fast forward to yesterday where we see the long arm of a tail-free cat, jutting out the crack of a door, jabbing punches at a teenage pit bull who hasn't been on a walk in eight weeks.



Note: Many thanks to those of you who have made a donation this week to Stella's Patellas. The website says she's at $590. but I've yet to add what's arrived in my mailbox (bringing the total to a whopping $1,020.00). You people rock.

First Dip

I love telling the story about the first time Stella went swimming.

She was about three-and-a-half months old when we went to South Carolina. After a visit with our good friends Roger and Mamie, we went on to Folly Beach for a day and I don't think Stella had ever seen a beach or an ocean so I was pretty excited about the whole thing. I parked the car and as we came out onto the beach, a look came over Stella's face like I hadn't seen before or since (except maybe at the dog park). It was like we'd landed at Disney World and for the next three hours we could be seen digging up seaweed, chasing feathers, biting the foamy surf and generally mixing it up with whatever lay in our path. The only thing she didn't try was heading straight into the water. Not wanting it to be a scary experience I didn't encourage it either. She was happy enough splashing through the shallow puddles and attacking those air bubbles that rise from the wet sand.

We met dogs and people and seagulls galore. We had lunch at a restaurant with outdoor seating where Stella appointed herself the hostess and I thought I would never get the chance to eat for talking to people about how adorable she was. It was a gorgeous day.

When we made it back to the beach the tide had gone out leaving pools of standing water, a few of them so big that we had to wade through them to make our way back the mile or so, to where I'd parked the car. That's when it happened. We were wading in a pool of ocean water that dropped off rather precipitously (nearly dunking the camera bag). The water rose to my waist and suddenly Stella was forced to dog-paddle. I'll never forget the look she gave me then. Her brown eyes, filled with disbelief, were so big that when she turned to look at me for comfort, it was all I could do not to burst out laughing.

"Stella honey, are you swimming?"

About the time I said it, her feet found the sandy bottom again and she came up out of the water like a rocket. Both of us were completely covered with sand and water by that time and I had to sit down, I was laughing so hard.

In the parking lot, I chained Stella to a telephone pole and dried us both off with a towel. There was a guy there getting ready to leave on a beautiful old (Panhead) Harley. To be polite, he backed it out of its spot and warned me that it might scare the dog. I thanked him and told him that I didn't think it would. He was totally amused by my optimism and I added that she had lived the last three months on a carnival midway and I didn't think straight pipes on a Harley could compete with that. He laughed then and kick-started the bike while Stella stood there, wagging that tail of hers, and never missed a beat.

Tomato Patch

This will always be one of my favorite pictures, despite that steely gaze. Taken back at the end of September (also at the farm), we had known each other two weeks. Three if you include the week I met her at the fair. I have to say, she looks a little bit more relaxed now than she did then.

This week I've been shooting pictures on a midway that is setting up near the house here in two different locations. Stella hasn't gotten to go of course but there are a couple of carny dogs there, who may make an appearance on this page if their owners don't mind. They're totally great dogs.

On Waiting

When she first got to my house, long flights of stairs were a complete mystery. She learned to go up without any trouble but was at the age where descent was just a little overwhelming. I decided to let it ride since Gigi (the cat) had chosen to move to the basement and more importantly, the litter box was housed there too. It has never been a dream of mine to have a puppy and a litter box in the same room together. For the time being I thought, it was good she couldn't make the trip.

Every morning when I went to feed the cat, I'd tell her to wait and she did, patiently at the top of the stairs. Three weeks in, she was growing faster than I ever thought possible. I knew the day would come when she'd follow me and I'd have to address the situation but she never did more than put her paws on the top step. Then we went to South Carolina where she went up and down a short set of steps with three other dogs. There, we stayed two nights in a hotel that had four flights of stairs outside the room and she went up and down them all (repeatedly) without ever giving it a second thought. I figured it was over then and prepared myself for her new found access to the basement at home but when we got back, it didn't happen.

Ten months old now, she still waits. Even if I leave her alone in the house, she's never ventured down there. The funny thing is, out in the world, she goes down every sort of staircase, gets on elevators, goes in and back out of Home Depot, Kinkos, the bank, you name it; she'll even ride down a slide at the park (don't ask) but the basement - still belongs to Gigi.

Out of the Gate

She runs. From the very beginning she wants nothing more than to run like a race horse. Once in Edwin Warner Park I changed out her collar and forgot to switch the leash so when I dropped the harness from her body, the leash fell to the ground with it. She was off like a bolt of lightning. When she looked back after what seemed like ages, I was holding her tennis ball. I bounced it once on the ground and she ran to me with exactly the same enthusiasm.

When we go to the dog park, or rather when we did go to the dog park, she goes around and asks all the dogs - starting with the largest ones, if they want to chase her and if none of them accept her offer well, she runs without them. She runs so fast and with so much conviction that everyone, humans and dogs, do what I like to call the dog park pirouette. They can't take their eyes off of her. I remember watching a Jack Russell Terrier run the middle school soccer field once. I'd seen these dogs race, jumping hay bales along the way but I hadn't seen one run full out. It was incredible much the same way it is when Stella does it. She's focused, on what I'm not quite sure. Maybe it's the turbo power of her own physique.

Having not been on a walk for close to four weeks now, for the first time ever, Stella bolted out the front door today (no jumping or running says the doctor; she could easily injure the newly minted knee). She made two laps around the front yard, one around the patio and one last one around the yard. Both of us got a free shot of adrenaline. I skinned my knee but hers seems to be working beautifully.

This shot was taken the last of September, on the farm where my friend Beverly lives. She did a little cow-inspired running that day.

A Vacuum Cleaner Trapped in the Body of a Dog

I was lucky. In the first few days, Stella put her mouth on everything she could reach but she learned pretty quickly what she was allowed to chew on. One minor extension cord (for my mouse) was sacrificed as was a small spot on the baseboard in my (landlord's) bathroom. That was it. For the first time in years, there weren't any shoes, clothing or camera gear lying around and fortunately for me I guess, dust bunnies became her main focus. She scoured the perimeter of every room like an anteater. She spent enough time following her nose, (and still does) that I wondered if she weren't mixed with some sort of hunting dog. Meanwhile, I may have the cleanest baseboards in Davidson County.

This habit was dramatically reinforced in January when she and I visited a nursing home across town. I signed us up for a day of pet therapy - hoping no one would notice that she was a pit bull puppy (at least until she'd had time to charm them all) but it was clearly printed on her rabies slip so I wasn't even sure we'd get in. This particular place didn't require the dog be certified as a therapy dog, only that it be well-behaved. Happily, when we arrived the lady at the front desk, mistook us for a dog therapy pair who comes regularly and waved us through without looking at her papers. We got straight on the elevator and once we got visiting, I actually had to drag her out from under the beds of several residents (I hadn't realized but there are tons of rogue cookie crumbs and corn kernels in these places). Hoover likes to talk about their wind tunnel technology but I've got news for them. When they can make a vacuum cleaner with a nose, they'll really have something. By the time we left there, the nurses had declared Stella a better asset than some of their orderlies.

Puppy Dreams

People are shocked sometimes to learn that I never did let Stella sleep in my bed. They're equally shocked when I tell them that despite my banning her from the bed, I've been known to sleep in the floor with her on occasion. Apparently that makes me a bigger freak than having a big honking cover-snatching dog in the bed with me every night.

This was taken on the first day I brought Stella home. When she finally did fall asleep that day, she had no trouble figuring out where to do it. It took exactly two and a half months for her to completely outgrow this bed and now she has one that I found on sale at Mammoth Dog Beds. It's pretty uptown for a dog that might otherwise be sleeping on asphalt.

Baby Giraffe

I brought Stella home from the fair on tear down day. Often, it's a Monday, the day after the midway closes when all the rides are being packed away. It follows tear down night. Any other year, I would've stayed all day taking pictures, but I had very suddenly become the owner of a puppy. I say very suddenly - that's misleading- I asked Billy Winn, nine days earlier if I could have her, betting he'd say no, which he did. Then, in a combined moment of clarity and good will, Billy and his girl had a meeting and decided to adopt her out. So late Sunday afternoon, I became the new proud owner of the bouncing baby dog. Three months old. Pit Bull. Never been on a walk. Or in a house. Did however, spend the last three months riding around the country, hanging behind a midway, listening to Nickleback and Emanem.

In preparation for this adoption I went home at 4 in the morning and picked up everything in the house that I thought would interest a puppy, magazines, camera gear, power cords, the new cowboy boots, all put away some place out of reach. During that time I went from trying to talk myself out of taking the puppy to being totally overjoyed about actually having a puppy. It was a combination of fear and sleep deprivation but at no time did I stop picking things up and putting them away. Two hours later, I was back at the fairgrounds in time to shoot the sunrise. At eleven-thirty that afternoon, I got the nod from Billy to take the dog. He was getting ready to move the truck she'd been tied to for the last twelve days and we agreed that at that point, she'd be mine.

She (all twelve pounds of her) drug me across the midway and I steered her in the direction of the car. There's a whole story about the first time I walked this dog, nine and a half hours earlier. I'll just say here, that she has a passion for funnel cake and leave it at that. On this, our last goodbye to the Tennessee State Fair, I was headed to the car and she was headed to the funnel cake. It's safe to say, there's more than a little bit of it, on the ground after ten days of the Tennessee State Fair. It was kind of like being tied to the back of a train.

Once we made it to the car, her demeanor changed. This would be the only time she would be allowed to sit in my lap in the car and for part of the ride, she did exactly that. The last half of our journey would see her sitting quietly in the passenger's seat watching me intently for any sign of what was coming next.

Don't worry, I blindly assured her. Everything's going to be fine.

We went straight to the pet supermarket, just to drive the point home.

Without hesitating, she walked through the automatic doors. I immediately picked her up and set her in the basket of the nearest cart. She studied me, uncertain as we rolled down the first aisle and let loose a heavy sigh. Her world had changed dramatically in the last forty minutes. Neither of us had slept for two days and it was hard to say which would be the first to collapse.

Then I picked up Baby Giraffe, gave him a squeak and tossed him into the cart with her.

Joyous revelation is the only way I can describe it now. The happy dance. I'm surprised she didn't pee herself. It was the moment she understood that I wasn't just some dangerous kidnapper. By the time we left there, she was sitting in the cart in a new dog bed, schmoozing extra milk bones off the cashiers.

Baby Giraffe became the icon of happiness for Stella. This photo was taken the day we retired him and today, this many months later, if I want her full attention, literally all I have to do is say the words: Baby Giraffe and for a minute anyway - she's mine.

What you make 'em

The first couple of girls I'd passed on the midway that night also suggested she was a pit bull but denial blinded me to the possibility of it that first time. They had to be wrong. I decided this in a most friendly way and kept moving.

This woman though, she knew what she was talking about. I could hear it in her voice. Those few moments slowed way down in my head, like when you realize that you're about to skid off the road and there's nothing you can do about it except hold on. I asked if she minded if I sat down at the table and she motioned to the chair.

"Jesus," I said, "are you sure she's a pit bull?"

"Positive"

"So tell me what do I need to know about raising a pit bull," My own words echoed in my ears but hers didn't.

"They're what you make 'em," she said. She took a long drink from the beer and I found myself wishing for one too. "What else?" I asked. "I'm sorry I'm interrupting your dinner, but I have to know by tomorrow afternoon." She didn't seem to mind.

"Females are more easy-going than males are," she said, "and well, you might have to beat that dog once or twice" (I think I momentarily repressed a full-on head-bouncing-off-asphalt faint here), "just with a newspaper though," she added - "but once you've got her attention, she can be the best dog in the world so long as you don't tie her up in the backyard and walk away."

No problemo.

I thanked her and she wished me luck. The dog and I continued on, down the backside of the midway toward her truck which had been parked mostly behind the Starship 3000 for this last twelve days. I think Stephanie tied her back up when we returned as my head was still swimming in the fog of reality and my newly discovered prejudice.

Just the moment I start feeling all proud of myself in the ethics and morality department, a new prejudice, that I am completely ignorant of in myself, comes home to roost. Despite the fact that I felt completely ready to be a dog owner, never in a million years would I have gone off in search of a pet pit bull. Never.

N.E.V.E.R. And now I had one. The first dog of my adult life. Pit bull.

I've chosen to believe, looking back on it, that God was playing a little trick on me, not to mention my cat Gigi.


Stephanie and the puppy; Sunday afternoon

Our First Walk

Normally, I shoot pictures on teardown night and into the next day. We agreed that I'd pick up the dog on Monday, when it was time to move the truck.

After the show closed that Sunday night, I took pictures for a couple of hours, then asked Stephanie if I could walk our dog. "Sure" she said, "I'll untie her for you."

What she handed me at the end of the leash, was a dog that hadn't as far as I could tell, ever been on a walk before. This was an animal that within the first fifty yards of our walk, ate gum, snow cone wrappers, chicken-on-a-stick, the chicken-on-a-stick stick and Gravitron vomit right off the pavement, in front of my eyes.

We made it as far as Sammy Forbes' burger joint and a woman, thirty six ounces into a forty ounce beer, sitting at a table there said: "'Aint nobody breakin' into your house." She took another bite of her sandwich and I said, "What?"

"I said 'aint nobody breakin' into your house with that pit bull in there."

"Beautiful dog too, if you didn't want him I'd take him right now. I used to raise pit bulls and that one is gorgeous."

The Aquisition

I was sort of kidding when I told Billy he ought to give her to me. More than once over the years, ride jocks had tried to get me to take their road dogs home. Often they were ill-behaved or sickly. Her being a three month old puppy, I never dreamed he'd say yes and at first, he didn't. He'd gotten her from Juan for his girlfriend's birthday. She wasn't exactly his dog to give away.

I sat in the shade under the truck for a few minutes every day with her anyway. Her favorite toy appeared to be a smashed plastic water bottle. It slid beautifully on the asphalt, often out of her reach. Others who knew her and I would walk by and kick it back under the truck for her. Occasionally some jointee would walk by and toss her a stuffed toy.

Ten days went by and on the last day of the fair, Billy and Stephanie came to me and announced that they had talked it over and decided to adopt her out. It was like she won the dog lottery. I had no idea at that time that I had won it too.