"One reason a dog can be such a comfort when you're feeling blue is that he doesn't try to find out why." -- Author Unknown.
"Near this spot are deposited the remains of one who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, and all the Virtues of Man, without his Vices. This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery if inscribed over human ashes, is but a just tribute to the Memory of Boatswain, a Dog." -- George Gordon, Lord Byron.
The relationship between a guy and a dog is something Jack London probably best described more than 100 years ago in "Call of the Wild." If you never read it, you ought to. It still makes me cry every time.
Right this minute, I'm sitting in the Franklin Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, overlooking the intersection of Sunset and Hollywood boulevards. The sun is shining and the sky is blue. The apartment is swell. Nothing in the world could be farther away from the brutal sub-arctic conditions described by London in his classic tale.
On a pillow underneath my desk, a beautiful girl named Rowena glances up. Half Chihuahua and half Jack Russell terrier, I couldn't bear to call her a "mutt," much less a "bitch."
I met her a few months ago. She likes steaks and hamburgers and she likes me. She's 13 years old but still like a puppy and she walks me around L.A. and sits by my chair at the outdoor cafes I go to for breakfast or coffee.
One night a couple of weeks ago we were walking down the street when a 90-pound pit bull being ineffectively leashed by a young girl who weighed less lunged at me from an unseen corner. Rowena, who weighs seven pounds, went right after the dog, getting between it and me at great risk to her own survival. The pit bull's powerful jaws could have snapped her in half, but she didn't even think about it.
I jerked her out of the way with her leash and, when I'd gotten rid of the nuisance, she looked up at me like, what could I have possibly been thinking.
I thought about that night last week, when I read about my friend Pascal Scrufari dying in the pond at Hyde Park. You already know the story: He was walking his three beloved golden retrievers in Hyde Park last Wednesday afternoon when one took off, maybe chasing a rabbit or something, and ended up on the dangerous ice of the lake there. Pascal went after the dog, oblivious to his own safety, fell through the ice into the frigid water and died later that day at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center.
The dog would have done the same for him, something Pascal undoubtedly knew.
The dogs were taken to the Niagara County SPCA -- which, given recent developments, struck a lot of people as ironic. They've been killing dogs and other animals right and left over there in recent years, in some of the most inhumane ways possible.
That situation might be taken care of and it might not, but the orphaned dogs, those golden retrievers Pascal was willing to risk his life for, didn't have to worry.
I don't know Niagara Falls firefighter Frank Cacciatore, his wife, Melissa, or their kids, Chris, Nicholas, Hannah and Hailey, but they must be pretty nice people. Frank was one of the firefighters who responded at Hyde Park following the tragedy, and he made sure to get the dogs -- Zach, Sheba and Chloe -- out of the hands of our local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals as soon as possible.
The Poles have a saying that translates, roughly, to: "The greatest love is a mother's, then a dog's, then a sweetheart's." That pretty much sums it up.
There's a quality to that unconditional love that is hard to describe. Like I said, London probably did it better than anybody.
Pascal Scrufari knew about it, and if the Cacciatore family didn't know it before, they will pretty soon.
I haven't had a dog since I was a kid, but I feel it every day now.
Rowena wags her tail instead of her tongue, and no matter how many phone calls I receive from irate Niagara Falls politicians, she thinks I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread.
There's a lot of crummy stuff that goes on in Niagara Falls and its environs. For the past 14 years I've made my living writing about it and, quite honestly, it has sickened me.
There's crummy stuff going on still, absolutely revolting, corrupt nonsense that those who think of themselves as pillars of the community convince themselves is OK because it is them doing it and how could they possibly be doing any wrong. They sicken me.
And then there's a guy like Pascal Scrufari, who knew last Wednesday he shouldn't go out on that ice, but who did it anyway because he was worried about an old friend.
And a guy like Frank Cacciatore, who witnessed a tragedy and did what he could to make everything right.
There's good stuff going on in the Falls too, and it always makes me smile to think about it.
I think I'll take Rowena for a walk now.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Feb. 21 2012 |