Perhaps because of his name, Chou-Chou was easily confused. "Chou-Chou, come" people called, when they wanted him. "Shoo! Shoo!" they said, when he was underfoot. Since he loved people, he couldn’t understand why they wanted him to go, so he got more underfoot than ever. When he finally understood he was being asked to leave, invariably he was shocked; then he’d slink off, ears and tail dragging.

    Chou-Chou would politely offer a rather limp-wristed paw to shake when he understood there to be a dog biscuit in the offing. Since he had no trouble learning to offer only the right paw, his other difficulties are hard to explain.

     Chou-Chou took seriously the defense of the backyard, a half-acre of grass bordering on a full acre of forest. Since possum and squirrels and cotton tail rabbits lived in the forest, and foraged in the backyard, and neighborhood cats hunted there as well, Chou-Chou spent a lot of time defending his turf. This was understandable, after all, because it was also his bathroom.

     The largest fir tree in the yard was Chou-Chou’s favourite. A hundred feet high and three feet in diameter, its roots had lifted the ground so that there was a steep slope up to the trunk. Every day Chou-Chou sidled up to this tree, sniffing deeply. He turned one way and another, trying to decide which way to face. Often then, he lifted his leg the leg away from the trunk. When he was finished, he’d try to walk away on the leg that was up in the air and he’d fall over, rolling down the slope away from the tree. Covered in astonishment and needles, he’d leap to his feet and glare at the tree with the look of someone who has just been the butt of a practical joke.

    The rabbits in the backyard were smaller than Chou-Chou but almost the same colour. In winter, bald eagles had been known to sit in the tops of the largest fir trees, hungrily eyeing the yard. A rabbit (or a Shih Tzu) would make a fine meal for an empty eagle.

     Chou-Chou would dearly love to have caught a rabbit, although it’s doubtful that he had properly considered what he’d do with it. Since the occasional stunned bird on the patio mystified him because it didn’t fly away, he’d probably just have sniffed at it. However, the event was not likely to occur. When he saw a rabbit nibbling the dandelions, he dashed for it. The rabbit, of course, turned to flee, usually running straight for a hop or two with Chou-Chou hot on his heels. Then the rabbit would jump sharply at an angle. If the rabbit jumped to the left, for instance, Chou-Chou reacted immediately. At full speed, he, too, jumped–to the right. The rabbit was then no longer in front of him. Dead stop. Confusion. Where’s the darn rabbit? Rabbit, of course, was enjoying a private snicker in the protection of the Oregon Grape.

     Chou-Chou would quarter the yard grimly, determined to find the rabbit. There was nothing wrong with his eyesight or his nose. He’d find the rabbit’s scent and follow it carefully, tiny nose to earth, treading on his long whiskers. By the time he located the Oregon Grape, the rabbit had moved on.

     Chou-Chou never learned. If the rabbit jumped right, he jumped left. If the rabbit jumped left, he jumped right. Did he have four left feet? Were his feet maybe on the wrong legs? Apparently he couldn’t tell which way to jump.

     The problem showed itself in other ways. Chou-Chou had an heavy coat–long and think and easily tangled. Sticks worked their way in, and leaves. Cedar twigs were the worst because they went in but wouldn’t come out. Covered with tiny barbs, they had to be cut out or persuaded to continue in the same direction until they came out the other side. Because of his coat, Chou-Chou had a chronically itchy back. He scratched with one hind leg, then the other. He licked what he could reach, but most of his spine was inaccessible. Any person who scratched his back gained a friend for life.

     In the absence of clever fingers, however, flopped in the grass, all four legs in the air, preparing to scratch his back. Any other dog would have squirmed and twisted, rubbing its back against the ground. What Chou-Chou did was to scratch the air above his belly vigorously in the precise spot the itch would have been if he were standing up. He seemed to think that if he turned himself over, he could then scratch the itch because his belly was where his back had been. Or maybe vice versa. Just thinking about it is confusing.

     Chou-Chou had no trouble taking a cookie from the hand holding it; unlike rabbits, cookies don’t jump. Only when he had to differentiate left from right or up from down did he have trouble.

     One day he refused his dinner. He staggered when he went outside. The next morning, he couldn’t stand alone. He was bundled off to the vet, and after tests the verdict was pronounced: a rare blood disease–his white blood cells suddenly didn’t recognize his red blood cells and were eating them up. In effect his right hand didn’t know what his left hand was doing. The vet said 50-50 chance of recovery. The odds were off in Chou-Chou’s case. He went to sleep that night and never woke up.

     He is missed, little Chou-Chou is. A fine dog, but somewhere his wires were crossed.

by Victoria Bartlett