A hero's return

A while back I heard some radio commentary lamenting that the characters in the TV show "Heroes" only achieve hero status by their acquisition of super powers. As I recall, the commentator felt this cheapened the idea of a hero which he thought was better captured by the traditional literary tragic hero or better yet someone who overcomes their own shortcoming or makes sacrifices to achieve some greater good.

Listening to it made me think of Bowen. Yes, our Bowen, bear with me for a bit.

We adopted Bowen from the Boxer Rescue almost 7 years ago. The vet's best guess was that he wasn't quite a year old at the time. All we know about his life prior to that is that he was picked up stray with no identification in Aurora.

Bowen is a pain in the ass and I couldn't possibly list all his transgressions. He's destroyed furniture of all sorts - most of which we've replaced but many of our dinning room chairs still bear teeth marks. He once chewed up the stairs in our old house - not just the carpet but also the wood framing under it. My dad wanted to adopt a big male boxer as a companion for his little girl boxer but reconsidered the idea after seeing our experience with Bowen.

I could go on and on but Bowen's worst issue is probably his tendency to be aggressive with other dogs. He's been to doggy school, had personal trainers, we've read books, etc., all with only very limited success. We stopped going to the dog park and we have to be very careful anytime we take him anywhere including walks and hikes. Our best guess is that he wasn't properly socialized with other dogs when he was young and now gets anxious and scared around some dogs that he doesn't know. He's a pretty big guy and seems to have learned the maladaptive behavior of aggression to try and deal with his fears. His tough guy behavior is still extremely frustrating but, when viewed in this light, I also feel some sympathy for the big guy.

Bowen, with only one exception, is always loving and friendly with people (to the point that, if your aren't a dog person, he's pretty annoying). The one exception came one day when Kari was running with him at the park and a would-be attacker tried to sneak up on her. You don't get to see Bo's teeth very often because they are hidden behind his big goofy droopy jowls. The guy in the park that day got to see them, however, as Bowen let him know on no uncertain terms that there would be hell to pay if he tried to carry out his malicious plan. To me, that kind of loyalty goes a long way in forgiving Bowen of all the other trouble he gets in.

Last Sunday when we walked home from LT’s music class we found the side gate open and Hailie was wondering around the front yard but Bowen was gone. For the next 48 hours we searched the neighborhood, posted flyers, called shelters, and posted and searched on various web sites. The outpouring of support from friends, friend’s of friends, neighbors, and even some local businesses was heartening but that was a lone bright spot in a dark two days of feeling mostly helpless and scared. Maybe the worst feeling was, and it’s hard to admit, the few times when I caught myself thinking about how life would be easier without the big pain in the ass dog. In spite of what a pain he is though, I love him unconditionally, and mostly I just wanted to know he was safe and to have him come home again. I knew it was foolish even at the time but I went so far as to put Bowen’s bed and food on the front porch and slept on the floor next to the window hoping that I might hear him if he wandered home in the middle of the night.

The Denver Municipal Shelter called on Tuesday to say they had our dog and I rushed out the door to go pick him up. They couldn't tell me much more than that he'd been picked up and brought in on Sunday but we didn't know it because hey aren't open to the public on weekends and Monday was César Chávez Day, a Denver holiday. I even drove to that shelter on Monday but couldn't get in. César Chávez Park is one of the many places nearby that we can't take Bowen due to his aggressive tendencies so I suppose there's some fitting irony in that somehow.

A handwritten note on his kennel info sheet highlights the dichotomy that is Bowen - it said, "sweet boy, good on leash." He really is a sweet dog but he's also got a lot of baggage.

I'd even mentioned Bo's dog aggression issues on the flyers I posted hoping to warn and protect any good citizens that might find him and try and help. So I guess I wasn't particularly surprised when a police officer came by the house on Wednesday to deliver a court summons. Apparently Bowen didn't make it very far in his adventures on Sunday before he'd gotten scared, started a fight with another dog and landed himself in doggie jail.

So that's the story of Bowen's two days away from home but let me wrap this up with a brief story from a few years ago, shortly before we stopped taking Bowen to the dog park. There was a little dog/puppy there one day who was being tormented by several bigger dogs. They would nip at him and knock him over and then pin him on his back. It was hard for me to watch and apparently Bowen felt the same way. He went and stood over the little dog but not in his usual crazy fearful aggressive way. He just stood there and gave the little pup some room to get up, breath and recover while he calmly and assertively let the other dogs know that their little bully game was over. The other dogs wisely headed his suggestion.

I'm sure, to some extent, I've idealized or romanticized the incident somewhat over the years, but honestly, I think I remember it pretty much as it happened and I don't know how else to explain it. I'm still kind of amazed when I think about it. To stand and face your own worst fears and anxieties for the benefit of someone else, a stranger no less, is to me what it means to be a hero. Bowen is clearly not without his faults, many many faults, but he does possess some characteristics that we'd all do well to strive to emulate.

So it's with that in mind that I welcome home my own personal tragic hero, deeply flawed as me may be, with open arms and open heart.*

* While writing that last sentence I looked out into the backyard to see that Bowen had just knocked over part of the fence I put up around our tiny patch of grass in an attempt to revive it after the dogs reduced it to dirt last year. Such is life with the big guy.