For those who don’t know, the Chinqaupin School, where I taught from ‘94-’98 was a boarding school, and almost all of the faculty lived on campus. Most of us lived in a row of houses/duplexes on the east side of campus. The teachers were also my neighbors, and many of them had dogs. Three stand out in my memory:

Quincy was the Wade family’s basset hound. Whether pulling the children behind him with his leash or waddling freely from yard to yard, that dog had confidence and attitude. He lounged like a lion, and could stare at you with the nonchalance of a mobster in a police interrogation. The confidence of an animal who routinely stepped on its own ears was an indictment of my need to seek approval from others. That dog did not give a fuck. He rarely worked up enough energy to make noise, but when he did, his nose would point at the sky and he could channel the moving tectonic plates through his throat. The school was located not far from an oil refinery; I suspect their emergency siren was envious. 

Janet Johnson arrived in ‘95 with a Dalmatian named Casey. Casey was more a bag of energy and neuroticism than a dog, but I’m told that’s true of the breed. Watching it sprint after a ball or frisbee at the end of the day was freedom itself. Janet would let it out, and it would suddenly just APPEAR across campus at a dead run, heading for some friendly student. If you’ve successfully imagined the sloth of Quincy, this dog was the complete inverse. If it did not actually have special dietary needs and prescription dog-shampoo, it’s the kind of dog that could have. 

Jeff took over the Physics teaching duties when I stopped teaching in ‘97, and he moved into the downstairs level of the duplex. Jarrett and LaShelle had my old place on the top level, and I had the shiny new trailer. We all shared the washer/dryer around back of their place. Not long after arriving Jeff took in a stray or rescue demon. It was an act of compassion and charity that I admire, but did not appreciate. Sloop was part rottweiler and part Minotaur. Because it had developed a habit of destroying items of clothing, and possibly furniture, when left alone in that small apartment, Jeff left it harnessed up to a tree in the yard. The length was sufficient to let it roam, but that meant it was just capable of blocking the pathway to the laundry room. I developed a knack for distracting Sloop with a thrown ball or apple and rushing by before it recovered. The first real bonding experience I had with Jarrett was discussing the shared experience of coming out of the laundry room at night having forgotten Sloop’s existence, only to have a snarling monster in my face as I came around the corner. The underwear in the basket may have been clean, but…

Jarrett reminds me that the Bartholomes had a dog, but I don’t remember that one very well. Possibly because it was a normal dog, not a budding reality-TV star like the others.