A Dog Named Abraham

...The customs officer completed his inspection of our documents and looked up with a smile: "You can go home now...

...Okay, old fella, you take care now,' and then he drove away...

...And thus commenced a young adulthood which seemed for a while as though it would last forever...

...I'll bring him food, three meals a day"—and she did: huge breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, from the first class dining room, she pointed out with pride, in quantities which even voracious Abraham could not consume, so he began burying his leftovers under the towels she had Set under his dishes to protect the cabin floor...

...Indeed, in his slow old age his charm has bought him borrowed time, a charmed life...

...together with my buried envy and admiration for his magnificent canine delinquencies...

...As a matter of fact, we wanted his puppies ourselves, but one after another of our efforts at planned parenthood ended in failure...

...But: "Let Abraham out," as he barked at the door...

...I always ask myself what he would choose if he could, and it always seems to me that he would rather live free for five years than live 15 years at the end of a leash...

...Because he'll never get to be a sergeant in the Czar's army...

...We reversed ourselves and ran back to the road feeling like city slickers, until our story brought forth many others, including that of a woman who had tumbled over an unguarded cliff edge into the Blackwater River just one year earlier, on the Hemlock Trail, which made up in suspense and surprise what it lacked in length...

...What's wrong with the dog...

...A dog requires his freedom...

...navel...

...But if you say Abie, come have something to eat...

...He's going to die—let him see Blackwater once more first...

...He and Merav raised each other up: he like her smells, and she like his mobility...

...Someone will be along to take the dog," said the steward who guided us to our cabin...

...Abraham's victim was not quite so casual, but he was receptive to my shocked, heartfelt apology and to the information that Abie's rabies vaccinations were kept scrupulously up to date—and even more pleased at the news, after a week, that Abie was as healthy as ever...

...The start of labor was the beginning of my acquaintance with the so-called "sixth sense" of dogs—a sense which I demystify as the natural sensitivity to environment which an animal must have who dines on other animals...

...Gimme five, Abie, ataboy...

...It's funny that Abraham never learned Hebrew after all these years," I remarked on another occasion...

...At the end of the trail, I was humbled...

...If eating was not a problem, excretion was...

...laughs our veterinarian, but it seems logical enough to me, since I share Abraham's distrust of medicine and weather...

...Abraham's papers, a rabies vaccination certificate and a Department of Agriculture certification of health, outnumbered ours...

...This was our second trip to Blackwater Falls: the park lodge, where we had stayed before, did not take dogs, but we had checked around for a motel which would...

...The price of this small grab-bag was $10...

...Most dogs expire sometime between 11 and 14 years...

...We sneaked Abraham out to the deck as though we were going out on night border maneuvers, to no avail: the officers watched without censure...

...When will someone come to take the dog...

...It's the scandal of the neighborhood," declared Abraham's many advocates with disappointment...

...It is nearly 15 years to the day since he spoke those words, and I have never been able to think of that moment without a catch in my throat...

...Oh, that's just Abie—he won't bother you," said the garbagemen in Hebrew to my indignant English— "Abraham, you come here...

...Besides, of course, the shorter the trail the less the likelihood that we would lose track of Abraham...

...But in 12 years under the same roof we had never before known this other dog, of ancient lineage, whose fathers' fathers came in out of the shadows to the cave light and the fireside, to be the companions of men...

...We chose the Hemlock Trail for Abraham's debut in the forest...

...and he used some of it to thunder across the apartment and spring to my side in a single bound, laying chin on my belly, each time a series of contractions began...

...Why not...

...Though he came late to the life of the forest, I suppose the knowledge he Deeded lay waiting in his cells, ready against the need...

...and there stood Abraham, the product, as I would later put it, of a cross between a roving Brittany Spaniel and a Cocker lady of easy virtue...

...and that was the end, I thought, of his venture into Hebrew...

...Nearly a year ago we hiked the hills of a colleague's farm, and saw only the shadows of Abie's old age that day: with each group halt, he lay down, conserving his strength as an old man might, which once he had spent so casually...

...Why didn't someone get in touch with me...

...together with my embarrassingly complete empathy with his animal appetites for food and sex, his animal terror of the dark and of desertion—together with all this, in the large territory Abraham has marked out for himself in my heart as his years approach 16, there is a secret willingness to believe in miracles...

...let's see, it happened three days ago...

...The Land of Israel welcomes Abraham...

...Abraham is thoroughly canine down to his name, taken from the name of a dog in a Jewish joke...

...so the life of what was to become a remarkably cosmopolitan dog was put into our hands for $8.50...

...Was he left for last because he was a runt...

...when he finally consented to be caught I discovered by his collar that it was not Abraham at all, and must therefore have been his offspring...

...I remember the day he must have lost his virginity: instead of coming to the door to be let in, he sat at the head of the stairs outside, grinning...

...Abraham's freedom was the focal point for continuous existential, cultural, and interpersonal battles...

...Perhaps the word's gone out from Jerusalem...

...he doesn't understand...

...I learned years later that my old neighbor, who censured his presence in our home, gave him breakfast daily in hers...

...suddenly he understands...

...Presently our stewardess stopped in...

...The dogs were not at all disturbed by the sound—I would soon find Abraham ready to step calmly into the path of trucks and buses—and were all cheerful and content...

...I finally ask our veterinarian...

...I won't blame you...

...That isn't possible—Abraham i never bites...

...He had a score to settle with us, however—it was perfectly clear to him that adults were to blame for assigning him waiting room status—but after a day or two of canine cold shoulder, made all the more obvious by his interest in Merav, he took a four-pack of toilet paper out of the closet and shredded it in the hall, and made friends again...

...He rose at five in the morning, to my annoyance and surprise...

...And I ran down the hill even though I knew I wouldn't get to him in time...

...I was still unsure about the wisdom of this trip: Abraham had gone from his protracted puppyhood directly to an arthritic old age without any transformation of his wanderlust, and between his stiffening hindquarters and the complete absence of any form of social conscience, a chance at the wilderness seemed like an invitation to disaster...

...Oh, that's just Abie—he has lunch with us every day...

...Oh, he hears you, all right—he puts his head and tail down so you won't see him, and sneaks past the hedge in a hurry...

...Even when it was indeed Abraham, however, he rarely came at all...

...After the Maternity Center departed, however, leaving four where there had once been three, he sprang into the middle of our bed in a single bound, and became the first in the family to kiss Merav, tenderly cleaning her...

...Although the Middle East has no cultural traditions of hospitality to dogs— unclean animals under Muslim law...

...It's cold in the kennels, and the dogs cry...

...it was midday, we had taken the trail once before, and though it was difficult to follow, we could not resist the lure of danger...

...It was unnerving to watch him crack thick beef bones like toothpicks, and recognize that a well-equipped carnivore chose daily to pass up the chance to pack in a good meal and put a pest out of the way all at once, out of some powerful canine ethic I was never quite sure I understood...

...One hot summer day I called the veterinary service of the municipality of Jerusalem to inquire whether rabies shots were being given that afternoon...

...Abraham's position at the center of the family was lost in a couple of months when Merav entered the world...

...I ask my friend, and he looks into my eyes and smiles: "Sure...

...Abie's first girlfriend, considered too young for sex by her owners, was kept in seclusion until she escaped through a window— breeding not with Abraham but with a large gaunt Jordanian dog who had crossed the border, just half a mountain away in the days when Jerusalem was still divided, before the shocked eyes of everyone...

...If you say Abie, get down...

...I ran after him: "Did a dog just come in here...

...Oh...

...Abraham, soon to immigrate to Israel, was named for irony and the dialectical reversals of history...

...He let me give him medicine with frightening docility, and when morning came the pain had eased, though the slow decline of old age had not...

...I wonder if he's losing his hearing," I told an upstairs neighbor, who laughed...

...That's quite a combination...

...He'll be killed and you'll blame me...

...He's pretty high-strung, isn't he...

...Surely he thought he had earned a place at my bedside for childbirth, for he was completely demoralized when the Chicago Maternity Center—which delivered babies at home long before it was fashionable—moved his bed into the hall...

...But after three days Abraham waddled painfully out onto the deck and, in a single action, emptied himself completely...

...In the privacy of my heart, together with my long debt of gratitude to Abraham for his unfailing tenderness to my babies, for his faithful guarding of the family and the hearth...

...Don't let them take him to the kennels...

...And there my thoughts of Abraham rested for several years, with the secret admiration a mother might feel for a wayward son who has grown from delinquent youth to master criminal—but who will always be her little boy...

...Yet, strange to tell, Abraham has had his freedom and has lived out more than fifteen years, and outlived the marriage as well...

...He was copulating in the entrance hall in Givat Beit Hakerem"—two miles from our home—" and some guy tried to pull him away, and he bit him"—sympathy clearly with Abraham—"so of course they checked his tags, and found your identification and his license number...

...We bought him in Chicago on our first anniversary: Merav was already underway, but my heart cried out for something small to cuddle and care for...

...Though he is a family dog, freedom gave Abraham the chance for what might be called an interspecies extended kin network...

...The dog too...

...In the very first instant the tunnel vibrations surrounded the car, Abraham sprang from his nest at the back of the station wagon into the driver's lap in a single bound— like Superman, Abraham always carried out his deeds in a single bound, until arthritis forced him to substitute craft and guile for action—and sat there trembling, correct as usual in his assessment of responsibility...

...Indeed, soon after our arrival Abraham learned his own name in Hebrew: Avraham, with the accent on the last syllable...

...Like ourselves, Abraham acclimatized to Israel easily...

...and with no prior linguistic instruction from us and no warning at all, Abraham sprinted across the street and sprang into the woman's arms...

...Her shock taught him at once that his name was spoken only with an American accent...

...and we waited like anxious parents dreading the first separation from a firstborn child...

...There's no doubt at all that it's Abraham...

...What's his life expectancy at this point...

...Yes"—the smile broadened— "the dog too...

...And if you say Abie, go home...

...But time and the economic undertow of divorce brought me back to the United States, with three children and a 12 year old dog, to the mountains of West Virginia...

...The West Virginia State Park System seems to operate on the assumption that natives are born with a compass in the head and hiking boots on the feet: trails are marked by slight signs of wear and not much more, and are spiced by unexpected cliffs at the end of ambiguous forks in the trail...

...Well, it's very hard to say...

...It's against his nature...

...The closest I ever came to owning a pup of his, however, was when I chased my wayward dog down the street shouting his name and meeting a frosty stare...

...It is said that a Russian sergeant called his dog Abraham, in an effort to antagonize the Jews under his command...

...Customs officers boarded the ship before it docked in Haifa port, reviewing imported possessions, including Abraham...

...Are you kidding...

...In 16 days on board he never reconciled himself to a ship's deck, and handled his excretory functions in an awkward four-legged sprawl once every 24 hours...

...I do not share the human tendency to anthropomorphize domestic animals...

...He assumed the position of leader with a firmness which might be called tyrannical if it were human...

...But when night came, the night of old age came with it: stiff from the day's seven miles, he could not stand, and cried the rare, raw cry of animal pain...

...When she has puppies . . ." "He's a male...

...Were any of them educated to hunt...

...And this kid, this total stranger none of us knows, screeched to a stop right in front of Abraham and he said, 'Hiya Abie, how's my man...

...Then he set out on the trail with a measured, steady pace—I had never in his 12 years seen him march, no, not even on a leash in a city—and led us without a pause, only glancing back now and then to ensure that none of us dawdled or strayed...

...As we took leave of the Statue of Liberty, so also we entered the Land of Israel: anxiously -waiting with Abraham...

...he never slept in it again...

...At last, at the end of the first long afternoon of Merav in action, he stood up, put his face nose-to-nose with hers, and said with quiet exasperation: "Woof...

...Someone's been renewing your subscription," I tell Abraham, for we seem to live under the shadow of death, saved by a daily succession of miracles...

...Who knows...

...I was unable to admit to strangers that he had dinner with us...

...As it turned out, however, it was he who kept track of us...

...You stop that...

...I suppose he is high-strung, after his own fashion...

...and Abraham refused, as I put it, to go to the deck...

...Nancy Datan is a Professor of Psychology at West Virginia University...

...The thought is appealing: my American Kennel Club book forecasted his size somewhere between a Brittany—a little over 30 pounds—and a Cocker, closer to 20...

...Now how did this total stranger know Abie...

...asks the West Virginia veterinarian who patiently treats the cough of Abraham's old age nowadays...

...Merav is nearly 15 now, and was a pregnancy when Abraham was a puppy...

...shouted in vain at a dog who appeared to be trying to hold the municipality of Jerusalem at bay, defending the building's garbage against marauders...

...Oh...

...And the six of us fit ourselves like puzzle pieces into the Volkswagen for another trip to Blackwater Falls, where Abraham exercises the mystery of his charm once more: strangers pause to pet him, to offer him water, to smile...

...Although his puppyhood lingered for seven more whirlwind years, arthritis touched his hindquarters when he was eight...

...We have plenty of time for conversation as we wait, unsuccessfully, for Abraham's panting to ebb and his heart rate to slow, so that a few more guesses at diagnosis might be made...

...Like the American movie-goer, Merav was delighted to have sound added to motion, and never gave him any peace after that...

...My memory wakens slowly, however, and I remember our Odyssey to the East: young couple, baby, and dog on the road to New York City, entering the first tunnel through the Allegheny Mountains...

...We had heard tales of quarantine, and had been warned to bring documentation of health...

...An old neighbor, shocked by Abraham's place in the house— usually on the bed, kissing a welcome to a new baby—was just as indignant at my efforts to keep him confined to the back yard...

...We had no prior experience with the curious double vision Israelis employ to temper justice with mercy, and our cabin was located alongside the ship's officers...

...and no one in the family but me now remembers his vigorous, exasperating youth...

...I saw this kid, this teenage driver," says Tamar, my middle daughter, herself a teenager of 13, "come peeling down our street, and there stood Abraham right in the middle of the street, and I thought, Oh God, I'm going to see him flattened...

...but there was no^room for sentiment at the time tttose words were actually spoken...

...she asked—an excellent introduction to shipboard life on an Israeli vessel, and, for that matter, to life in Israel...

...No...

...Isn't he supposed to go into quarantine for 10 days...

...Abraham's sexual appetites were indulged on the same large scale...

...As soon as she developed some of her own, she spent an entire afternoon scrambling after him to pull his whiskers, only to see him rise at her approach and patiently relocate at the greatest possible distance within her range of visibility—annoyed, one supposes, but amused...

...but after a day and a half, there was nothing we wouldn't try, including pissing on a post, which didn't work...

...And so I entered Israel, attached to my American Jewish heritage on the one hand and Abraham's leash on the other, the enormity of immigration to the land of my ancestors absorbed entirely by the problem of retaining Abraham in my possession if not under my control, as he bolted for shore and the pillars and posts of the port of Haifa...

...But Abraham was meant for a larger destiny...

...Still, it was certainly not the first time the family had courted disaster, even at Blackwater Falls...

...Abraham, a pointing spaniel along his paterrial line, pointed children since he liked them...

...Over the years, Abraham's seed multiplied like the stars in the sky— though we never succeeded in tracking down a pup for ourselves—and where Brittany markings and body build had once been unknown in Israel, with the passing of time various modified versions of Abraham began to appear in growing numbers...

...Yes they are, but we can't inoculate Abraham—he bit someone," said the man who supervised veterinary medicine for a city of 250,000...

...But, eight years later, "That's not entirely true," my neighbor told me...

...I thanked them for their reassurance, and watched them sift scraps from the I garbage for Abraham, whose theft I was taking on syndicated proportions before my eyes...

...he doesn't understand...

...Very few kennels were open on Saturday night, and chance brought us to the Skyway Kennel, located directly underneath the roar of traffic on the Calumet Skyway...

...The effort failed: one little Jew said mildly, "Sergeant, you shouldn't call your dog Abraham...

...a memory hardly less dreadful for Israelis who recall the frequent episodes of rabies during the time of the British Mandate—young Abraham, white with an amiable harlequin face and the orange markings of Brittany, flying a magnificent flag of a tail no doubt his mother's, drew affection, admiration, and offers from would-be purchasers...

...It probably smells all wrong to him—try pissing on a post," I proposed...

...Though all of his betrothals came to similar ends, he learned sex on the street in his own good time...

...he was never made to subordinate his likes to ours...

...Well, just keep an eye on him for a week, and if he doesn't turn rabid bring him in for his shot...

...He's not for sale...

...Abraham was the last of a litter of four, and over the years in which his character developed I often wondered about the three who were chosen before him: are they, too, eccentric titans of the neighborhoods...

...The trails are hard for Abraham now, and we have to go slowly so he , can go first...

...Afterword 21 January 1980 It's been a gentle winter: your body lies, still and silent, under the earth: which, just for a dog who loved his comforts, stayed warm this year...

...So he has had his IS years of freedom, but I continue to keep my anxious existential account under constant scrutiny...

...Who knows...

...I called him, and in he strutted, fell into a deep postcoital sleep, and was awake and ready to begin again in a couple of hours...

...the owner refused a check and we had insufficient cash...

...On board our Israel-bound ship, we failed to take leave of the Statue of Liberty...

...No, he's only frightened of thunderstorms and veterinarians...

...His high regard for Merav and her two successors was as close as Abraham came to paternal responsibility...

...Abraham dined on Alpo, leaving him a surplus of sensitivity...

...A woman was calling her son out of the playground—"Avraham, Avarham...

...I will not let that dog out," my husband declared in the shrill voice which heralds the death of a marriage...

...Shall we take Abie along to Blackwater...

...I think about his death myself, every time I open the door to let him out...

...Once she could stand, Merav clung to his fur...

...and soon after she learned to balance with one hand I discovered her holding Abraham's tail for balance, and beating him with a bottlebrush—while he stood motionless at the intersection between patience and self-preservation...

...And after I gathered my nerve one summer day, the car took us all down country roads to Blackwater Falls State Park, where I learned that there was more to the ancient partnership between man and dog than loyalty, meals, and the few chances the city of Chicago had given Abraham to prove his surprising fierce competence as a guard dog...

...a dread memory associated with Nazi guards for the Jews of Europe...

...In his prime Abraham was a handsome and muscular 50 pounds—filled, like hybrid corn, with vigor and sunshine...

...asks Gidon, who takes a lively interest in anyone's eating habits: he is nine, with the physique of a sparrow and the appetites of a bear newly wakened from hibernation...

...We had not lost that cunning dependent dog at all—indeed, he made a prompt reappearance at the snack stand, charming strangers into parting with their hot dogs and stealing when charm did not suffice...

...Just one more trail," the children had pleaded on our last visit, and we had set out at sunset, only to have the night threaten to close over us like a bear trap...

...No—he just hopes he'll be inscribed in the Book of Life for another year," Merav tells her brother...

...There's nothing wrong with the dog—but they told us someone would be along to take him to the kennels...

...And as I was visiting friends down the street one day, I saw Abraham trot up the stairs and into a strange apartment...

...Sentiment directed me toward spaniels, for I had grown up with a cocker spaniel and her temper, inexplicably attached to both: wisdom suggested a mixed breed...