Remembering Clive

My parents were given an unusual wedding gift: a German short-haired pointer puppy. He was there as I took my first steps, my first ride on a swing, my first birthday party when my English grandma came to California—his haunches quivering with pent-up power and spring, snipped tail always on the go. He herded me, and then my sister and brother, and barked at strangers and snakes. I remember the smell of wet dog in that foggy paradise of my early childhood with the Golden Gate bridge looming through the kitchen window, while the Cuban missile crisis droned on the black-and-white TV and then Kennedy’s assassination reduced the adults in the household to uncommunicative mourners. Clive was THERE.

Clive didn’t come with us to Spain in the mid-sixties. I think his attempt to get to my mother from the supermarket parking lot through a closed car window (he won) convinced my parents this might not be a great idea, especially since we were flying to New York and then going over to Southampton by boat. He was found a new home, and we were given a new puppy once we’d settled in Madrid by the friendly waiter at the Conde Duque where we stayed for six weeks while house-hunting—Blackie, a mongrel bitch who grew up to be more brown than black and who had a manageable level of energy.

A German short-haired pointer has just won the Westminster dog show (the one that’s spoofed in Christopher Guest’s hilarious Best in Show). Since poodles or poodle-type dogs almost always win, this is a welcome change. But I hope everyone’s watching their car windows, since this event always results in increased sales of the breed that wins Best in Show… visit your local shelter, people. There are lots of great dogs and cats waiting to be adopted.