Seamus Meets Mr. Quill

It's Memorial Day Weekend, and Amy and I are entertaining my best friends from Chicago, college roomie Mike Brennan and his fiance Karen. They have both been won over by the domestic charms of Seamus, how he greets their every arrival with a full doggy wiggle and a ferocious wag of his muscular tail.

We are lucky enough to have commandeered my mother-in-law's lake house on fabulous Crystal Lake, and Mike, a lover of the opposite coast of Lake Michigan, has brought his paddle board. It is our first real day of spring's sunny glory, and I get my chance on the board, out on nine-mile long Crystal Lake, only a half mile inland from its immense big brother.

Seamus is curious as Mike hands the board off to me, and simply hates being left behind. We hear his toenails on the aluminum dock, and he wanders up to me as I prepare to board. I know that somewhere in Seamus' bio he has a history of traveling in water, so what the heck, Mike and I give it a shot, coaxing the versatile hound onto the board. Next thing you know...

Helluva First Mate

Holy jumpin, that dog is OK! Team Brennan is in love with his canine host, and I must admit, he's surprised us once again. We had a great time exploring the shallow waters. Next stop, the Big Beach down in Elberta.

It's a sun-drenched fresh-water paradise down on Lake Michigan. It's hard to tell what is the more magnificent shade of blue, the water or the sky. That blessed glacier from 10,000 years ago did a helluva job dumping megatons of sand to create the phenomenal beaches in northwest Michigan. The place is nearly deserted, and I shed most my clothes and dive into the chilly turquoise to frolic with Seamus. I mistakenly wonder what could possible go wrong, and then I recognize a real-life movie scene starting to play out that is part Hitchcock, part Spielberg.

Beach Day Gone Wrong?

Another tiny nuclear family (I'm pretty sure they were Indian with a good command of English) are sharing this desolate paradise, 100 yards to the north. Two young parents with a cute seven-year-old daughter, accompanied by a yappy miniature dog. We did our best to avoid them, and clearly expressed to them that our dog is not good with others.

So as Seamus and I minded our own business, playing ball in the surf, the little dog comes down the beach, eager for a confrontation. Bad Idea. The young girl, not the parents, follows, but the little yapper is expanding its lead. He is determined to meet his maker.

I am waist-deep in water, and am slow to react. I'm watching the scene play out, and somehow remember the impeccable lighting. If this were in theaters, the theme from Jaws would be building to a crescendo. Fortunately, Amy has great maternal instincts, and I see her move towards the impending confrontation, I'm still unsure how this is going to play out.

Seamus has lost interest in our game of catch, and gets out of the water, ball still in mouth, eyes narrowing. Our guests start shouting out warnings to the girl, whose only reply is that her dog is feisty, or words to that effect. Her puffball has closed with 15 feet of Seamus, looking to dance. Seamus drops the tennis ball, clearing his prodigious jaws for action. Uh-oh. Maybe this is going to turn all Quentin Tarantino.

Suddenly Amy, her survival instincts operating at full throttle (or maybe it's a flashback from her former life as an attorney who owned a violent dog) jumps into the fray. She delivers a line for the ages to the naive girl in black curls. "MY DOG IS GOING TO EAT YOUR DOG!" Everyone gets out of their trance, dogs are diverted, and no blood is spilt. To me and Amy, it was not difficult to foresee the alternative ending to this mini-drama. But fortunately, that ending never played out.

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It's the end of the glorious long weekend, and four humans and a dog are taking a sentimental hike up the hill between Crystal Lake and Lake Michigan on this sun-splashed Memorial Day. Amy has planted a tree 23 years ago at the crest of the hill to honor her late brother John, and we quietly admire and appreciate the growth of the red-leaf maple in full bloom. Seamus is off the leash, and once again, he bolts after the scent of an unidentified wild mammal.

Oh for an Opposable Thumb!

Our first reaction is to let him run off all that steam, because he's not going to catch a deer, is he? And the two women head the half mile back down the hill toward the house. Mike and I decide to try tracking our little wild man, just so we don't have to waste half a day waiting for Seamus to reappear. Amy holds off, and surveys the partially wooded landscape. After fifteen minutes of fruitless scrambling through the woods, I return to the clearing and the red maple, when Amy shouts to me that she saw something brown darting 100 yards in another direction. I break into a run through moderate brush, and hear a muted bark. It sounds like Seamus, but it is traced with what sounds like doggy despair. I pick up the pace.

As I close in, I hear thrashing and squealing, and a minute later I discover what looks like an eight-foot pugil ring. Seamus is barking in anguish, and I can only see his backside. I figure he's got some animal cornered, maybe a porcupine like the one he scared into a dead tree stump the week before. Then the full, gory scene reveals itself. Seamus is in a death match with Mr. Porky Q. Pine, the Q standing for Quill of course. It's straight out of National Geographic's X-rated stash: Seamus looking like he's got a Santa Claus beard full of Mr. Pine's quills, yelping in pain, but his jaws of death have latched on the to unlucky critter, and he's in full neck-snap mode. I'm pretty sure I see the life leaking out of ol' Porky Pine, blood seeping from his neck.

Once again, I use my boots to separate to combatants, Seamus is mad with both both blood-lust and confused pain. I leash him up and muscle him back to the path on a forced march, trying to keep him from pawing at the quills in his snout, on his tongue and in the roof of his mouth. It's a mad rush the mile back to the house, and the four adults reconvene as I pass them, their mouths agape. Karen from Chicago has the phone and the wherewithal to search for available vets on Memorial Day. Our only option is a 50-minute drive to Traverse City. Amy and I nearly burst our lungs as we jog/sprint home, grab our stuff and blow out of Benzie. On the way out of Frankfort we slow for Mike and Karen with our windows down to say a hurried goodbye. Mike leaves us with a final shouted alert, "Tape his paws together to keep him from scratching... and then we are out of earshot.

I check the rearview and see blood on the headrest of the back seat. Amy climbs over and tries to comfort the crazed canine. I take another look minutes later and am caught off guard by the surreal bearded hound that fills the 2x6 inch screen. This is wild programming I gotta say. We get to the animal hospital in record time.

Ouch Babe

At 11 a.m. we drag Seamus into the vets E-Room, and he goes right to the head of the line; the entire waiting room stares in wonder. "This is one of the worst cases we've ever seen," said the attending nurse, "but it's not the very worst." I guess we took some comfort from that. Minutes later Seamus went under full anesthesia and the docs went to work de-quilling what we thought were 500 quills (I took the over on this estimate). Amy and I shuffled two doors down, and power down some Cerveza's at a Tex-Mex joint, trying to calm our nerves. We discussed some crucial intel that we gleaned from the waiting room: One of the animal owners waiting in the lobby volunteered that he had a dog that also had a penchant for porcupines, and that no matter how many times he got quilled up, he kept coming back for more. Amy and I nodded, other than swimming at the beach and spinning figure-eights in our back yard, Seamus was now relegated to the leash.

Staple Center

Poor pooch was woozy when we picked him up, with three metal staples in his cheek from some serious digging. A few hours later Seamus was stationed back in front of our big front window, yearning to snag a pesky chipmunk.  

The post-script to this story was Seamus' next trip to the Lake House a week later. Amy was walking the muscular fellow (on a leash!) down the coast road and happened by the trailhead up to the red maple. He sat down at the entrance and refused to budge. That crazy critter had blood lust again, and we're pretty sure he wanted to dash up the hill and finish the job on Mister Porky Quill Pine.

    

Honeymoon with Seamus

Amy and I eloped a week after meeting Seamus. Out on a frozen beach on the northwest corner of Michigan's lower peninsula, Benzie county, the sand capital of the United States (my designation, and I'll swear to it.) Thirty degrees, forty MPH gusts, Seamus a dutiful witness along with a half dozen hearty souls. We left him in the car during the small celebration at the brew pub, and he endured it like a champ.

Southern gent adapts to ice n snow

Seamus is, first and foremost, an athlete. He gets up every morning and does his yoga stretches, a classic downward and upward dog. We fenced in our back yard for him, and if spends a day without enough exercise, he will sprint figure-eights in our fifty-foot back yard. If I need the workout, I'll go out and try and simply tag him on the way by. He throws head fakes and body feints to elude me. I remain in awe of his muscularity and fine muscle body control. Seamus likes taking tennis balls and jamming them into his back molars. He gnaws repeatedly until he splits the ball. Good jaw exercise, and fights plaque as well. We've been given "unbreakable" dog gifts that requires Seamus half a day before the bacl lawn is littered with synthetic stuffing. He can hold his bladder for 12 hours at a time, and when he does pee, it's often while surveys the terrain, in full pointer mode. As a guy who's spent much of my life covering athletes, I recognize physical greatness, and he's it.

So out in Benzie county, Amy and I take Wonderdog for a walk to Lake Michigan through half a mile of scrubby woods, the highlight of our one-day honeymoon. Seamus is behaving well; there are no other dogs in sight, so we let him off the leash. The experiment works splendidly, at least in the early stages. Seamus runs 100 feet off the trail, and then circles back to the masters who feed him. Then as we approach the rolling dunes a couple hundred yards from the surf, Seamus catches a scent...and bolts!

All the shouting in the world won't bring him back—he's lost in the hunt; being in the company of humans is not terribly high on his priority list. Amy and I go back to the last place we saw him, and find a fresh paw print in the snow. We are now tracking a dog tracking a deer, long odds for us humans, but what choice do we have? After scrambling in the brush for ten minutes, the deer must have veered back toward us, because we saw a flash of white and brown. There was Seamus on full throttle. His big chest and his powerful strides convince us that there is Greyhound in his bountiful gene pool. We surround him and finally clamp on his leash, wondering if he is ultimately destined to return to the wild. He adapts, however, and joins us on the beach, chasing sticks like a normal dog, as we relax inside the triangle of our new nuclear family.

The New Nuclear Family, What Could go Wrong?

After returning later that day to civilized Traverse City, I noticed something odd while on poop patrol in the back yard. His evacuations were laden with animal fur for the next few days. It doesn't take a house call from the CSI team to solve this case; at some point during Seamus' hiatus off the leash he took advantage of his 00 moniker...license to kill.

License to Kill

A Handful w/Killer Looks—Seamus the Dog

This is the short history of a four year old South Carolina hunting hound, trying to adjust to suburban life in Northern Michigan. This dog never morphed into that fellow human addition to the family. Despite his charming ways under the roof, once outside he resumes his role as a seek-and-destroy killer with no conscience. He's great with humans, but lives to track down any other mammal, and snap its neck.

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Centerfold from Dog's Life

As an empty nester, it was high time I had a dog. My sister-in-law Ann runs a sophisticated rescue operation down in Aiken, SC, and had an interesting candidate, one she had vowed to find a home for. His name was Seamus. His owner Bob died after a prolonged illness, but had treated the Seamus regally after rescuing the hound from the shelter. Bob took Seamus to his summer home in Maine, outfitted him with his own life vest, and the two took long canoe rides across fresh water lakes. Bob was so enamored with this 60-pound athlete that he donated $65K to Ann's shelter. Ann also loved Seamus, but had two dogs of her own which kept occupied her family. Bob's dying wish was for Ann to find a home for Seamus, so she pitched Seamus to her sister Amy and me.

Another emigre from the planet Krypton?

I was captivated by the photos Ann sent from down south, Seamus catching tennis balls full extended, every muscle rippling in concert, or the serious hunting poses, complete with pointing paw and erect tail. Seamus was in his prime, just shy of his fourth birthday. My childhood was blessed by relationships with family dogs, and I was ready. Amy and I agreed to meet halfway, at their uncle's house in central Ohio, where we collected Seamus on my 60th birthday, February 4.

Seamus relocated the next day to Traverse City, Michigan. He had never seen snow before, and nervously bounded through it, bouncing up through drifts with all four paws airborne, completely flummoxed by this frozen white fluff. Neighbors stopped in their tracks watching the show. Indoors, Seamus lived up to all expectations, a southern gentleman who was a real charmer around the house. He never begged, but he spent most of his time staring out our windows at attention, focusing on everything that moved outdoors. He loved to go on walks, and we soon put him in a chest harness to reduce his pulling during. At the first thaw, we took him to the city's enclosed dog park, to let him stretch his legs.

He was a bit of a loner, choosing to play catch and fetch exclusively with us, his owners, and ignoring his fellow canines. But there was a persistent albino pitbull that wanted to challenge Seamus for his ball. Seamus barked muffled warnings, with the ball clenched in his teeth. Unaware of his impending peril, Albino ignored the warnings. Amy's sister Ann had mentioned that Seamus was "unpredictable" around unfixed male dogs, and to be aware. Ol' Whitey still had his two pink testicles, his whole being oozing testosterone, which Seamus clearly sensed.

If you were a fight promoter, you would probably rate the Albino Terrier a distinct favorite, with his bionic jaw and condensed muscularity. That is, unless the promoter had ever seen Seamus and his prowess at tearing flesh. About a minute after the first warning, Whitey persisted in his attempt at the tennis ball in Seamus' clenched teeth. Seamus dropped the ball and pounced, snapping violently about Whitey's short cropped head. Little specks of blood appeared. Amy and I used out boots to separate them, and we headed for the exit. Whitey foolishly followed.

I struggled with the leash as we headed the fifty feet to the fence gate, just as Whitey came back for more. My fumbling created just the opening Seamus needed to continue his jaw-snapping destruction of poor ol Whitey. While Amy and I kicked with all our force into Seamus' ribs, we saw how our hound used the leverage of his long and muscled neck to gain access to all parts of Whitey's head with his pterodactyl jaws. The fact that Amy and I wore boots instead of sneakers probably saved Whitey's life. We finally restored order, leashed up Seamus and scrambled back to the family Prius. I returned to the scene of the crime.

Apologizing profusely to Whitey's owner, we exchanged cell phone numbers. He was taking his gored guy, whose head now resembled a strawberry sundae, to the vet. We heard back within the hour, receiving several gory photos of Whitey's ravaged pate via text. The owner said the cuts were too jagged to be stitched, but needed to know if Seamus had a current rabies vaccination. Fortunately Ann had given us Seamus' papers, all in order.

Jagged Edge...TKO, Stopped on Cuts

We escaped without having to write any massive checks or deal with authorities, but a crucial lesson learned. Our casual life had just changed. Around other dogs, unfixed males in particular, Seamus is a freaking time bomb. This "southern gentleman," the absolute charmer around the house with all our human guests, should be wearing a tux and place a 00 in front of his name—License to Kill.

Mountainy Claymation

Four manic days shoveling and grinding clay through a cloud of insects; We brought a good friend to help out and ended up locking him in the gravel pit for a night. I guess it's true—No good deed goes unpunished.

Who knows how much a yard and half of blue clay weighs? A few thousand shovelfuls I suppose. Brother Bill tried to ignore the buggy swarm on Day One, something along the lines of Julia Roberts in the second component of Eat, Pray, Love. It led to a face that appeared to have been through a car crash. A massive question emerges: Why endure such absurd extremes? The answer is pretty simple—helping return tennis to the club. Tennis has no boundaries; all genders and age groups are welcome. Most of my family plays tennis, which was a driving force in my four days of labor. Another motivation was the vision of a viable tennis scene returning the clubhouse to the hub of club activities.

The Process: STAGE I
1) Clear the boundaries of the original court from overhanging trees an shrubs; 2) rake, grind and roll the existing dirt and clay; 3) Dig out the encroaching vegetation, clear stubborn roots.

Old School

STAGE II

Shovel the 1.5 yards of blue clay that was deposited at the landing into wheelbarrows; dump the clay onto the Mountainy construction barge, float the clay to the clubhouse docl

Thank heavens for calm waters

STAGE III

Shovel the clay into construction buckets; truck it to the courts

STAGE IV

Integrate the new clay with the old; grind, rake, and roll.

Billy Rap on the makeshift tractor

Final product:

Roland Garros eat your heart out

This is not a finished product. As of the second week of June, there is more grinding and rolling required. There are perfunctory purchases required: Net post hardware; clay court brooms/brushes; sideline netting and posts. 

90 hours of labor, and a cash outlay for the clay, has already been contributed to the resurrection of the clubhouse tennis court. Club members interested in the completion of this project will be given the opportunity to contribute to the required purchases above.