Dog Is My Co-Pilot

“I’m exhausted, buddy,” I said, as I walked into my room this morning and plopped into a chair. “It takes forever for me to get ready.” Brody looked at me like I was speaking Chinese. I tried again. “It’s hard to be a people,” I told him. “You’re lucky you’re a dog.”

His head tilted in curiosity, he folded his doe brown ears into perky triangles while his dark, obsidian eyes watched me expectantly from the soft cushion where he was lounging. Who knows why. It’s not like I said any of the forbidden words. Ride. Treat. Wanna Go? I know better than that—I spell those out whenever he’s around. I guess he thought if I had something important to say to him, it must mean food or fun was in the forecast.

This is my life. Reduced to conversations with my giant white dog. Not unlike his dad—who’s away on spiritual business—Brody is a man of few words. None, actually. Like I said, a lot like Rob. Still, it’s useful having him around. I entertain myself at his expense, exercising sarcasm, asking him pointless questions, scolding him for chasing cats and skunks.

Yesterday he was in lockdown for the entire day because of that one. Washing my face in the bathroom the night before last, I heard voices in the hall and stuck my head out to investigate.

“Do you smell a skunk?” Katy asked as Dan headed into the laundry room. I did. Weird, since skunks usually wander around outside. This one must have gotten into some serious garlic because his fragrance was wafting through solid walls.

My face went pale. Well, it’s always pale, but I assumed my freckles disappeared into my natural paleness as a terrifying thought popped into my brain. “Brody’s outside,” I told them.

It took all of five seconds to realize he’d introduced himself to something with a bad attitude and stinky breath once we found him. He spent the night locked in the laundry room, suffered the indignity of a serious bath the next morning (thank you, Katy—you’re my hero) along with his pseudo-sibling, Rocky, and dried in isolation for the next twenty hours until he was deemed suitable for polite company.

Maybe that’s why he looked at me like that when I complained about washing my hair, putting on makeup, and gathering all my stuff to go run errands. I don’t know nuthin’ about a dog’s life.

Well, maybe there’s one thing I know—this guy loves to go for a ride. Just open a car door in his general vicinity, and he’s right there in the pilot seat, ready for take-off. Last summer when Rob and I were renting a cabin in Greer, friends from the Valley came up for a few days to hang out. When they got ready to leave, they discovered an extra passenger in their sedan. With the doors left open to load their luggage, Brody escaped down the cabin steps and leaped inside—seventy pounds of fluffy, white energy filled the entire front seat. They coaxed him out of the car, and he ran around to the passenger door, jumped back in, and took his place again behind the wheel.

He’s not a backseat driver. He’s an opportunist.

When we went dog hunting at the pound four years ago, though, one of the things I hoped for was a companion who enjoyed riding in the car the way our first pup, Harmony, did. Our second dog, Sydney, didn’t especially like the open road. Suffering from high blood pressure and anxiety, she practically broke out in hives any time a car even showed up in the driveway. Taking her to required appointments like the vet or the groomer sent her into a tizzy, drooling all over the seat and staring nervously out the windows. That’s how some people act when they ride with me, too, come to think of it. In her case, though, she did that no matter who sat behind the wheel of the car.

So, we lucked out when we chose Brody. It was a gamble whether he’d turn out like Harmony or Sydney. It’s not like you can interview a dog about his likes and dislikes and peculiar habits when you decide to adopt him, you know.

“So, White Dog, do you enjoy car rides? Long walks on the beach? Pina coladas and gettin’ caught in the rain?” He’s so compliant he barked ‘yes’ to every question, especially the one about getting caught in the rain. How do you trust a dog who can’t say no?

He misses Rob, though. I can tell. We both do. Rob played outside with him every day, throwing a ball with that great arm of his. Taking him on long bike rides. Teaching Brody to catch lizards. You should have seen that one. Hunkered down beside the dog, with his hands on each side of his head, Rob directed Brody’s gaze to our back wall where the lizards liked to sunbathe. Once they had radar lock, Brody went into stealth mode, tiptoeing like a cat as he stalked the wild, rabid lizard and then launched himself at the trespasser. He launched himself so well, one afternoon, he smacked his nose right into the wall. After that, he was a lot more . . . prudent.

There are plenty of things for Brody to chase here where we live at the Brady Funny Farm now, or as I like to call it, the Brady Rehabilitative Ranch. So, I don’t need to point out anything to my crazy mutt except that skunks are a stupid thing to stalk. And I have a terrible throwing arm, so my poor dog has no tennis balls to chase after, either.

What I do have, though, is a truck. And the love of long drives. And that secret, dangerous question, “Wanna go for a ride?” He always knows when I’m about to ask, taking his best sitting position, tail wagging behind him like it’s sweeping the ground for landmines. As soon as he hears those magic words, he leaps off the ground like Tigger—no kidding—straight up onto the backseat of my Tahoe, settles himself in on the floorboard, launches his shoulders and front paws up on the console, and the next thing you know, two blonde heads are side by side in the front seat, charting another course across the desert.

We escaped together again tonight after dinner. A few miles down the road, we pulled into a Starbucks drive-thru and he slid off the console, climbed up on the backseat, and pressed his nose against the side window until I rolled it down. He knew what was coming. A Puppaccino—Starbucks’ version of a whipped cream-filled paper cup just for canine passengers.

Don’t judge me.

I held it for him while he licked it clean and we were back on the road again, heading nowhere in particular for a while. Mostly because I get lost in the dark and have to turn around a lot, but that’s not really important. Eventually, we decided we’d had enough fun and it was time to go home. There’s a lot of road construction near our street, so I turned a mile early hoping to avoid it. But I forgot that Ocotillo Road doesn’t go through to the east from Val Vista until it was too late. Making a u-turn, I glared at my companion who clearly didn’t understand how he’d let me down.

“Why’d you let me turn that way, Brody? Geez, you’re the worst navigator ever.” He responded the way he always does and licked my face.

Well, I thought, when you put it that way, I guess it’s not the end of the world. I spun around in the world’s best turning radius truck, and we headed for all the flashing beacons in the narrowed two-mile stretch of Chandler Heights Road that led back to the farm.

We’ll probably run away from home again tomorrow night or the next. I know Brody will never turn me down when I ask nicely.

All I have to worry about is whether he plans to drive and make me the navigator. No matter what he thinks, he's only licensed to be a dog. And besides, he's no good at making u-turns.

If he was, he'd have never been caught by that skunk.