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LUTHER
Other names:
Luther, THE dog
“BGM” (Big Giant Monster)
Lothar the Magnificent
Fartmeister
Pooch de la booch, de la hootch, de la cootch
Cur
Big Bezungenungen
You loved being petted on the stomach and butt,
going for walks in Griffith Park, and riding in the car.
You loved men, especially Kirby and Joey, and almost
all workingmen.
Your walks around the block resembled stations of the cross,
with you pausing to savor and seeming to pray
at a discreet and unvarying selection
of gates, posts, trees and stairwells.
Occasionally you would find a fig leaf–a favorite forage–or fresh tender spring grass.
Your ferocious yet sad appearance brought smiles
to many strangers, and you loved their compliments
and attention, tossing your head, bouncing and snorting
in a terrifying way..
You had a special skill in triangulation.
When people visited us at home, you would manage to find
the exact central point between them, and lie down there.
Thunder, gunfire, and the Fourth of July were terrifying to you.
You never learned to properly greet visitors.
Your job was to guard us,
although the mission was never tested–
I guess you did your job.
Your face always made me smile.
Rita
My mom and I picked him up from John Steppling’s house and took him home with us. He was tiny and soft, like a cat. In the midst of my cooing and oohing and awing on the car ride home he promptly crapped in my lap. That first night my parents went out and Joey and I were left to care for him. I put him in the bathtub with some newspaper and towels and tried to sleep but he started crying so I brought a sleeping bag down there and slept with him. That was the last night he cried.
He grew relatively quickly, but never quite lost his puppy-ness, meaning he wasn’t the most well-behaved dog. He didn’t play fetch, he was more into tug-of-war, and he wouldn’t hesitate to snarl and bite if you were winning (or if you seemed like you had any intention of winning). This was something I learned to appreciate about Luther: he never really was domesticated. He taught me to respect animals as animals and not to treat them like small children or stuffed toys.
In teen-angsty moments sometimes I’d stare into his eyes, convinced that he could read what I was thinking. This may just be some stupid projection, but there was some sort of tired intelligence behind those expressive eyes of his, and sitting with him or going on walks around the neighborhood did help me to feel better.
Throughout college he’d greet me with excitement every time I came home. People can fake excitement, but there’s nothing quite like having an animal get excited to have you home after months away. On one of my last days of my last LA visit we took him out to Point Dume, my favorite beach. We walked over the Point, where I’d never actually been, and the sky was so clear we could see up and down the coast. We hiked down to the tide pools and let him off the leash where he excitedly ran between my mother, father, and I, almost herding us. When we all walked back up the stairs toward the car he wouldn’t move until he saw that we were all there, walking with him.
Lena
Luther, an American Bulldog was born around March 1998 and died Saturday, March 14, 2009
