The Lost Brother

While at dinner with my family in San Antonio last week Jon said grace and in his prayer he thanked God that 'Our lost brother has come home'.  

Today I leave Memphis to return to New England to tell this story.  As you know I've tried in the past and either the timing or platform or partners didn't pan out.  Events that have transpired in recent months have convinced me the time is now.  

Admittedly the problem has primarily been me or more specifically the standards I set for it.  Just as with the two walks I wanted to do something no one else has before and relegating the story to the Christian book market or a PBS special was unacceptable.  Even a film festival documentary didn't seem sufficient.  

The epidemic of cancer in our companions demands and deserves the widest audience possible and I've always pushed and pushed to that end.  But one lesson I've learned repeatedly is you cannot depend on anyone else to realize your vision and like life on the road it's you and you alone.  

I now know how to tell this story and the manner in which to tell it so once again I set off into uncharted waters. 

Brother, I am lost no longer.  

YBD 2.27.17

Midnight with Murphy

I should've been fasting these past 10 days out in the hinterlands of Tennessee.  All alone in my trusty tent starving myself of sustenance in order to achieve some greater clarity, understanding and context that occasionally is lost to me.  Heck I was packed up and ready to head out and then something stopped me.  Can't say what for sure - but the cascade of events set in motion since have been nothing short of metamorphic.   

Recently, I met a man who showed me another way and for the past two weeks I've been doing some serious transcendental shit; acupuncture, chanting, Reiki and sensory deprivation (not like Altered States - I'm already a beast of a man but more internal, intrinsic).    If I didn't know better I'd think I'd been smoking some serious Humboldt county style Boo-Ya.  Yes, yes I got a PhD in weed on the west coast.  

Sure, I've acknowledged the possibility and potential of and even dabbled in these Eastern type practices but never personally, truly, and profoundly have I explored them.  And now I'm down in it.  

So where is it going to take me?  What's the endpoint of it all?  To this, I am as yet uncertain.  But here's what I have learned thus far on this new path.

The Fallacy of 'What Should Happen Should Happen'

I was never any good at Logic - not the concept or application of it - but in the scholastic sense and  as a subset of philosophy.  So in attempting to make sense of the sequence of events that led me here to this time and place - I made up this fallacy which is basically the basis of flawed logic. 

People often ask me why did you walk those thousands of miles.  Oh sure, I've got a pocket full of reasons.  The fun, flippant one - everything is bigger in Texas and when we lose a dog to cancer down there we don't walk around a park, we walk cross country.  Then I've got the media sound bite version - sharing Malcolm and Murphy's story from town to town to raise awareness of the epidemic of canine cancer. I've got many more but you get the point.  

Perhaps they are all truths or variations of the same one but for me it's because I believed walking from Austin to Boston would help heal my loss of Malcolm, to soothe my savage heart. And then within weeks of the final mile, Murphy was diagnosed and, well, most of you know the rest of that story.   

And so I walked another 1,700 miles doubling down on the belief that THAT would heal me.   

You see the fallacy in this logic?  That because I believed it should, it should've.  But it didn't.  

Luke 4:23

You know, it's commonly thought that the origin of my name is 'light giving' and the best known example of it is the apostle Paul's traveling companion and doctor.  This proverb - I had to look that up since, um, well I usually skipped Bible study in search of less pious pursuits shall we say - in Latin reads cura te ipsum  - 'Physician heal thyself' something that's been a bit of an impossibility for me it seems.  

I suppose my post-facto rationalization has always been - I never spare myself any emotion for Malcolm and Murphy no matter how painful.  I can endure it.  Just like so many nights on the road and asea, I can weather this storm.  But I have suffered so.  

Self-imposed or not.  

Disconnection

Back to this newfound friend of mine, whom I barely even know. He showed me that pain can be a way to separate yourself from others.  To disconnect from them.  Furthermore, he said that people like me unknowingly use tragedy to spare themselves from the need and necessity of love and letting others in.  

I'm not sure if I believe all of his bullshit yet - but hey, I'm listening.    You see, it's one thing to turn tragedy into action - oh, I've done that and then some.  It's quite another thing to allow that experience to truly transform you.  And it's here I find myself at this intersection.   

Life Off Road

Not to put too fine a point on it but I've become a bit of an expert on backpacking the byways, highways, back roads and farm roads of this incredible land of ours.  But take me off and away from it and I tend to fall apart.  Perhaps it's because I'm always in pursuit of an idea, a belief, a cause - our cause - that remains elusive to me.  Or maybe it's as simple as finding sedentary existence unsettling and like Carthamus I'm damned to a life of wandering and wondering.   

And while I have been pretty good at chronicling and sharing my journeys on the road with you, I've been decidedly deficit in talking about it off, especially post west coast.  From now on, that will change.  I won't let fear, doubt, uncertainty, darkness or utter despair disconnect me from you again.  

In part because some of you have said to me you find the latter much more inspiring and relatable if not essential than the former.  And in part because my new friend tells me to.  

That and I need a simpler formula for existence.  I live.  I learn.  I write.  Something like that... just less cheesy and Julia Roberts sounding.  

Postscripts

Two blogs in draft right now (1) On Turning 36 - My travels and adventurin' have taken their toll on Yer Big Dog so I lick my wounds and tell tales about it; (2) The Theory of Cancer - lately my thinking has gotten so abstract and theoretical about the evolution of cancer. Where is it going and how can that affect our thinking about the future of therapeutics? On societal and civil re-engineering?  Reflections on my conversations with thought leaders and a whole host of other ideas - this will definitely be a multi-part project. 

There are more... lots more but I'm attempting to do a better job of prioritizing my crazy.

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YBD's Notes 1: The name of this blog has a special meaning to me.  Back when I was a businessman in Texas I would often take Malcolm up to my office in the evenings and that inspired a series of writings I entitled Midnight with Malcolm.  Dunno what the change denotes quite yet...

YBD's Notes 2: I stuff hyperlinks in my blogs if'n anyone wants to learn more about things that fascinate me but be forewarned - logic will make yer eyes water.  

YBD's Notes 3: Upon further reflection 'What Should Happen Should Happen' SHOULD be a fallacy. Oh boy.

YBD's Notes 4: Coincidentally, whilst recently consolidating all of my scant worldly possessions from around the country, I found this photo of me taken at the blessing of my childhood home.  I've seen too much of this world in this life to believe in coincidences.  Thanks to my sister-in-law Linda for preserving it.  Nice bowl cut, Mom

YBD's Notes 5:  I should choose a name for my new friend - he's not imaginary.  I Promise.  At least in my mind.  In this room.  That's white.  And padded.  

YBD's Notes 6: Perhaps it's still too early for me to write - no, I'm always doing that - to publish about these transcendental, metaphysical experiences and experiments.  But hey, at least I'm rounding again.  

damn dog

That'll be carved into my tombstone. 

I always found it to be a cosmic irony that I was the guy picked for this job if that's even the right word for describing my life's mission.  But trust me this was not the path that I chose for myself.  

Today is the anniversary of when I lost Malcolm - he was a gift from an ex from some distant land some distant time ago.  I didn't know a damn thing about dogs back then other than I didn't want one.  I worked 12 hours a day times 7. I was the chairman of this, the director of that... the creator and entrepreneur and my life didn't lend itself to distractions.

And that's what a dog was to me. A distraction.  

You see Malcolm & me was no easy thing.  He balked when I wanted him to obey and for six long months he and I were at war.  I didn't know back then but I believe now he was fighting for my soul. 

And isn't that the lesson?  No spirit should be secondary.  Not to anyone or because of anything.  

It's been a decade since lung mets sent him into congestive heart failure and Malcolm died in my arms.  It was an inglorious death to a giant and only those who understand, understand.  

damn dog. i miss you. damnit. 

YBD's Notes: What better way to celebrate Malcolm's life than by damning him. I'm quite certain he would've done the same about me.  He was a beautiful boy.  

The 19th

For whatever cosmic reasons beyond my complete comprehension the Week of the 19th of June is what the Japanese call, "Mono no aware" - both beauty and pain, celebration and sadness...

It's always the week of Father's Day, the anniversary of the Final Mile in Boston, the passing of my boy Murphy, and the birth of Indiana Jones. It's also the week of the summer solstice whose Latin translation roughly means the day the sun stands still.  When there is the least darkness. 

Every year it's a week I'd just like to fast forward through and move on because it can be too much for even me to shoulder.  And I've carried a ton of weight for some time.  But no one gets that option when you allow yourself to love absolutely.  

Five years ago today I gave Murphy rest and five years later I still weep inconsolably when I write about him.  His final days we spent together listening to Garth Brook's song The Dance and he loved it before I even realized the significance of the lyrics.  Paraphrasing them, 'I'm glad I didn't know the way it all would end.  But even if I did, I wouldn't have missed the dance.'  

Just like every light begins with darkness the Week of the 19th is about the lessons from life's inflections.  For me it's been both a beginning and an ending and the promise and the pain of love as well.    

And what a beautiful dance it's been.  Happy 19th!

The Cross

I just realized after talking to one of my girlfriends that it's father's day.  

I've had my nose to the grindstone so to speak that I almost forgot.  This week is also the anniversary of the final mile in Boston, Indiana's birthday, and 3 years since the death of my son, Murphy.  

Crossing over the Columbia into Oregon yesterday was more than just a milestone. What Stover, the well intentioned and seemingly genuinely interested reporter left out of his article was this:

This walk is all about the crossing and not just borders.  

It's the cross I wear around my neck between the ashes of Malcolm and Murphy that doesn't represent a religious symbol but a commitment.  

The symbolic representation of a cross can be found in every culture as a partnership and a promise. And, at times, a lean-to when you need it. 

It's bridging the gap in understanding that cancer is a cross species epidemic. It affects all of us. Cancer. Touches. Everyone. isn't just a tagline or some cutesy saying I came up with.

I was stopped recently and asked, 'What type of cancer are you walking for?'.  Isn't it interesting that question?  That this disease so subdivides us?  

Dog cancer.  Pet cancer.  Canine cancer.  Human cancer.  Melanoma, lymphoma, breast cancer, liver cancer, prostate cancer....

The most important takeaway point from Stover's interview was this - the microscope does NOT discriminate.  

I didn't really know what this second walk was really about until now.  I had an inkling and an instinct.  But now I know.  And on this father's day, I give thanks to my father for imparting to me a thirst for knowledge and understanding.  And my mother who helped me cross that with faith and belief.  

No matter how many bridges I cross I miss my sons.  Malcolm and Murphy.  

T Minus Ten

Ten days from now we'll set off from Vancouver on our second mission; a six month, 1,700 mile trek to San Diego.  Since my first such - Austin to Boston, I've come to learn that there are three points to every journey: to, from, and for. 

And those points you can't find on a map as they are neither finite nor geographical in nature.   

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Recently I was going through the archives from our first walk that are housed in a storage facility in Memphis to recycle gear and supplies that were donated back then and I came across a box of 2012 calendars.  The one of me carrying Murphy's lifeless body the final few steps.  The one most didn't want.  

They were water stained and moldy and my first thought was toss em. But I couldn't stand the thought of them being in some landfill, dumped and disregarded so I took them out with us camping out last week at Shelby Forest to recycle them as kindling.  

It was a metaphorical moment for me as I watched the calendar burn and I couldn't help but wonder if that's one of the points of this walk.  

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I miss my Murphy and maybe that's my to, from and for.  

CyberKnife

Back in the backlot of an architecturally unassuming Westchester industrial park is the brainchild of two neurologists, Drs. Joseph and Berg, both brewed from the great crockpot of talent that is Manhattan's AMC.  

The Animal Specialty Center is in many ways not unlike the dozens and dozens of veterinarian clinics I've toured around the country.  Dedicated  staff. Check.  Exceptional and compassionate care.  Check.  

One things stands out, however as the focal point.  And it stands tall.  

Say 'Hello' to my lil new friend, the Cyberknife.  

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Blake and Dr. Sue

To frame the entirety of this part of our story accurately, a bit of history is in order first.  I met Dr. Sue, one of ASC's medical oncologists back in San Diego 2010 while giving a presentation about our Walk 1 - Austin to Boston - to the attendees of the Veterinary Cancer Society (VCS) Meeting.  

Come full circle, last October at VCS Twin Cities, we met again and she extended an invitation for me to visit their clinic in Yonkers.  A reunion perhaps of greater prescience than either of us could've known at the time as Blake, one of two beautiful rescue labs and part of the 2 Million Dogs family was diagnosed only weeks afterwards with meningioma becoming an ideal candidate for the Cyberknife.  

Blake's mum, Chris, is one of our PUPS out of Baltimore and last week I spent time at ASC filming their story and learning about the relative benefits of Cyberknife vs. fractionated radiotherapy vs. stereotactic radiosurgery.  

Since I'm no scientist, I always try to reduce things down to their most basic elements and from my understanding, the differences between the three are merely a matter of time and precision.    

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Murphy

When he was DX'd with nasal adenocarcinoma just weeks after the conclusion of Walk 1, I chose  IMRT  once Withrow at CSU ruled him ineligible as a surgical candidate. I chose a slow course of radiation for an inoperable tumor and not only did it fail, Murphy developed a secondary Sarcoma in his nasopharynx.  

I got the best clinical advice at CSU but ultimately, I made a decision as a father rather than a patient and that faultline proved fatal and Murphy didn't even make it a year.  

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That's the trade off between the three types of radiology at least from a textbook perspective.  Time and precision and clinical outcome.   Blake underwent three days of Cyberknife treatment and godwilling, that's all she'll ever need.  

I firmly recommend exhaustive research and due diligence for the best most effective long-term treatment plan if you have a companion animal with cancer, along with the wise counsel of a vet oncologist.  

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I was grateful to be an honored guest at ASC last week; to herald in their 6 year anniversary, and most importantly, be there for friends of ours, Chris and Blake.  

And although I didn't get a slice of their birthday cake, I have bigger sights in mind.  To a few trusty friends I texted the image of the Cyberknife and it scared the hell outta them in a RoboCop sorta way.  

Not me.  I'm from Texas and all I could think of was mounting it and riding it like Slim Pickens did a nuke in Dr. Strangelove into a blaze of glory.    

Thanks to the staff of ASC for being generous and accommodating during our time there and to Drs. Joseph and Berg for being pioneers in the field of veterinary medicine.  

Today is TSO

To explain the significance and importance of Trans Siberian Orchestra in my life, in this our story is pretty near impossible.  But I gotta try.  

It was the winter.  That winter.  A couple of fine folks in Colorado got me tickets to see them since I was there while Murphy was receiving care at CSU.  And it was my birthday.  

Being the music lover I am, I was sure I heard of them.  But even if I did, nothing could've prepared me for it...

An Angel Came Down was the first piece they performed and I was blown away. To put it into context, I've seen Pavarotti live, the three tenors, and Yo Yo Ma and even Kitaro... There was a hot, hot girl in a red sequined dress playing the electric violin that I still think about from time to time... 

Anyway, I was in rapture.  Pop culture has ruined the word 'awesome' but it was.  I was a kid witnessing the spirit of Christmas for the first time.  

And yet I hated it.  Because somewhere in a distant parking lot, alone and cold was Murphy.  He never left my side and the TSO concert was as far as I went from him.  We didn't stay for the second set because I couldn't. Even though thoroughly bundled up in the SUV.

And then after Murphy died, I was up in Bowling Green KY (heh, that's my TX roots showing - everything is 'up'), for two reasons.  To meet Indy for the first time and attend a fundraiser for their animal shelter.  It was the coolest of its kind - it was in a cave that Jesse James and his gang hung out in if my memory serves me well. 

Even amidst all the beauty, glamour, and glitz that I was graciously invited to be a part of, I didn't stay long, 30 minutes maybe, because I couldn't.  I left there and drove to a church parking lot and put my TSO CD in, listening to it for hours.  It must've been hours because someone called the police.  

The officer politely asked me why I was there.  I didn't know if he meant why I was in The City of White Squirrels, the parking lot of a church in the middle of the night, or asking a more theological question.  But I only had one answer.  

"I miss my son."  

He nodded and said goodnight.  I never asked his name.  

This is my Christmas story

Traces: A Tribute to Murphy

It's your birthday today.

It's interesting to me that the origin of the word, traces, has two diametrically opposed meanings.  One is to make one's way, the other is to draw one's course.  Or stated differently, a path that one follows or one leaves.  

I often wonder which way I've been heading since we lost you.  It was clearer with you by our side on the road and without you we would have never made the final mile.  But because of you and my faith we will always find our way.  

You've left your traces in so many places in our lives.  Thank you.  

THE ROCK: Chapter 5 Continued

It was slight, almost imperceptible Malcolm's limp at first.  I kept asking my girlfriend, Anna, if she saw it, too, as we walked along the Charles, and she said she didn't and that I was being neurotic and too maternalistic.   Which in hindsight probably wasn't too far off the mark.  If I could've bubble wrapped him without a PETA intervention, I may just have.  

Still I took Malcolm to a vet in Watertown, MA, and walked him all over the clinic like a show horse and they didn't see anything either.  Sad as it were he was like a shimmy in a steering wheel that you can't reproduce when taken to the auto mechanic.   

I knew it was there.   But at the time I was thinking it was perhaps a recurrence of his OCD which he was diagnosed with back in Texas that the bitter cold New England winter had exacerbated.  Or Malcolm had Lyme Disease which is exceedingly common up here that can lead to a degenerative neuro-muscular melt down.  

I vacillated for a couple of weeks half convincing myself nothing was wrong yet half knowing something was.  

Three things happened next.

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My dog got cancer.  My girlfriend left me.  And she took the truck.  

In some cruel cosmic irony, this Texas boy, who within six months of moving up to Boston, became a country song.  

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I remember when Anna and I first moved up to Boston in 2003, we were looking for a place to take Malcolm and Murphy for a hike and surveying a map we saw the Emerald Necklace, a sprawling almost contiguous swath of parks designed by the great Frederick Olmsted.  

We got lost looking for Back Bay Fens and saw a beat cop at a convenient store.  I pulled into the parking lot and asked him for directions, which in a thick, sweetly grating Boston accent he gave us smilingly.  

"Thanks but, say", I asked him, "I'm not from around here but I can't help but notice that there aren't any street signs in this city.  Why is that?"  

Without a second's hesitation he replied, "If you don't know, you shouldn't be here."  

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Maybe he was right.  I shouldn't have been there.  I should never have left my native state of Texas.  But just like playing a country song in reverse doesn't get your dog, your girl, or your truck back, one cannot undo the order of things.  

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I finally insisted that the vet in Watertown take X-Rays on Malcolm to be sure and when he delivered the diagnosis, I remember saying, "Wait, what?", as though my comprehension needed to catch up to the reality.  

I didn't even know dogs got cancer. 

Sure enough the vet showed me the star burst pattern on Malcolm's radiograph, an image permanently etched in my memory.  Through my tears I asked a question that, although I didn't know it at the time, would design and determine my fate for the rest of my days.  

"But, why?"  

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YBD's Notes 1:  I'm an honorary New Englander now and as I write this, in the wee hours of the morning, the great foghorns on the Narraganset Bay bellow nearby and rock me with pleasure.  

YBD's Notes 2: I didn't realize until writing this vignette that Back Bay Fens was where the final mile of our walk began.  Ironically, it wasn't our first choice.  The Esplanade was.  Funny how things work out.   

YBD's Notes 3:  I find people who use tragic circumstances to further a personal agenda distasteful and even though I am a transplant, I just want to let the people of Boston know that I stand proud with you.  And to that beat cop, "Maybe so.  But I am here."  

THE ROCK Chapter 4: Murphy

CHAPTER 4 : Murphy

It’s been almost two years since I lost Murphy and there’s still a rankled rawness in writing about him and within my original draft of Book One, this chapter wasn’t initially included.    

But as excoriating as it still is, Murphy was so much a part of Malcolm’s story early on and mine, their influence upon one another is significant and I realize now it’s impossible to disinclude it.     

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Murphy was all of a month or two old when Stevie, my girlfriend at the time, brought him home as a surprise for me.  I’d met Stevie years previously and was turned on to her in a lightening second for a couple of reasons.  First of all, she was named after the lead singer of Fleetwood Mac due to her tall stature and flowing hair. 

Stevie was also a die hard vegan and animal rights advocate, her big heart always standing up for those who couldn’t speak for themselves was what also drew me to her.  Still, when I came home to find that she had rescued a Pyrenees pup, a potential brother to Malcolm, I was none too pleased. 

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Even though Murphy was a cute lil feller as all pups are, I could tell he was a powder keg set to go off at anytime.  But the flaws weren’t his fault.  Stevie had pretty much down and outright stolen him from a groomer at the vet clinic she worked.  The groomer left him outside day and night, through sweltering heat and treacherous electric storms and by the time he was brought into the clinic, Murphy was listless and pretty much lifeless. 

But within a day of being brought home to our townhouse, he perked up enough to begin a reign of holy terror.  He wasn’t house broken but he was so willful even at that age that he actually tried to break the house instead. 

First of all, Murphy didn’t have ‘accidents’.  Nope, as I came to learn, his incontinence was intentional.  He didn’t shyly or sheepishly urinate in a corner, he ran around the entire living room with a steady stream of pee like he was making performance art or something. 

And he couldn’t be left unattended for too long in our townhouse.  We kept him barricaded in the kitchen to try and limit and confine the damage he wrought but even still he found a way.  For the first few days, Murphy would just knock down the pet doors and pee and poop all over the house.  But when I reinforced them to the point at which escape became impossible, it was like we left the Tasmanian devil in the kitchen. 

He’d chew on cabinet knobs and when we removed those, Murphy actually gnawed on the kitchen walls stripping it of wallpaper leaving teeth marks in the sheetrock.  It was like the Pyrenees version of Hannibal Lector and Linda Blair from the Exorcist had just moved in with us and I wasn’t about to call a priest.  I wanted him out of our townhome and out of our lives.

I felt bad for the lad for his lot in life and that he had a shitty, neglectful parent.  But that he was an unruly, untrained, misbehaving child, the real reason I didn’t want Murphy was because of Malcolm. 

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My attention had become diverted from Malcolm and even though he never displayed the slightest sense of jealousy or what I would later learn as ‘resource guarding’ over Murphy, I still felt guilty that he wasn’t the one and only anymore. 

It was a long, hard road for me to learn to love Malcolm and I wasn’t about to share that.  And I wasn’t about to take that journey with another dog.

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Author’s Note on Author’s Notes:  I’m no longer calling them this anymore because it makes me sound like a pretentious boob.  Henceforth, they’ll be Yer Big Dog’s Notes. 

YBD’s Notes 1:  I have a big opportunity so I'm going to have to move my posting from Friday to I'm not quite sure yet til I work out the specifics.  But rest assured, I'll keep sharing the story with you every week.  

THE ROCK: Chapter 3 Conclusion

A Great Growl was growing inside of me and it felt both prehistoric and preternatural at the time.  I’d never been a parent before but the innate instincts of one had lain dormant inside me that I discovered that day when I damned near lost Malcolm.  

The terror I felt took me to the Dark Side and by Dark Side, I mean being a Dog Person.

I realized just how uneducated, ill prepared, and uninformed I was about pet parenting and I started reading indiscriminately about Pyrenees, puppies, and about raising big dogs in general. And it was then I learned a term I was never properly introduced to before but became the absolute bane of my existence.

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Bloat

A term I previously associated with a late night that consisted of a dozen or so Dos Equis and take out from Taco Cabana.  Like people, dogs get gassy, too, I assumed, but upon learning for the first time bloat could lead to catastrophic and complete organ failure and death, I was panic stricken.    

For months thereafter I hadn't a single restful night as I became obsessed with bloat.  And every article I read, website I came across, and story I learned of only compounded my dread. 

When Malcolm didn't finish his meal, he had bloat.  When he didn't have a bowel movement at his usual time of day, dammit it was bloat.  I was constantly sticking my head to his belly listening for peristalsis, or stomach gurgling, to assure me his systems were functioning normally. 

In short order I’d gone from ‘Don’t want dog’ to ‘He’s my mate’ to ‘Okay I’m a dad’ to “Mad dog man’.  I wasn’t a parent anymore.  I was a hyper-maternalistic maniac who was probably seriously freaking Malcolm out with my obsession over his bowels.  And all of my friends and family, too.  

But my mania wasn’t just limited to bloat.  Shortly after nearly losing Malcolm, I became hell bent on protecting him from outside threats to the point that I installed an electric fencing system in our back yard.

Malcolm had escaped a few times before and I couldn’t figure out how until I let him outside and hid in our sun room until he tried it.   I’d read about dogs digging holes underneath gates, squeezing through them, or even the more athletic ones jumping over fences but nothing like how Malcolm got loose. 

Our backyard acre was enclosed by a standard four foot high Cyclone fence and there was no way Malcolm could clear it.  Instead, he put his front paws on top then stuck his hind paws in the first or second openings in the weave and then somehow, miraculously, threw his fat butt over the fence in a painfully uncoordinated way. 

An Olympian, surely not, nor would he ever be invited to perform with Cirque de Soleil, but after a few rolls he got up quite contented, dusted himself off, and tore ass down to the Medina River to wallow in the mud. 

The only solution I could come up with back then was to electrify the top of the fence where he positioned his front paws.  I grounded a single looped wire from a system I purchased at a local feed store that assured me the voltage was so low it would act a deterrent only and not a detriment.  But the first time I saw it in action, Malcolm jumped straight up in the air, clearly frightened.  The look on his face I never wanted to see again and I immediately deactivated the electric fence.  

I just didn’t have enough parenting experience how to balance enrichments and risks and to compensate for that deficit, I suppose, I systematically started to insulate him from all external threats.  Or maybe I was protecting myself. 

But it all culminated when my girlfriend brought home a Pyrenees puppy she had rescued that day from an irresponsible groomer.  I came home late that night and she had hoped to surprise me with him, but the second I saw the dog, I told her to start looking for a home for him. 

Unquestionably, there was no way I was going to make Malcolm feel like he had to compete for my love nor was I going to permit anything to breach the bond we had developed. 

The dog could stay with us for a week, I informed my girlfriend, after that, the Pyr pup had to have a new home.  I was adamant I didn’t want it, wouldn’t accept it, and damn well couldn’t have another in my life. 

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I couldn’t have been more wrong as ‘that dog’ would one day be known as Murphy.  

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Author's Note On Bloat:  One of the best and most comprehensive studies I've come across on the risk factors of bloat is from Tufts.  Read it, learn it, and take it to heart.  I say this because one of the factors that increases the risk significantly is elevated dog bowls.  On our travels, I've stayed with many families that use them and I've had the discussion with people countless times.  Some of them use them for older, arthritic dogs and that may be a valid reason.  But if you have a large breed, barrel chested dog, here's what you need to consider.  Nature designed dogs to drink from the ground no matter what manufacturers selling raised bowls try to tell you.  I'm no expert about anything but at the end of my day, nature is the final arbiter.  

Time Fer an Update

With all this talk in the book about rocks changing destinies and such I often lose sight of the pebbles that exist inbetween.

I'm taking a week off from the book tonight but will resume next Friday, March 8th, with Chapter 3 and instead will take a tic or two and update everyone with a brief, behind-the-scenes look at what's going on and what's in store.

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A Texas sized 'Thank y'all' from Yer Big Dog

Since I started posting the book here, we're now getting over 1,500 page views per week, a trend that's on the uptick.  I thank you because the decision to publish on the blog and for free, especially when taking into consideration all of the people who have collaborated on the book, wasn't easy.  But I think my instincts to do so are proving out.

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Yer Big Dog 

I always assumed it was self evident, by virtue of my continued commitment to this cause, or through my actions and writings, that I'm a lifer.  Where I come from, when you commit yourself to a cause greater than yourself, it's lifelong.  When you love, it's eternal.  

In some shape, form, or flavor everything I do from here on out til Yer Big Dog floats down that great river, is in memory of the two I have lost, for the love of all of our companions who cannot speak for themselves, from the faith and certainty of my life's mission, and with my firmest hope and belief that we will one day overcome this disease.  

I am inundated with so many ideas and possibilities that there are days when it becomes almost unbearable but they all serve a single, united purpose.

I am reminded of a scene from the movie, Shadowlands, wherein which Anthony Hopkins, portraying C.S. Lewis, is struggling to make sense of it all after the love of his life was diagnosed with cancer..  Trying to comfort Lewis, a friend of his says, "I know how hard you've been praying and now God is answering your prayers."

"That's not why I pray", he answers.  "I pray because I can't help myself.  I pray because I'm helpless.  I pray because the need flows out of me at all times, waking and sleeping."

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It's the Pebbles, Baby. 

For the almost five years now since I started my mission, I've kinda had a hard time navigating in this sound-bytey, fire and forget, 140 words or less new, new world we live in.  This story is (1) damn, dreadfully difficult to cram down into micro moments and (2) perpetual and with no hope of stopping anytime soon, and (3) unscripted and at times, messy messy messy.    

I'm trying to do a better job of talking more about the pebbles and taking a long needed break from Facebook has helped me put it all into perspective and come up with a plan.   Still, there are a few things I need to set straight.  

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2 Million Dogs. 

Though I am the founder of the foundation, I am not on the payroll nor the Board.  The decision to have no official capacity in the brainchild that began with me was a tough one but I did so for a few reasons.  First of all, I need the latitude to fight for this cause unencumbered. free of restraint, and savagely when necessary.  

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, is that an organization, a cause, must always be greater than the one that began it.  We've been given a perfect example of that this past year in the cancer world. 

I have complete faith and confidence in the management and leadership of the Foundation as this past year has been a banner one for 2 Million Dogs in every respect.  

But I am starting to feel like Yer Ole Dog instead of a Big'Un.  So...

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Japan.  

My decision to walk across Japan has baffled some and flummoxed others so it's time for me to speak about that.  The burning question is 'Why?'  

Now that the 2 Million Dogs Foundation is doing great, I have to think about myself and how I can, in my own way, continue the legacy that began with Malcolm.  

Publishing the book. Check.  Telling this story on film.  Check.  Working on many other fronts for the cause.  Check.  

But what about me?  After I lost Murphy I've slowly been coming to certain realizations about who and what I am.  

I'm not meant to live a sedentary life and it's time for us to get back on the road and continue our travels.  Why Asia is our next adventure isn't entirely clear and certain to me.  But as my instincts served us well thus far, it is and that's that.  

Plans for Japan will be laid out here as we make our preparations.  I've made a commitment to be a part of the November 2013 Puppy Up! walk after which we will walk from the southern most cape of Kyushu to the northernmost in Hokkaido.  It won't be like the one here in the states.  

One critical side point; it will in no way be financed by 2 Million Dogs.  

I left Austin with a couple hundred bucks in my pocket in 2008 and this, too, will be as organic.

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Shadowlands.

I'm no C.S. Lewis but like him, every second of my every day of my every year from here on out is devoted to this cause because I can't help myself. 

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Next week in Chapter 3 of 'The Rock', is all about that threshold we cross from being a pet owner to a pet parent. 

Twain

I've been so inner focused on how to tell the Summer of Murphy documentary and shots still not shot, ideas not fully fleshed out, that I kinda lost sight of thanking everyone who has been a big big part of it, even though it seems that's the way it should be.  I mean gratitude, honor, glory, sacrifice, love, beauty, grace - these words mean nothing if they're not consistently applied in one's everyday life but if you're not careful the can consume every aspect of you.  

And that's what I struggle with.  How to tell this, our story.  I used to think that my enemy was the word 'canine cancer' because it automatically presupposed a difference to human cancer even though science has disproven that notion.

On the Tour and in every interview I did, when asked what message I wanted to deliver, it was just that.  Cancer is cancer and it's killing all of us, sparing no species, and that journalists would be remiss if they propagated that misconception.  

But, oh, they did.  Every single article, interview, and TV spot on the Tour was framed out as a story about canine cancer despite my insistence.  Did you know it's an industry standard that newspapers write at the 7th grade level?  We are children to them and that's how they speak to us.  

I've changed a lot this past year and have begun to accept that as a spokesman for a cause, fighting against the greatest pandemic ever, I must necessarily be a social critic and I'm starting to step up to that responsibility. 

It's a role I didn't want, still don't, and sickens me at times.  Trust me, my few trusted advisers see the brunt of it and it ain't a beauty.  And upon occasion, you witness it here and previously on my now deactivated Facebook account.  I'll get to that later.  

You know, I grew up in a very erudite household with a high expectation of education.  I read a lot and learned a lot but there was always someone I invariably met who thought I was arrogant because I used 'big' words.  They never got to know me well enough to know that ego had nothing to do with it.  I love the English language, its origins and history.  Hell, I love words in any language.  To think that someone came up with a word like 'excoriate' fascinates me.  De Profundis - what a powerful phrase.  

Ed and I were talking the other day about one of my favorite authors, Samuel Clemens.  He's better known to most of you by a different name and that got me thinking.  Why did he change his name and why did he choose that nom de plume?  

There's a lot of sadness, despair, and disappointment I deal with on a daily basis but we don't get to pick and choose what we like about our life mission and what we don't.  It's a package deal.  

I'm grateful for each and every one of you.  Please don't ever confuse the one for the other.  But I'll never talk to you like 7th graders here and just to spare you the suspense, there are lots of tough conversations to come.  

But I'll try to do a better, more consistent job of sharing the great beauties of the world as I bear witness to them.  Today, it's Bach's Prelude in G   

The Killing Fields pt 2

I left off in part I of The Killing Fields with what you can do.  Here are a few such things.  

1. The only study that's been conducted about the effects of irradiated food fed to animals was done so by NASA.  Contact them and request, under the Freedom of Information Act, the disclosure of that study.  After all, you paid for the research and it should be made available to all of us.  

2.  Stop sending petitions to politicians.  And money.  They no more care about you and your companion animals than Bill Clinton did Monica Lewinsky.

Proof in point.  Did you know that budget cuts from the Obama administration to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) have been so severe that funding levels are at an all time low?  He's been very busy spending trillions even in the midst of the World Health Organization's 2010 report that cancer is, for the first time, the greatest scourge we've ever seen.  

According to their annual report, NCI gave only 5 billion dollars in grants last year.  This isn't a political or party rant since I affiliate myself with neither.  But did you know that during the last presidential election, 2.6 billion dollars, half of what was set aside for cancer research, was put into the pockets of political consultants, lobbyists, corporations, unions, and whatever else it takes to win a presidential race?  

Let me restate that.  The U.S. government spent only $5 billion on cancer research last year.  Over half of that was spent on electing a president.  So while your loved ones are dying from the world's deadliest disease, the fat cats keep enriching their lives at your expense.  

3.  Stop trying to get celebrities to join the cause.  I personally know of many celebrities who have lost companion animals to cancer.  So why don't they step up?  

This has always been somewhat of a mystery to me but I think I have a pretty good handle on it now.  The only thing that celebrities give a shit about is image, brand and franchise and they're afraid if they say, 'Hey, my little Dachshund has cancer' then the rest of the non-Dachshund and even non-animal loving community will strafe them with so much criticism and they crawfish.  

I suspect there are a few actors out there who really do care but their agents and the producers of their projects shut them down.  Think about it, if I'm, say, Jeff Bridges...  No, I need someone a little younger even though I love that man.  The Dude abides.  

If I'm Justin Timberlake, another man I have a bro-mance with but only because he's a fairly decent golfer and one of the game's biggest advocates, plus, he did one of the funniest skits on SNL. 

If I came out and said I lost a dog to lymphoma, the shitstorm that would ensue from all of the people (that's most of you, by the way) who lost 'human' companions to the same disease would potentially devastate my career and all of the hanger-ons would shut me down.     

It's a public stigma I've been branded with more times than I care to remember.  'Oh, you're the dog cancer guy', I've been introduced as.  Or the the more insinuating, less kind, characterization that made me sound like a circus carny, the 'Dog cancer boy'.     

I harbor no ill will towards celebrities and still hope we could one day host a 'Celebrity Coming Out Party' for those who lost a dog to cancer.  But that'd entail you to tell your agents and representatives to bugger off, have the courage of your convictions and damn the consequences.  

Next time.  Part 3. Keep the Pol Pot in Your Pants.   

The Bud Man Abides

Some say we anthropromophize our dogs because we need to believe they have a soul.  

I say, if you can't see the great spirit inside them, you aren't f*cking looking hard enough.  

My God has blessed me with that ability, to open up to that beautifully complex and unspoken companionship.  

I reflect on it today, the one year anniversary of the passing of one such great soul, Buddy Morgan, Ginger's heart dog.  

I wrote a ballad about him in which I referred to him as 'Bad Beat Buddy' because he never had it easy in life.  Not much was known of him in the early years except that he was from N'awlins LA and a Katrina rescue and that's how he came into Ginger's life.  At the time she was Executive Director of the Memphis and Shelby County Humane Society.  

Buddy was starved and had a half gnarled leg which appeared to have been tangled up in barb wire that he had to chew off to survive.  Buddy also had buckshot in his arse presumably courtesy of a farmer he had made the unfortunate mistake of trespassing on their land.  

His strife didn't end there - once rescued, Buddy was adopted out to several families in Memphis all of whom returned him for various reasons and by reasons I mean stupidities, so he became a ward of the shelter.  

Ginger ultimately adopted him as her own.  

I had the great fortune to spend time with the Bud Man in the last months of Murphy's life.  He, Hudson, and Murphy and I stayed in Ginger's living room and became known as the notorious Couch Potato Kidz, and it was then and there that I got to know him.  

Buddy had two forms of expression that I described as 'The Bud Man Abides' (inspired, of course, by my love of the Dude) and 'The Bud Man is Not Amused'.  The picture nearby personifies the latter cause he really hated when Ginger dressed him up for photo ops.  

There was no middle ground with him and I think that's what I loved best about him.  

Not too long after Ginger became a part of this our story, Buddy's left eye started bulging out and the diagnostics revealed he had a cranial tumor.  Radical surgery removed it along with his eye and part of his jaw, too.  But despite her heroic efforts, the cancer spread to his lungs in the winter of 2010 and slowly sucked the life out of him.  

After Murphy died I went on an 18 day fast in Tennessee.  Within a week of my return from my fast Buddy slumped over and passed away from congestive heart failure.  Ginger says he was waiting for me. 

I miss him deeply and absolutely, and whether you believe that to be true, I've been witness to many things most people wouldn't ever believe... 

Open up... Puppy up