Thursday Feb 18, 2021 The Lost, Then Rediscovered

 She Ain't No Max

Backing up through the snow near the shed, I opened the trunk lid, then the door of my car, and to my black Labrador/Chesapeake dog I said, “ Cubby, get the outboard out of the trunk.”
 

She looked at me, then looked east, then west, her tail arched with enthusiasm. She had an eager look in her eyes, but an expression of bewilderment that said, “Say whut?”
 

So I calmly repeated,”Get the outboard out of the trunk. Go get it.”
 

Feigning an incoming scent on the wind, she followed her nose away from the car until I called her back excitedly, thinking that, possibly, she didn’t  understand the command, 

“Cubby! C’mon! Get the outboard outa the trunk, girl! C’mon!”
 

Eagerly she bounded back, then leaped high into the air as some black labs are known to do, obviously lookin’ into the trunk at the same time and thinkin’,
“Oh, that outboard.”

Yet she doesn’t make any attempt to retrieve it from the trunk. I can see its hopeless. This dog just ain’t no Max.
 

It wasn’t the first time. Just the other day, in the midst of some project I realized I couldn’t reach my cordless drill from where I was precariously perched and told her,

“Cubby, get the Makita. It’s right there girl. Get it!” motioning toward the drill gun laying on the workbench in plain sight.
 

Understanding the “Get it” phrase, she quickly became attentive, whirling about the close confines between the laundry table and the clothes dryer, her tail thumping against them like a rotating baseball bat, her nose just above the floor recalling our hide’n seek games with doggy-treats. She was goin’ in and out of corners, snuff-snuffling, but going away from where I needed her to be.
 

“Cubby!” I said balancing between bookshelves, my back arched unnaturally; my grip beginning to fade, my whole being going wobbly. With probably an edge of impatience in my voice, I said again,
“Cubby Get the Makita!
So Cubby sat down to await further instructions.
 

I could see it was hopeless. This dog just ain’t no Max.
I want a dog like Joe Holm’s dog, Max.
 

 

Joe Holm  1925-2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Joe lived just outside Edinburg, N.D. He had passed away on January 13, 2021. Finding his obituary this very evening of Wednesday, February 17, 2021 as I re-wrote this story several years old, borders on mystery; for I had began to write a different post entirely, but stumbled around on it, unhappy with my inability to wrap things up.
 

Looking through a cache of old stories, I happened on this one and it struck my fancy with its mirth, so saving the previous story for another time, I chose this story to use -- to learn -- in its unfolding, that the man I was writing about had passed away only a month earlier. So sad!  So very sad . . .
 

I had written this story about 14 or 15 years ago after meeting Joe and his wife, Mae. I was introduced to him by Orlin Ostby, formerly of Gatzke, Minnesota, who had known Joe and Mae for 47 years, by that time. Orlin had worked for Joe and his brothers on the farm, during harvest, from when he was a young man. Orlin could speak Norwegian fluently and so got along wonderfully with the Holm boys.
 

I met Joe when Orlin, his son Christopher, and I came to Edinburg to help the community build a sod house for their quasquicentennial celebration. We spent a night at Joe and Mae’s house. It was a fun time. They were good people.
 

And Joe had a black lab named Max.
 

Well, Max had died several years before then, but like Joe he was legend.
 

As I heard tell, Max was no ordinary black dog. He had a sense about him that defied any dog that ever lived within 100 miles of Edinburg in any direction. Max would go get the mail from the mailman and deliver it to whomever it was addressed. He delivered lunchboxes out to the men in the fields -- and once, after a mere suggestion, drug a chainsaw back home from the woods in the north 40.
 

I am almost convinced our black lab/cross, ‘Cubby’ is not a Max although I hold out hope that one day all my coaching will pay off in spades.

"You're safe. He can't hit the broad side of a barn."

 It’s not like what I ask of her is beyond her abilities as a black Labrador nor that she’s particularly handicapped being part Chesapeake, but bloodlines aside, outdoor dogs in general should be able to understand the language of their master be it scandahoovian, Ojibwe, Spanish, or Swahili. It isn’t the inability of the human to effectively communicate, it’s the dog’s inability to control its analytical tendencies when dealing with humans whom they view as totally illogical.
 

For instance, one beautiful evening, I was repairing the front tire of my tractor in the field and found myself needing a tire iron that I had accidentally left beyond my reach and asked Cubby to get it for me,
“Cubby, get the tire iron . . “
 

She looked at me as though she was confused about what it was I asked, so I repeated myself, “Cubby. Get the tire iron.”
 

I could see the gears turning in her head, “If you had organized your tools and insured you had all that you needed within your grasp you wouldn’t find yourself in this predicament, and now you are asking me to compensate for your inadequacies.”
 

So, obviously that only fed her affliction; it was a long shot anyway, being a tool with which she was unfamiliar. It’ll just take time.
 

Max wasn’t built in a day either.