The Camp Dog

Between the ages of 14 and 18 (1970 - 74) I worked at Camp Shaver, a YMCA camp in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico, not far from Los Alamos. It paid very little and was basically a 24-hour-a-day job that ran six days a week. In some ways it was one of the most fulfilling jobs I have ever had.

One summer, about three weeks into the season, this really skinny female black lab cross dog started hanging around the camp kitchen’s garbage cans. After a while the cook started feeding it leftovers and pretty soon she was the unofficial camp dog. Now, strictly speaking, there were not supposed to be any dogs at camp. The camp director mentioned that several times and then after a few weeks, the dog just became part of the fabric of camp. Someone finally named the dog Mandy and she mostly answered to it.

The dog was nice enough, but there was a reserve in her. It was almost as if she was keeping the kids, counselors, cook, and nurse at a distance. We would take Mandy on day hikes and overnights, but she never gravitated to a single person or group. She was one of those dogs that would let you pet her for a little while and then she would go lie down alone. As canines go, she was one of the least demonstrative or affectionate animals I had ever met. In fact, she seemed a little sad.

One of the counselors on a visit home mentioned the dog Mandy to his mother. I guess his mother was the type of person who read the entire newspaper. Not long after the visit she read an ad under the lost pets section that went something like ‘Lost in the Jemez, black female dog in mid-May. Reward offered.’ The counselor’s mother called the camp one night and asked if the dog was black and if she was still with us. She then called the number on the ad and told the fellow that there was a dog at Camp Shaver that might be his.

The very next morning, before breakfast, this big bear of a man with a bushy beard drove into camp and asked to see the dog. Once we figured out how he had heard about the dog we started looking all over for Mandy. It turned out that she had gone on a early morning hike with one of the cabins and would be back for a late breakfast.

He came into the dining hall and had some coffee. While he waited he told us that he and his dog –who’s real name was Lady– had come up with some friends on a hike. They had split into two groups, he went off in one group and Lady had gone with the other group. Lady ran off from her group looking for him. Nobody had seen her since. He had been coming up every weekend for two months looking for her. He said from when she was a puppy they had spent a couple of winters in a little cabin in Colorado, just the two of them.

About that time the group from the cabin that had gone on the early hike came back. We all trooped out to the door at the top of the steps into the dining hall and Mandy was trailing along at the tail end of the group keeping her usual distance.

The man whispered in a tight voice, “That’s her.” He called out, “Lady!” The dog stopped dead, picked up her ears and began looking frantically around. He called again, “Lady”… and I then witnessed one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen. This aloof, emotionally-walled-off dog flung herself up those stairs, leaped into his arms and proceeded to howl and wail at the top of her lungs. Pretty soon this giant bearded man started crying and bawling at the top of his lungs too. He fell over backwards and the dog began leaping over him, back and forth, licking his face and howling the most joyful dog noise I have ever heard. This went on until Lady finally dissolved into piteous whines and moans sitting in the man’s lap crushed in his arms. Tears were running down his face, I realized tears were running down my face, I looked over at the camp director and he was wiping his eyes and nose with a handkerchief too. Everything in camp had come to a standstill. There were at least 50 people standing around, watching this intense reunion, and just about everyone was sniffling. We had just witnessed a thing of beauty.

Finally the fellow got up, blew his nose, and dusted himself off. He had a glazed look like a part of him had died and gone to Heaven while leaving the rest of him behind. Lady, like a cat, kept weaving herself in and out of his legs, nearly tripping him. One of the last things he said was, "You know, after spending two winters in an isolated cabin, you come to depend on each other. You have no idea how much I missed her." He shook hands all around and opened the car door. Lady, floating on air, glided into the passenger seat and they drove away.

What that man and dog shared was a joyous fusion, they were two incomplete halves of a relationship apart. Together for the first time after 10 weeks of being lost to each other; it was like a lightning bolt of happiness knocked them both to the ground and gave everyone around them a high voltage shock. Normally when I think about beauty, I think about things like art, sunsets, landscapes, music, or people. I rarely think of it in terms of relationships. That five-minute span was one of the purest, most beautiful moments of joy I have ever witnessed.