Heart Head with the silly puckered lips, big old blunt nose, shorty little legs, not really like any dog at all. This is just a memory of that sweet and constant dog love that Jake gave me. No matter if I gave him a horrid bath every month or when he surely needed it. Even when I stayed at work too late, he had to pee so badly, when I'd open the door he'd run out without a thought of hello. Time after time, Jake'd come trotting back in, wagging his relieved body, run his big old head into my leg or my hands, loving me for coming back. Even when I was so stupid about him not getting into a car after the accident that started his epilepsy, even when I was too stupid to know he too had been horribly hurt, this boy loved me every day, every time we saw each other. This is not some reckless wrong-headed anthropomorphism. This is all the moments that Jake suffered and loved me again and again and all the moments I suffered when he came to my rescue. This is about how much Jake let me love him when I was lost and lonesome or happy and rollicking fun. That is how dogs are and Jake taught me well.
These three, The Way Dogs Are, are diminutive in scale, iconographic. They are notes to myself, made when I was afraid that somehow I would forget Jake and every little bit about how important he was to me. Rather foolish thought I can say now that it's been more than a decade. I am however thankful to have them. They measure about six inches, they're made of low-fire white clay because it's as close to good paper as clay comes. When they were my thought, of course I covered them in black glaze, because Jake was a black dog. Somehow in the firing, the kiln went off early, leaving the black glaze crusted and dry. At first I was horrified but soon came to like the burned looking surface. It made them ghost dogs, ashes to ashes dogs. It reminded me of the deep dark mud we dug for his grave in the garden. They are like little escaped memories sneaked out to stay with me.
