My friend Glicka

I met Glicka tonight, a Lab, Golden Retriever, Rottweiller mix of a sweetheart dog at an informal Veteran For Peace gathering. It was enough that she was 70 pounds of lovable canine, but her companion and Veterans For peace member Steve Noetzel shared a great story that the San Francisco Chronicle ran with his byline. Enjoy.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

What happens when you follow a dog ball right over the cliff?

Stephen S. Noetzel, Special to The Chronicle

Saturday, October 20, 2007

I'm certain she thinks it's her name. Or at least the most important part of her name, since she hears it a hundred times a day. 

From the moment we brought her home from the San Francisco SPCA, her fervent intent has been to greet every passing stranger with exuberant kisses and hugs. And as every puppy knows, you've got to jump to plant a kiss on a grown-up. Not that anyone minded. She was 2 months old - velvety black, big floppy ears and even bigger clumsy paws. And when that tail started to wag - no, not just the tail but the entire caboose - the cuteness factor trumped the jumping hazard every time. 

"OK, Glicka. Easy, Glicka," I'd warn as yet another giddy stranger approached in response to her irresistible puppiness. "Easy, Glicka ... no, Glicka. No jumping. No jumping. No jumping!" Too late. 

She has proved to be a quick study. She might not know that Glicka is the feminine construct of Lucky in Yiddish, but she quickly concluded that "no jumping" was her second name. At the dog park, on hearing a stranger admonish his own dog with the two-word exclamation, as often as not she'll turn and bolt in that direction. "I'm here! No Jumping is here!" When I'm looking for recall (training the dog to come when called - the holy grail of puppy training), instead of "Here, Glicka" I'm better off shouting: "No Jumping!" 

That first year went like lightning. If parents of preteens lament that their babies grow up fast, puppy owners learn that you get just four or five months of sidewalk-clogging lovefests centered on the cuteness of that bouncing, kissing canine. 

By the time we celebrated her first birthday at the end of January, Glicka had grown to a svelte 70 pounds - and she knew her name was Glicka. She had also found her roots - her mama was a golden retriever and her daddy was a black Labrador-rottweiler mix, or so the SPCA said - and Glicka had become a ball hawk. Retrieving her ball became her mission in life. 

At the dog park, I pull my long-handled ball chucker way back and catapult her ball high into the air. From a sitting position before me she's in full sprint in a flash, nose in the air, eyes locked on the arc of the ball. She times her arrival to allow the ball to bounce once. Then just as it reaches the motionless pinnacle of the bounce, she leaps 4 feet into the air and snares it in her jaws. It is a thing of beauty. She lands gracefully, turns to me to display the rainbow ball now locked between flashing white teeth, then prances in circles to accept my adulation. "Yahoo!" I shout to her. "Good catch, Glicka. Good jump, Glicka!" 

"Good jump? I thought my name was No Jumping." Is that a smile as she races toward me? "Here you go, Daddy. That was a good one. Now throw it again!" 

All dog owners know this soft-rubber, bright rainbow ball that feels as though it's stuffed with a marshmallow. It has surface ridges for texture. Best of all, it contains a loud, indestructible squeaker at its core. Glicka cherishes her rainbow ball. She's faithfully retrieved the very same ball going on almost six months. 

The few times she's lost her ball, she's gotten anxious, almost frantic, as I helped her find it. She runs in circles, sniffing, searching, looking. Twice I have suffered an injury while searching for it off trail. Once, just as I found it lodged in the crevice between two rocks on Bernal Hill, I slipped and twisted my knee. I yelped in pain and Glicka ran to help me. I stuffed the ball in my pocket and hobbled down the hill and into the car. She stuck with me, whimpering almost as loudly as I. She knew I was in trouble. Eventually the torn meniscus healed. We were only recently back to the old routine when I sprained my ankle (same leg) hunting for the ball in the woods. 

Telling my Glicka stories in a long-distance phone call to my son, he asked, "Aren't you guys a little old to be raising a kid?" 

"Absolutely," I answered, but I knew there was no turning back.

"That dog" he concluded, "is going to kill you someday."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/19/HO4LSBUVE.DTL#ixzz1kpFT5PxV