I think we love all our dogs, but I also think that’s there’s one dog that’s THE ONE. Mine was my Scottie, Taboo. Had I not gotten Taboo, Fine Arf would not exist. She came to me at a time of great loneliness in my life but once she arrived, I was never lonely again. She was far from a show dog, having been born in the rumpus room of a split level in Queens, NY. I found her in the paper and drove out with my friend Chiquita Gregory to check her out. We put her Scottie Topper, a very alpha male, in the middle of the litter of 6. My Taboo was the only puppy that came up to him. All the others were scared. I paid $200 for her. I drove and she sat on Chiquita’s lap. 5 minutes into the drive, she threw up all over Chiquita. I carried her around in a nap sack for the first few days before her shots were complete, but once she was able to go to the park, I trained her off leash. She loved to play baseball. I came to that conclusion because I cannot throw very well, but I could swing a bat. I bought one of those fat orange plastic bats and used a hand ball because a tennis ball was just that much too big for her mouth. She was also a very seasoned hunter, even though she had never hunted and the park has some great prey — squirrels. She would get down low on the ground and inch her way toward the fluffy tailed vermin. Very careful not to let the squirrel know she was there. We always had an audience gather and watch her skilled exhibition. I was worried she might catch one, but my worries were for naught. She did get one finally and I gasped, but all she did was give it a sniff and trot away. Clearly, the fun was in the hunt, not the capture. She loved a good afternoon in a swimming pool. She’d get on a rubber raft and move her weight forward and back to maneuver the raft where she wanted to go. No matter how many kids tried to get on that raft with her she never fell off. We went cross country together when she was a year old. The best car companion ever. Didn’t talk too much and seemed happy to have a bathroom break or snack whenever I saw fit. At the Grand Canyon she slipped under the barrier and peered out from the edge as the rest of the humans held their breath. I rented a house in the hills of Santa Fe. Each morning I would let her out to hunt and explore and then call her to get in the car when I was ready to go to town. One morning I called and she didn’t come. I screamed her name at the top of my lungs but no Taboo. I got in the car and drove slowly down the road screaming her name. I stopped to look right. There was an arroyo. I looked out about a 1/2 mile and saw a black speck. It was moving getting bigger and bigger the closer it came. Of course it was my Taboo. Her hearing was amazing. I always said she could hear you eating a marshmello.
She could eat spaghetti off a fork without spilling a strand and would take my socks off for me each night with her gentle mouth. When my sister had her first baby, Taboo was a year and a half old. She’d ride under the stroller. You can imagine how many times we were stopped for the cuteness of it all — not the baby, but my Taboo.
Although I didn’t know it at the time, the last summer of her short life was spent in East Hampton. She loved the ocean with the kind of big rubber ball you find in super markets. An amazing soccer player — goalie mostly. When she got too hot, we’d dig a hole for her to lie in under an umbrella. She died December 21, 1999. Devastated does not begin to cover what I felt. But just one short month later, she sent me Eileen so I would not be lonely anymore. She is my partner in life and in Fine Arf and I thank Taboo everyday for sending her to me. Today is her birthday — and Eileen’s as well. A coincidence? I think not