Elihu Entertainment

The day after the election, we set off to meet Edna and Brandy as usual.  It had snowed in the night, and then frozen, so the ground was treacherous.  To add to the hazardous conditions, we were joined by an ownerless trio of canines, made up of two unruly mongrels that we’d met before with a large German shepherd in tow.  Fortunately, all three dogs were friendly, but large and boisterous, so it proved quite the walk.  Snow plus a pack of five!  Max had such a puzzled expression on his face.  His brain was on overload trying to figure out who was the leader of the pack.  Gary Gibson was right about Max’s alpha-male attitude.  Whenever he met another male dog, Max would test for dominance.  He accepted it graciously if the other dog asserted leadership, but he had to know who was in charge.

Between watching her feet and making sure the dogs didn’t take her out at the knees, Edna, predictably, sounded off about the election.  She was very annoyed about the ultimate outcome, but as I pointed out to her, everyone was more disappointed than I was.  In fact, I wasn’t disappointed at all, merely relieved.  Edna had far more of the spirit to make a politician than I ever did.  She was quite prepared to take on difficult people.  I’ll never forget the day we ran into ‘Mr. Chow’, a particularly obnoxious walker with an equally obnoxious dog.  ‘Mr. Chow’ laid into Edna because Brandy was unleashed, even though she was nowhere near his dog.  Edna promptly told him to ‘dry up and stick his head down a toilet.’  What headlines I could have made if I’d used that turn of phrase at an all-candidates meeting!

After-effects from the election continued to interrupt my days.  Many people would call, assuming I could help with local issues.  A particularly disturbing incident occurred when I received a strange note ending with a string of x’s.  I felt disconcerted.  I was even more uneasy when a few phone calls turned up the fact that the letter writer was a schizophrenic who was known to have violent outbursts and had fixations on dark-eyed brunettes.  Never was I so glad that I had my feisty Max to keep me company.

However, with the election over, life became a mad dash to Christmas, but what fun that was.  Shopping, writing letters, wrapping presents, cleaning silver, booking and rehearsing shows—all were a joy after the strain of politics.  We had more time for visits to my parents and they were glad to see us back to normal too.  On our first post-election visit, Big Max took little Max round the block so many times that, once back in the house, Max Junior jumped into my lap for shelter.  Totally overdosed on walkies.

Max liked the fall.  He enjoyed the cooler weather, and he was very interested in the new acquisitions that began to appear in the house.  My birthday came and went, along with a gift of some weights for my morning exercises.  Max found these fascinating.  He thought I’d been given giant chew toys, though he was not so impressed when he tried to get his teeth around them.  He was very interested, too, when a box of antique Pelham marionettes arrived from my old friend, Jennifer Guttridge Milne, who had heard about Elwoodettes and decided to donate the puppets we played with as children.  These Max was not allowed to test his teeth on.  As December approached and the girls became more hyper, the anticipation in the air was too much for Max and he started to be naughty too.  It was no use issuing warnings not to pout, cry or shout; everyone was just too excited about Christmas.

Amid all these preparations, I was struggling to find a focal point for a Christmas song.  I’d written a script for a half-hour show, which we were creating with a view to performing for the Burnaby Village Museum the following year.  Babes in the Wood was fun, but it was too long and cumbersome for private gigs, and it was becoming obvious that we needed shorter shows for special occasions.  However, the song eluded me, and I finally gave up and concentrated on the tasks at hand.  One of these was the holiday decorating marathon.

Our family always decorated the house on the first weekend in December.  This practice dated back to the days of Hugh’s parents and our first dog, Beanie, when we used to make a special trip to the Sunshine Coast to cut our tree.  This event was even immortalized one year by a Sun photographer when the newspaper did a story on family traditions.  Since our house is more than 100 years old, it is full of nooks and crannies that lend themselves to ornamentation, so a lot of trees and garlands go into this endeavor.

Max, of course, new to this tradition, was ecstatic.  My diary records that we tackled the job, ‘un-helped by a very excited and naughty Max who kept stealing decorations, including Hugh’s ship-in-a-bottle which he crunched into smithereens.’  After dinner, we sat around and admired the tree, but Max lay on guard all evening.  His wolf-mask expression was easy to read:  “My tree!  My presents!”   Katie became most indignant, for Max growled at her whenever she tried to look at her present.  So much for trying to peel back the paper and take a peek.  Santa wasn’t the only one who was watching.

November passed in a blur.  There were still all the usual responsibilities:  Running the home, feeding the family, taking the girls to activities, and walking and training Max.  I was also trying to work on the role of Violetta with my wonderful singing teacher, Luigi Wood, but the election took every spare minute.  Poor Max became very neglected and very put out.  It seemed that even a sacrificial-lamb candidate had to put in an inordinate amount of time—and sacrificial lamb I was—when I went to check BVA ad copy at the local newspaper office I discovered that they’d left my name off the  ad!  That told me how important I was.  Other than managing a family visit to our friends at the George Derby Centre for their Remembrance Day service, my entire social life was centred round all-candidates meetings, radio and newspaper interviews, TV debates, and visits to sites related to issues that were hot topics.  In the evenings that weren’t accounted for, Hugh and I would take Max for long walks to deliver campaign leaflets.  This may not have got me elected, but it did give me material for future stories, such as “Death and the Doorknockers” where Beary (emulating Hugh) walks into a fishpond while cutting across a lawn in the dark.  Max took these evening outings in his stride, though he occasionally looked at us as if he thought we’d gone slightly mad.  Smart dog.

One of the things I discovered about Max during this period was the fact that he liked my voice.  When I vocalized or worked on arias, he would come bounding in and lie in the middle of the room as if to say, “I’m here for the concert.”  This was a refreshing change from Beanie, who had always got up with a pained expression on her face and left the room.  Max was also happy to sit and listen to me practice my speeches.  He must have been the most well-informed dog on municipal issues, because he gravely sat through every trial run of every talk I had to prepare.

Max was certainly an easier audience that the ones I had to deal with at campaign events.  One day, I had to do an interview on Chinese radio, where every sentence I issued was immediately reissued in high-speed staccato Mandarin.  My thoughts sounded very dramatic translated into Chinese, but I couldn’t help wondering if the translator was actually repeating what I had said.  Another outing that took an unexpected turn was a meeting with the South Asian group that owned Bonny’s Taxis.  Doreen Lawson, who was an ardent feminist, brought up the issue of prostitutes on Kingsway, clearly forgetting about the great divide over cultural attitudes.  The next thing we knew, one of the men cheerfully began to explain to her how the government could legalize prostitution, then ship all the workers to an island in the bay for an isolated red light district—for which, naturally, Bonny’s could have the exclusive water-taxi licence. Doreen’s rear view was most expressive.  The rest of us managed to keep straight faces while we watched her extract herself.

Unlike the all-candidates meetings, the Mayor’s debate was very civilized, since Bill Copeland was as amiably disposed towards me as Max was.  Bill finished his speech by telling the public that if they couldn’t vote for him, they should vote for me, because he knew I’d do a good job.  He also told me privately that he firmly believed whoever won the campaign would really be the loser.  I know how he felt.  I was itching for the election to be over so I could get back to my family and my arts activities.

Finally, Election Day rolled around.  The day started badly, as Max got into a fight with another dog when we went for our morning walk.  I took him with me to the campaign office and put him in a long down while I dutifully phoned down the BVA list of supporters.  I soon realized that Max was not the only one being put in his place; I was, too.  Hardly anyone on the list even knew who I was.  The election was, of course, the wipe-out I’d predicted, but I struggled through the day and dealt with the interminable TV appearances and interviews.  Afterwards, Hugh and I went out for a late dinner with our friends, the Coyles, where we let off steam and held an irreverent post mortem on the whole affair.  The next day, I received only two calls of sympathy:  one from my mother and one from Elwood Veitch’s widow, Sheila Veitch.  Instantly forgotten.  Such is political life.

The following Monday, I dutifully filled in my financial disclosure—all $300 of it!  We decided it must be the first time in history a politician could be embarrassed by a financial disclosure because it was so small.  After having lunch with Katie, I delivered my forms, then went down to city hall to buy Max’s dog licence.  Max trotted beside me on his leash, giving his best Gary-Gibson-perfect-canine-walk demo.  When we reached the front of the line, he repeated his stunt from the previous year.  However, he was now big enough to get his paws right up on the counter.  He leapt up and peered over the top at all the clerical ladies who immediately rose from their chairs and zoomed round to admire him.  Such adulation, and how he lapped it up.  It was obvious I was back in my proper place.  Max’s Mum—so much for the mayorionette.  The more they saw of me, the more they loved my dog!

Halloween was always fun at our house.  When the girls were old enough for trick-and-treating, we created our own family tradition, sneakily devised so they didn’t stay out too long.  We invited their friends and friends’ parents back to the house for a post-trick-and-treat party.  I prepared trays of cheese crumpets—a quick and easy heat in the oven—and we served hot chocolate for the children and mulled wine for the adults.  We decorated the house and set the atmosphere for spooky stories, so the children could gather in the dining room to tell their tales while they foraged through their treats.  Afterwards, we performed a puppet show, and everything wound up with fireworks in the back garden.  The parties were great.  The kids loved them because they were fun, and the adults liked them because they ensured that the children were off the streets by eight.  The parties also cut down on the piles of candy gathered in the pumpkin buckets.

Halloween in 1993 was particularly busy, not only because of the election campaign, but also because the ‘fun’ puppet shows had now graduated to public gigs.  On top of that, it was Max’s first Halloween, and he would have to cope with an influx of people in his home, not just with the party, but also with the classes from Second Street School who always walked down to do our ‘spooky-house’ tour and to watch a rehearsal of whatever show was on the books for that year.  The show for 1993 was The Witch from Down Under.  It was a cute production about an Australian witch who comes to visit Super Natural British Columbia and gets lost.  Instead of arriving at the Empress Hotel, she ends up in Dracula’s castle.  Once again, this was an early version of the show, with Uncle Jim, the father of our current premier, doing the voice of the Count.  No jokes about politics and bloodsuckers, please.

Two days before Halloween, we ran shows all day for the school classes.  Max coped surprisingly well with the first troop of children trailing through our ‘haunted house’.  However, when the next batch arrived, he developed a been-there-done-that expression and spent the rest of the afternoon upstairs in our bedroom enjoying a nap.  The shows went very well, in spite of the fact that the witch lost her head during one performance and we had to stop for repairs.  As is always the way with live performance, the audience loved to see something going wrong.  The teachers were all most enthusiastic, and after the final show, Mrs. Crossland talked about the follow-up projects she would give her class.  As she left, Caroline hissed at me:  “Did you hear that?  We got their class a bunch of HOMEWORK!”

Halloween fell on a Sunday that year, so the weekend was busy.  On Saturday, we performed a gig at Queens Park Hospital.  On the Sunday, we were booked to do three shows at Bonsor Rec Centre.  This also turned out to be the site for a BVA/BCA Candidates baseball game.  I was informed that I’d have to duly take part in the game between performances of our show.  However, after my first hit sent the ball up in the air and nearly knocked out the umpire, my team members happily returned me to the Arts. What a marathon it was.  We finished our shows, packed up late afternoon, loaded our theatre, drove home, unloaded and reset it all again for the party—after which I changed into my black dress and witch’s hat, then sat with a glass of mulled wine while the girls went trick-or-treating and Hugh dispensed candy to the visitors.  Max was very interested in the children who came to the door.  This was because we had also set out a dish of dog biscuits by the candy tray, and every time he sat nicely and didn’t growl, he was rewarded with a cookie.

By 8:30, the house was packed with friends and neighbours.  The children told their stories, the show had its final run, the food and drinks were served, and everyone trooped out to the deck for the grand finale.  By this time, Max was wild-eyed and hyperactive.  I spent the rest of the evening fielding the cheese crumpets that the kids tried to feed him surreptitiously, then soothing and consoling him in our room while the fireworks whizzed and roared through the night sky.  Poor Max was not impressed and he told me so in no uncertain terms.  Definitely a Halloween Howl!

During the campaign, interactions with my friends took on a Monty Python flavor.  On our morning walks, Edna would grin and refer to me as Your Worship.  When our recording-artist friend, Gary Kehoe, came to visit, he quipped that, if I won, they would have to call me the mayorionette.  Gary also gleefully noted that the BCA ad for Bill Copeland’s fundraising dinner had a ticket price of $100 and slogan that read: Burnaby loves Bill.  The cost of my fundraising dinner was only $60, so Gary suggested we should promote it with the slogan: You can love Elizabeth for only $60!

There was certainly no danger that I’d develop a sense of my own self-importance.  Max and the girls were also on TV when CBC came to interview me.  Their cameo was much more appealing than my two lines, which, taken out of context, were rendered meaningless.  The next morning, Edna was so excited about the newscast.  She raved on about how magnificent Max looked and declared him a regular Rin Tin Tin.  That summed up the impact of my appearance, but I agreed with her entirely.

Max rolled with the punches during the campaign months, though the stressed household atmosphere make him a bit antsy.  When we took him to school for show and tell with Katie’s class, he was a proper little fidget bum and kept barking at a naughty boy who was staring him down from the front seat.  The class found this most entertaining, but needless to say, I didn’t.  He was also becoming naughty about foraging for food.  Edna’s mother, Jean, used to leave food out for the squirrels, and we always knew when she’d been through the trail because Max spent most of his walk on his hind legs, looking into hollow stumps and stealing the peanuts.

Max continued to be gallant with females, one day adding a pretty Dalmatian called Maxine to his entourage.  But trying to keep up with his training was a challenge, especially as I was constantly tired.  Juggling mothering, household chores, Halloween shows, singing lessons, trips to skating contests, and campaign demands was proving tough, especially as Caroline was now pre-teen, and was reaching the stage where she could be just as out of bounds as Max.  However, she was turning into a lovely skater, so it was a joy to see her progress.  Katie, too, was becoming very artistic, and would round up the neighbourhood children and direct them in little shows that she had created.

You would think the effort of coping with all these responsibilities would have kept me slim, but I found that running for Mayor wasn’t good for my weight or my digestive tract.   My children weren’t so keen on campaign meals either.  Prior to leaving for the BVA fundraising dinner, I had a big battle with Katie over which jacket she should wear.  She wailed, “But I have to have a coat with zip-up pockets.  I need them for —” Then she paused.  Caroline finished the sentence:  “—for her brussel sprouts.”  I felt the same way after weeks of breakfast engagements and rubber-chicken dinners.  A diary note refers to one event:  “Lunch was dreadful.  Glad I didn’t pay for it.”  Another time, our candidates were asked to speak at the Sikh temple, after which we were invited to the church hall for very exotic food.  I could have definitely used Katie’s zip-up pockets on that occasion.  Home cooking never tasted so good as it did during the campaign.

Further indigestion was created by the behavior of some of our candidates.  At one event, I had to calm two warring candidates who were carrying on like angry four-year-olds.  Hugh also became very intense, and would sometimes get into heated arguments with members of the team or write terse notes on their brochures.  Then, after dealing with all these misbehaved two-legged males, I’d have to do the daily workout with my misbehaved four-legged male. On the plus side, Gary Gibson’s dog-training techniques seemed to apply to the difficult humans too.  There were a lot of similarities between training candidates and training Max.

As I was preparing to meet my political Waterloo, Max suffered a mortifying putdown too.  On the morning walk, as we reached the woods, a lady emerged from the trail.  She was accompanied by a small leashed dog, but a striped cat sloped out behind them.  The woman warned me that her cat might attack my dog.   I laughed, thinking she had a great sense of humour.  But the next moment, the wretched cat, whose name appropriately was Caesar, arched, hissed and launched itself at Max.  Poor Max howled, lay down in submission, covered his face with his paws and yowled for mercy.  Caesar ignored his pleas, delivered a couple of lashes and bloodied his nose.  Max hung his head all the way home. 

Edna observed that she kept cats out of her garden with a water pistol containing vinegar.  She suggested that I could add oil to the mixture for the next time we met Caesar and train Max to think ‘salad’.  While I never tested her theory, I did get some great show lyrics from the concept to go with a Caesar puppet that Hugh created for The Sausage Thief so Max didn’t suffer in vain.  But there was no question that he and I were both feeling somewhat embattled.  It was going to be heavenly getting back to normal after election day.

On the day after Katie’s (and Max’s) birthday, Marcella came to church with us.  After the service, Hugh and I dropped the girls at the mall and continued out to Sasamat Lake to give Max his weekend hike.  En route we turned on the news and were shocked to the core to hear that Elwood Veitch had died of a heart attack the day before.   He had only been sixty-four.   Slim, as he was nicknamed by his friends, was one of the last of the old-time politicians.  A Socred MLA and Cabinet Minister, he spent many years as the representative for Burnaby-Willingdon.

I had run to Slim many times for assistance with projects for the Burnaby Arts Council and the NorthWest Opera, and he had helped me through the mazes of red tape with good humour and diplomacy.  His wife Sheila was also active in politics.  She had served  on the Burnaby School Board and Burnaby Council, so she had also helped us with various problems and concerns.  Sheila, Slim, and Mayor Bill Copeland were all great arts supporters, and had even agreed to take part in the opening night of NWO’s Mozart/Salieri production.  Slim was no longer sitting as an MLA, but he had declared his intention of running for mayor for the BVA in the upcoming civic election.  This was no mean challenge, because Burnaby traditionally supported the BCA, and the incumbent mayor was Bill Copeland, the popular and likeable former fire chief.

You may wonder what all this political chat has to do with a dog blog.  Well, dogs, bless them, were what introduced me to the world of politics.   If it hadn’t been for canines, I would have never been a candidate in an election—and probably never created the character of Bertram Beary either.  My husband has always been interested in politics, but me, not so much so, although I was always ready to get involved if an issue arose that I felt strongly about.  And, as anyone who read this dog blog knows, I care about dogs.   How did my four-legged friends draw me into the political arena?  That’s a story in itself.

Many years before, when Caroline was a toddler, we combined our daily walk with a trail hike for Beanie, followed by a visit to the playground for Caroline.  One day, we were standing at the top of Robert Burnaby Park, chatting with the grandfather of two of Caroline’s playmates.  Beanie was sitting decorously beside me.  I had not yet leashed her as we had just come off the trails.  To my horror, a uniformed man came bounding down from the road and promptly gave me a ticket.  Having grown up walking in West Vancouver’s Lighthouse Park where the bylaw had simply stated that dogs must be under control, I was extremely taken aback.  My dog was under control and I was very indignant to be slapped with a fine.  I asked the pound officer where I could walk my dog off leash in Burnaby, and he replied, “Nowhere.”  This incident sparked two battles.  The first, and most immediate, was my determination to fight the ticket.  The second, which became a protracted and arduous struggle, was to make Council alter the bylaw and establish areas where dogs could get proper exercise.

But first, the ticket.  I did my homework carefully.  I researched judgments that followed the intent of the law, as opposed to the word of the law; I dug out examples of more friendly bylaws from other jurisdictions; and I photocopied a series of dog-association reports on the health/exercise needs of canines.  By the time I went to court, I had an impressive pile of documents worthy of a criminal lawyer defending a murder charge.  Also, being a well-brought up young woman who was respectful of appropriate dress codes, I wore a suit, hat and full makeup.  The neighbor who had witnessed the issuing of the ticket accompanied me, just in case any conflicting statements emanated from the pound officer’s mouth.  When I got to court, the judge turned out to be a very jolly Afro-Canadian who gave me an encouraging smile as soon as I took my seat.  I like to think he was smiling at my appropriate appearance, but in hindsight, he was probably trying not to laugh out loud at the massive pile of documents I had assembled to fight a dog ticket.  I sat down, feeling comforted by his benevolent manner.

However, when the pound officer rose to speak, my equilibrium was shattered.  To my amazement, he described an entirely different scenario from what had really happened.  My jaw dropped as I listened to him recounting how Beanie was roaring about the field in an uncontrolled manner and had not been called to my side until after the ticket had been issued.  Naïve as I was, I assumed that people told the truth when they were under oath.  I was very glad my neighbor had come along.  But as it turned out, I didn’t need him.  The judge, noticing my dangling jaw and bulging eyes, must have decided that the pound officer was telling porkies.  My friendly judge smiled again, then turned back to the pound officer and asked if he could definitely identify me as the woman he had talked with in the park.  To my surprise, I saw a flicker of doubt in the pound-man’s eyes.  Then I clued in.  All the people who know me love to joke about my extreme forms of dress.  It’s either glamour to the nines, or total grubbery, and, of course, my dog-walking apparel falls into the latter category.  The pound officer hesitated, said he thought I was the same woman, but then admitted that he couldn’t be 100% certain.  At this point, the judge turned to me and told me that I had two options.  I could either take my turn to speak and defend my position, or I could keep silent and he could throw out the case on the grounds of lack of identification.  All that homework for nothing—or perhaps not for nothing.  The judge was probably quailing at the prospect of hearing me blather on for the rest of the afternoon.  I was certainly not foolish enough to look this gift horse in the mouth.  Meekly, I thanked him and sat down again.  The case was won.  I didn’t have to pay.

The second battle was not so easily won.  It turned into a municipal-wide civil war.  My attempts to get the dog bylaws adjusted brought out every dog hater in the community.  Soon, dog lovers and dog haters were signing petitions and bombarding councillors with phone calls and letters.  It was then that I discovered that the manipulations of bureaucrats and elected officials really were as farcical as depicted on shows like Yes, Minister.  At the time, it was very stressful; in hindsight, it produced my story, “A Political Tail” in which a dog-hating bureaucrat was murdered in a dog park.  My forays to Council did not achieve the desired result for many years, but they did bring forth another unexpected result.  Interested people in both civic associations were desperate for candidates who could speak well in public, and the next thing I knew, both groups had asked me to run for Council.  They didn’t care about the dog issue, but they used it to lure me in.  If I were elected, I would have more influence.  By now, I was sufficiently furious that I decided to go for it.  Not wanting to be aligned with any particular party, I chose to run with the non-partisan BVA, and almost made it to Council on my first try, ending up only a few votes behind Sheila Veitch.  However, after the next term, the BCA swept the Council, led by popular Bill Copeland, so my subsequent attempts went nowhere.  However, we finally got our dog areas and at the time of Slim Veitch’s death, I had already indicated that I was not going to run again.

Famous last words!  Now that Slim had died, the BVA had lost their high-profile mayoralty candidate.  I was well known due to my arts activities, and I had the name, Elwood, so the bright sparks on the board decided that I’d be a good replacement.  Only two days after Slim died, Bruce Clark dropped by our home and tried to twist my arm into stepping into the BVA mayoralty slot.  Bruce is the brother of Christie Clark, the current B.C. Premier, and Hugh and I had known both of them for many years.  Their father, Jim, had taught with Hugh and was a frequent visitor to our home, being known as Uncle Jim to our girls.  Jim even recorded vocals for us in the early days, and though those first shows were ultimately re-recorded and upgraded, Jim’s voice is still there delivering a booming Ho Ho Ho in one of our Christmas shows.  Jim was lifetime Liberal who loved ‘the game of politics, and he instilled this enthusiasm into Bruce and Christie.  However, politics wasn’t a game to me, and I became very frustrated at the wheeler-dealing and skullduggery that went on behind the scenes.  I didn’t have the fight in me to spend my life in that arena, so I wanted to take my experiences and use them as fuel for my writing.

I pointed out to Bruce that Bill Copeland was so popular that there was no way I could win; therefore, they should forget about the mayor’s slot and concentrate on getting the councillors elected.  Bruce, like his sister, is a master manipulator, and he knew how to win me over.  He told me how the young, forward-thinking candidates on the slate were going to be held back because the old-timers who wanted to try for the mayor’s slot were potential embarrassments to the group.  I wasn’t taken in by his arguments, but I did know some of the young candidates, so had a certain sympathy for them.  Hugh loved the idea of me running, and joined up with Bruce to persuade me.  Jim Clark also stepped in, offering to act as my personal assistant to take the pressure off me during the campaign.  Finally, to get them to back off, I said I would agree, but only under the following conditions:   No involvement until the end of October when our Halloween shows were over, no financial contribution, no engagements I didn’t want to attend and no restrictions on whatever I wanted to say.  I figured that would be the end of it.

The nominating meeting was four days away, and I tried to get on with my life.  The girls were very sweet, trying to help me feel human with cozy family times.  One day, I came home from my walk to find Caroline had baked Pillsbury rolls for breakfast.  What a lovely surprise!  However, enjoying those moments was easier said than done due to the pressure of visits from BVA members, calls from reporters who had been leaked the info that I might run, and subtle hints from Hugh that I could have a lot of fun promoting things I cared about if my conditions were accepted.  By this point, I was feeling stressed and the unconditional love I received from Max was very soothing.  Fortunately, he was being a good boy and not adding to my worries, so my dog walks (since in those days, there were no cell phones) became my solace.  One day, I walked Max early, but turned my ankle and fell in the woods.  He was so worried, poor puppy.  Puff, puff, lick lick.  He wouldn’t leave me until I was back up and walking normally again.  I think he sensed that his owner was having a hard time.

September 23 was the day of the nomination meeting.  I hadn’t heard back from the committee by 4:30, so I breathed easy and decided I was off the hook.  But then came the phone call.  My terms had been accepted and Bruce was on his way over with the nomination papers.   I raced upstairs, prepared a three-minute speech, signed on by five o’clock, bolted a light meal, changed into real clothes and set off for the hall.  A few speeches, a vote, followed by an interminable count, and I was declared the BVA mayoralty candidate.  My old friend and sparring partner, Vic Stusiak, was happy, but my sense was that my colleagues were deluding themselves that they could win back a majority.  The times and the Burnaby demographic were against them. However, having taken the task on, I resolved to do my best in my sacrificial lamb role, and if nothing else, expected it would provide me with an interesting experience to look back on.  And to think, it all began with dogs!

Next:  Campaign Dog.

Although we didn’t know Max’s exact birthdate, we calculated that it must be mid-September.  Since Katie’s birthday was September 19^th, she graciously suggested that Max could share her special day.  Katie (and Max’s) birthday party was to be an afternoon event for family and friends.  It was also going to provide a test run for our newest puppet show, The Birthday Bug.  This was an early and very primitive version of the show, which involved a number of Pelham marionettes along with a large, robotic Birthday Bug puppet that Hugh had made.  The Birthday Bug sported a light bulb in its torso, so that it could illuminate the words, Happy Birthday, at the end of the show.  It was the first of Hugh’s trick puppets, and the forerunner of the wonderful Elvis marionette that lit up with LEDs for a much more sophisticated show many years later.

Three days before the party, Max and I went for a long ramble through the woods.  He was extremely well behaved, so I hoped that his recent rebellion was over.  His tendency for histrionics was still evident, though, when he trod on a stone, cried bitterly and held up his paw for inspection.  How he loved to get sympathy!   Once we returned home, he sat and watched curiously while I did last minute craft jobs for the show.  Then I went shopping to buy party supplies and food.  I also bought a present for Max, and Katie wrapped this while Max supervised.  He was very interested to see his squeaky toy being encased in wrapping paper.

The party was to be held on the Saturday, even though Katie’s (and Max’s) birthday was on Sunday.  Two days before the party, Katie, predictably, became overexcited and started acting up.  Unfortunately, Max began to suffer from party-itis too.  He also kept disappearing upstairs to inspect his present.  The day before the party was particularly hectic.  We had to set a treasure hunt, organize games, and move the puppet theatre into the playroom.  The girls’ friend, Marcella, came over to help blow up balloons, hang streamers and make the cake.  Once the cake was baked and decorated, we scraped the icing off the kitchen walls, set the lights for the show, and called it a night.  When we went upstairs to go to bed, Max, a fierce wolf scowl on his face, was guarding his present which had been placed out of reach on top of a filing cabinet.  What a job I had getting him to leave it and settle down for the night.

On the day of the party, Katie bounced onto our bed at a disgusting hour and demanded her presents.  Max was excited to see her open them; it was as if he knew he was going to get his parcel too.  When it was presented to him, he ripped it open without any assistance, played with his toy and sampled his cookies.  Now that he had been able to open his present, he was all twinkles and tail wags.  Come party time, he was as wild eyed with excitement as any of the children, so much so that I had to shut him in the den with my father during the more boisterous games.  However, he was well behaved once we brought him back out, and we were in convulsions watching him during the Memory game.  He lay on the carpet amid all the other little bodies, stared at the tray, and wore a frown of concentration that seemed to say: “If I could only write, I could win this game.”  Everything the children did, he wanted to do too.  It was another case of Monkey see, Monkey do.  Later, he sat in the audience and watched the puppet show.  He saw all the children off at the end of the party and came along for the ride when I drove my parents to the Skytrain station.  When we returned, he flopped in the corner of our bedroom and drifted off into a deep sleep.  He was a very tired dog, but his wolf face was smiling again.  What was he plotting in his dreams?  Mentally, I paraphrased A.A. Milne:  “Now I am one, I have just begun!”  But for a beginner, he’d certainly had an eventful first year.

Max had no excuse for his fits of temperament.  He had a dog’s life to envy: Kind owners, lots of outings, a female canine entourage that indulged his male chauvinist ways.  But then, it was probably all this attention that encouraged his tendency to be a little ham.  What a show he put on if he was hurt.  After one of our walks, Edna found a cut on Max’s foot.  I took him home and doctored it, but he hobbled around all day looking very pathetic.  He was also naughty and kept pulling his bandage off.  He was still limping the next day, so I drove him to the woods for a short walk, and what a pitiable show he made, holding his paw up to elicit sympathy every few steps.  The cut healed quickly, but a few days later, Max trod on a chip in the woods and hurt his paw again.  How he hopped and howled!  Edna and I mixed mirth with our sympathy.  Max was turning out to be a real Sarah Bernhardt.

The hamminess I could tolerate.  Max was really very funny at times.  However, with the onset of fall, came further rebellion.  It was changeable and uncomfortable weather, and possibly the muggy atmosphere affected Max’s spirits, but whatever was prompting him, he began to challenge me again.  After a day from hell, where I was troubleshooting with naughty dog, naughty children and a barrel of problems related to our puppet recording, I decided enough was enough.  Family conference for the kids, tech list for Hugh, and more school for Max.  I called Gary Gibson and set up another appointment. 

Max was extremely naughty when Gary arrived.  He bit him within the first five minutes.  Gary was very concerned about this tendency to nippiness.  We finally decided that there were two causes for the speed with which Max used his mouth.  One was the fact that he was scared of big men.  He had become a fear biter, and we suspected this was a product of his treatment in his first home.  However, as an alpha male, Max also believed he had the right to put other creatures, canine or human, in their place, and a nip was his way of doing that.  Whatever the causes, it was obvious that I had lots of work ahead.

On the bright side, Gary was delighted with Max’s training.  He was pleased to see how cleverly Max picked up on what he was supposed to do, and how enthusiastic he was when he mastered a task.  Gary encouraged me to invent more games for Max, and I promised to put my thinking cap on.   Very soon, I conceived our first new trick.  I had started doing a daily aerobics routine, using the Body Moves TV show as my personal trainer.  The next day, the final exercise of the episode was set to Offenbach’s  exhilarating Can Can music.  This planted an idea in my mind.  Gary had taught Max to shake a paw, so I decided he could just as easily learn to shake both paws.  Very quickly, he picked up my signals, and in no time, was raising first his left, and then his right paw, one after the other.  At first he looked at me as if I was dumb, making him repeat the process over and over, but when I started to sing the music in time to his actions, his eyes twinkled with delight.  It really was the cutest thing to watch, but my artistic sense wasn’t satisfied.  The act needed a climax for the last dum de dum de dum of the song.  Envisioning how Can Can dancers always finished by throwing up their skirts and bending with their backsides in the air, I decided that Max simply had to learn to bow.  This was going to be complicated, I thought.  But no, it wasn’t.  It was a breeze.  The moment I bowed to Max, he bowed right back.

When Hugh and the girls came home, they were in convulsions watching Max go through his routine.  As I la’d my way through the music, he threw up his paws in perfect time, and bounced into a beautiful bow on the closing phrase.  Dancing eyes, dancing paws!  What a clever dog, and didn’t he know it.  The next day, we tried demonstrating the trick for Edna and Brandy.  Funnily enough, Max seemed almost embarrassed to perform in public and kept looking over his shoulder to see if anyone else was watching.  However, once Edna lavished him with praise, he got over his stage fright and there was no holding him back. 

Without realizing it, I had just created the beginning of Max’s future job.

Next:  Max has a birthday party.

Thursday, September 9 in 1993 was a hot and uncomfortable day.  It was also another significant day in Max’s life, although we did not find out why until years later.   We set off for our morning walk as usual, dropping Katie at school, then continuing on to Edna’s house.  Edna was dog-sitting Misty, so Max set off for the woods in a happy frame of mind, leading his pack, and leaving it to Brandy to keep Misty in line.  The trails of the George Derby Woods provided a welcome retreat from the sun, but it was still very warm, and by the time we were close to the end of our route, the dogs were feeling the heat.  When we reached the bridge near the end of the trail, they loped down to the creek to paddle and have a drink.  Edna and I leaned on the railing and watched the dogs cooling off in the deep pool that always formed at the side of the stream.

Suddenly I sensed eyes on me and I glanced up.  There was Max, staring at me from the other side of the bridge.  I blinked, did a double take, and then looked back down to the creek.  No, Max was still there, lying in his favourite puddle.  I looked up again.  The duplicate Max remained at the edge of the bridge, warily eying me back.  I looked more closely and saw that, alike as they were, the second Max was a fraction smaller and its fur looked a little softer.  The Max clone also had a very sweet expression.  It was a female.  As I continued to admire the newcomer, a couple arrived at the bridge and informed me that their dog was called Samantha.  When Max heard the voices, he came bounding up to see what was going on.  He seemed delighted to meet his lookalike, and she in turn appeared to like him.  So from that moment on, Samantha was added to Max’s entourage of lady friends, along with Brandy, Neisha, Misty and Kelsey.

Over the years, Max met Sam on many occasions.  We noticed that he tended to bully her, for she was very sweet but rather timid.  Sam’s owners were charming people.  We never knew them by name.  Like the other dog walkers, they were known as Sam’s Mum and Dad, just as they labelled us by Max and Brandy’s names, and they never stopped to chat for long since they were out for their morning exercise.  Therefore, Max and Sam would greet each other, have a brief interchange, and then move on.  However, many years after their first meeting, when both dogs were getting old, tragedy struck Sam’s owners.  The husband in this lovely couple was killed in a car crash in the Fraser Canyon.

A couple of weeks after we heard the sad news, Edna and I met the wife when she was out taking Sam for her walk.  We stopped to commiserate, and from that point on, whenever we saw Sam and her owner, we always talked for a while.  The dogs, being less rambunctious now, would mosey around the side of the trails, and sometimes, flop down and lay side-by-side like three elderly friends enjoying the air outside the rest home.  One day, we were laughing about our first sighting of Sam, and how I’d confused her with Max.  We commented on the interesting fact that the champagne tone in their fur had deepened and acquired an almost orange tinge as they grew older, so that the resemblance that had been there in their youth had continued on into old age.  Sam’s owner told us what an adorable fluffy puppy Sam had been and related how she and her husband had adopted Sam from the New Westminster pound in 1992.  “That’s a coincidence,” I said.  “Max’s first family got him from the New West pound too.”

Suddenly, the light went on.  I asked what month Sam had been born, knowing instinctively that the answer would be September, for Max had been four months old when we adopted him at the start of February in 1993.  Edna tuned in right away too.  She and I stared at each other in amazement.  We looked back at Max and Sam, companionably flopped at the side of the path, brother and sister sitting harmoniously together.  What dummies we felt.  It had taken us their entire lifetimes to figure it out.

From that moment on, Sam became Sister Sam, and we chuckled as we remembered Max’s early bullying.  He was merely being a typical older brother.  Sadly, Sam developed cancer only a few months after we had realized they were from the same litter, and she died the following year; however, we were always glad to know that Max, the problem dog who might not have made it past puppydom, not only had a lifelong friend in Brandy, but also, throughout his lifetime, remained in contact with his sister.  For a dog with an attitude, he was certainly blessed with a lot of special relationships.

Next:  Rebel Without a Cause.

Max’s first day home included a walk with me, Hugh and Katie; Edna and her grandsons, Justin and Josh; and last, but definitely not least, Brandy.  However, hotshot Max didn’t so much as say ‘Woof’ to Brandy, but simply tried to mount her.  No finesse at all.  Time in cowboy country had not improved his manners.  What was interesting about the walk, though, was that Max abandoned me and Edna, and forged ahead with Hugh.  The macho genes were kicking in again.  Boys were the leaders; girls stayed at the rear.  That was one of the reasons why Max loved it when Edna’s visiting dogs came with us.  They were all females and he got to test his governance skills.  We tended to stay on the bush trails in the summer months as there were fewer walkers there, and Max would lead his ladies up and down the ravines and play Chase-me-Charlie with them around the bushes.  To our amusement, the dogs discovered that they liked salmonberries and would daintily purse their lips and pick them off the bushes when they felt like a mid-walk snack.  However, the girls would never try to share Max’s bush.  The king always had first dibs on what was available.

Max was becoming deeply bonded to Edna as well as her dogs.  He was also possessive about her.  If she bent to pat another dog, he would paw at her leg and demand that she gave him equal time. Edna was the only person outside the family that I could ever leave him with.  On the day we took the children to the PNE, Edna dog-sat Max all day.  He was thrilled to see us when we picked him up, but he had had a wonderful day.  A smiling Edna reported that Max and Brandy had played until they dropped, but even after they flopped on the grass, they talked to each other.  Oh, to be able to understand dog-speak!

The holiday might have been over, but Max still had lots of stimulation.  With Hugh home for the summer, Max enjoyed outings to many different locations.  We started to walk him at the Fraser Foreshore where he could run on the dykes and swim in the ditches.  The boat rides from Ioco also helped him develop his swimming skills.  He became as powerful in the water as he was on shore.  He’d leap off the Optimist and swim a long way from the boat, and one day, he made it all the way to shore and back again.  At that point, we moved the boat further out into the inlet.  The last thing we wanted was to lose Max up the mountain.

Lighthouse Park was another favourite destination, especially if we went by boat.  Hugh would drop me and the girls at Caulfield, and we’d hike down to visit my parents while he went fishing.  One day, we arrived at my parents’ house to find another visiting dog.  Zach was pleased to see Max, but Max was jealous and looked offended to see another canine with his grandparents. My mother smiled and said: “Wag your tail, Max!” whereupon my father turned and said, “What?”  Naturally, this resulted in an eruption of giggles from the girls.  At Five o’clock, we walked back to Caulfield, where Hugh was waiting with the Optimist.  Then home we went, with a stop for pizza at Dundarave Pier.  On the journey back to Ioco, we were eating our pizza and admiring a huge cruise ship that was coming under Lionsgate Bridge.  Little did we realize the size of the waves it would produce, and as it went by, we were swamped.  Max and I were soaked, much to the girls’ delight.  Hugh managed to keep a straight face and rigged me out in oilskins from the cabin, so at least I didn’t freeze on the trip home.  Poor Max wasn’t happy, though.  We rubbed him down, but we couldn’t get him completely dry.  I had a damp, bedraggled dog trying to snuggle up to me for warmth all the way back.  It was dark when we reached Ioco, and by the time we drove home, Max was so tired he could barely keep his head up.

All this activity should have made for a contented dog.  However, as the summer went on, Max’s behavior was still problematic.  He couldn’t seem to settle down after the holiday, and he challenged every attempt to re-establish the work we had done before we went away.  One day, after a training session, he ripped up our green garden table and then coughed and hiccupped all day because he’d swallowed bits of plastic.  That summer was a busy time, too.  Not only did we have a rebellious dog, but we were also dealing with the start of pre-teen ups and downs with the girls.  We were preparing new shows for Halloween, and Caroline was getting ready to start high school.  A municipal election was coming up in the fall, and because I’d run for Council on previous occasions, I was getting calls from reporters and pressure from potential candidates who wanted me to throw my hat into the ring.  However, I was busy with my husband, my girls, my dog and my shows, and that was quite enough of a challenge for me.  In fact, at that point in time, Max was enough of a challenge for me, and a difficult one at that.

Still, it was time for our next session with Gary Gibson, so help was on the way.  When Gary arrived for the lesson, Max looked extremely put out.  He was unimpressed with the whole concept of school.  But in spite of his surly attitude at the start, the training session went well because Max actually liked doing tricks.  The sense of achievement made him feel good about himself, and whenever he did something right, his eyes would sparkle.  However, having gone through the session like a trouper, Max bit Gary on the ankle when the lesson was winding down.  He just had to show that he was king.  Gary put him in his place yet again, and by the time he left, we were set up with bitter apples, pamphlets galore, more training tips and a very tired dog who was worn out from the effort of all that thinking.  Gary declared Max one of the most challenging dogs he’d ever come across, and warned us that we would probably never achieve absolute obedience.  There would always be a degree of negotiation.  He also informed us that Max needed a job.  Obviously Pets and Friends was out, but he urged us to think about ways we could make Max feel more useful.

As the weeks rolled on, I persevered, and gradually, Max became more obedient. He walked well on the leash, and he performed his tricks enthusiastically.  His long downs became a pleasant time when I read and enjoyed my cup of coffee, while he napped.  For Hugh, who was not at home as often and had less interaction with our pet, it was a different story.  Max, we soon realized, was not a dog that could be trained, and then follow commands for anyone who issued them.  With this dog, it was a question of leadership, and every individual had to prove themselves worthy of being his commander.  Max had accepted me as leader, but now he began to challenge Hugh.  When Hugh put him in a Long Down, Max would throw a tantrum, and it took all Hugh’s might, plus the sturdy sofa leg, to keep him down.  Gary Gibson had declared Max “More Dog than Most”.  He had also told us we would learn more about dogs from Max than from any other dog we were likely to have.  We were beginning to understand why.

 Next:  Dead Ringer?