My “dog” Ziggy is a little…well…he’s weird, OK?

I say “dog” in quotes because we’re not really sure he is a dog. 

Think Lilo and Stitch.

Dog?

Ziggy is a mutt.  To our knowledge, he is part pit bull, dalmatian, and Labrador.  White with very pale brown spots, except on his ears where the spots are prominent, he has a huge black nose, and is fair skinned.  His neck is oddly long, sometimes making me think he might be part Loch Ness Monster, too.

A little over a year ago, we said goodbye to our dog Maggie.  She was a one hundred pound black lab, very smart, and so sweet.  This was the dog my children grew up with.  It was obvious she was growing frail and nearing the end of her life, but I kept praying nothing catastrophic would happen while our oldest son was away at college.  It was not to be. 

When she could barely walk one morning, and her always thumping tail was down and still, we knew we had run out of time.  My daughter rushed back from San Francisco, my other daughter skipped class, and we all gathered around Maggie at the vet’s to say our final goodbyes.  We said a prayer together, thanking Jesus for the years of joy she had given us, and asking him to welcome her into his kingdom.  I whispered into her ear, “My grandfather will take care of you.  He loves dogs.  His name is Joe.”  She raised an eyebrow, and turned her head to look me in the eye.  And we pet her softly as she passed from this life.

Now, Maggie was a couch potato.  But Ziggy?  Ziggy is constantly on the go.  It’s exhausting. We think he has ADHD, hyperactive-impulsive type.  His favorite thing of all time is to chase the damn ball, chew it to pieces, and chase it some more.  He won’t exactly bring it back to you, but he will drop it nearby.  Then he takes off running before you’ve even thrown it.  Jerry says that’s cheating. Ziggy will scratch at the door, go out and immediately turn around to look at you, crouched, ready to take off.  If you don’t throw a ball, but shut the door instead, he scratches at the door again.  When you open it, he looks at you and gets into position to run.  So you close the door.  And he scratches again.  This can go on indefinitely, so we often end up just leaving the dag-burn door open.  It’s easier.

Jerry got so tired of going out and throwing balls that he would throw the ball out the open door from his armchair.  Except he kept missing.  There were ball marks on the ceiling, on the wall, and any number of times I thought he would break the glass door.  For Christmas I bought him a dog ball shooter, so he can sit in his chair and fire a more precise aim out the door.  Twice Ziggy ran so fast chasing the ball that he didn’t pay attention to where he was going and ran headfirst into the fence, breaking a board.  Twice.  Twice, he hit his head so hard against the fence that a board broke, kung fu style.  Then he returned with his ball to play again.  He was completely unaffected.  How could that be?  Is his skull really that thick? Was he trained to use his head as a weapon?  Is he a genetic mutant?

Sometimes Ziggy is so happy when he goes outside, that he leaps for joy, like a gazelle.  He launches himself into the air, front legs forward, rear legs stretched out behind him, and floats through the air in pure joy.  It’s odd and beautiful.  I want to feel that kind of joy!

Another activity he enjoys is spying on our neighbors.  He peaks through a crack or knot hole in the fence, and just stares, not moving a muscle.  It’s like he’s catatonic, he becomes so entranced.  He doesn’t bark or pace back and forth, he just freezes and stares.  I’m tempted to find my own knot hole to see what’s so interesting.

Ziggy’s ears are bent at the top, but sometimes his left ear pops up straight.  And he winks his right eye. There’s a message there, but I’m missing it.  Katie studies American Sign Language, ASL.  Is this some sort of dog sign language, DSL?   I asked her what he was trying to communicate, but she just shrugged and said, “I don’t know, Mom.  He’s weird.”

But by far the strangest thing this guy does is sit on his bucket.  There is a large green plastic bucket with a lid in the backyard that is now officially his.  He likes to knock it around, then when it is on its side, sit his butt down on it, with his front legs on the ground, like a person would sit on a bench.  He has done this many times.  We have seen him playing with his ball, then stop to sit on his bucket, gazing lovingly at the ball in front of him.

Now, Ziggy came from Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF), which is within walking distance of our home.  Just down the street from ARF is the Joint Genome Institute.  Originally this organization was the Human Genome Project, but that Rubik’s Cube has been solved, so they have moved on to other mysteries of DNA.  The Joint Genome Institute is part of the Department of Energy, but I’m pretty sure this is just a ruse.  Does anybody really know what they do?  Their website uses a lot of words to tell you nothing specific.  Wikipedia says “the JGI has been a user facility that advances genomics research in a broad range of disciplines where DNA sequence information is likely to drive scientific discoveries”.  Well that leaves the door wide open, doesn’t it?

Supposedly they work on plant and fungal genomes, and I’m sure they do.  As a cover.  But I think there’s some really strange shit going on there, and my dog is proof.

We are convinced Ziggy is the result of some weird-ass DNA experiment.  Maybe he escaped, maybe they send their living lab rats, er, dogs, to ARF for further observation in the human world.  Maybe when the dog is staring through the fence, he’s being controlled by another source we cannot see, that is downloading information from the pet microchip implanted in his neck that they told us was to identify him if he were ever lost.

We may never know.  We are all probably participating in some larger purpose for humanity. Or warfare.  Or something.  But it’s big, and it’s important.  Probably.  Or he’s just a weird dog.

He fits right in.          

Welcome home, Ziggy.  If that is your real name.