Heart of a Dog Page #2

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and trotting along

with her head in the air,

her eyes scanning the thin sky

like there's something wrong

with the air.

And I thought,

where have I seen this look before?

And then I realized it was the same look

on the faces of my neighbors in New York

in the days right after 9/11,

when they suddenly realized,

first, that they could come

from the air.

And, second, that it would

be that way from now on.

And we had passed through a door,

and we would never be going

back.

What is the name of those things you see

when you close your eyes?

I think it's "phosphenes"...

the reddish patterns,

the little stripes and dots

and blurry little lines

you see floating around

when you close your eyes.

And no one really knows

what they are or what they're for.

Sometimes they seem to be

brought on by sound

or random electrical magnetic firing.

Sometimes phosphenes are called

prisoner's cinema...

some kind of eternal, plotless

avant-garde animated movie.

Or maybe they're just screen savers...

holding patterns that just sit there

so your brain won't fall asleep.

When Lolabelle got old, she went blind.

She wouldn't move. She froze in place.

The only place she would run

was on the edge of the ocean

because she knew there would be

nothing to run into there.

And so she went running full speed

into total darkness.

Around this time, her trainer, Elisabeth,

decided to teach Lolabelle to paint.

And so Lolabelle began making

several paintings every day...

bright-red abstract works.

And she would scratch

on these plastic sheets

using static electricity.

She also made small sculptures

by pressing her paw

into lumps of Plasticine.

She made a huge number of these things,

and I didn't really know

what to do with them.

I thought maybe they could

be snack trays or

little clogs,

like the ones Japanese dogs

might wear in the rain.

You know, we could sell them

on the Web site.

# Hey #

# Hey #

# Hey #

Lolabelle sat in the studio with me

through lots of different record projects.

Rat terriers have really good hearing,

especially in the upper registers.

And they never seem to get bored.

"Hey, let's listen to that cello track

for the 70th time."

"Great idea."

# Hey #

"Let's do that."

# Hey #

Some trainers say that in order

to understand your breed,

you have to imagine what

their voices would sound like

and what they'd say to you

when you give them a command.

So give a command to a German shepherd,

and he'd say, "Right, boss.

No problem. Consider it done."

Give a command to a poodle,

and it's, "Please love me.

I'll do anything if you just love me."

But give a command to a terrier,

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