149. Arthur

Another dog story... dog stories seem to be popular these days, so why not?

I had just finished my sophomore year of college at USC and was transferring to UCSB the following fall. In retrospect I am not sure why I was transferring other than to try and save money on tuition. I was single, looking for a new apartment in Santa Barbara and not looking for a commitment. I was happy at USC and was close to all my mentors and advisors. The School of Fine Arts offered me a summer stipend to help out in the office and I accepted.

No longer a student, I parked on the farside of the LA Colosseum a several blocks away and would walk the rest of the way to campus. One June morning the gloom was think enough to be defined as a drizzle, I started to cross Exposition Blvd and looked down to find a golden dog lying lifeless in the gutter. I thought he was dead until his soft brown eyes looked up and caught mine. He couldn't stand well, one of his legs was lame. I scooped him up and carried across the street to the art department office. He weighed nothing. At the time I had the coolest boss. And as time has made my memory soft I can only remember her first name, Brie. It was obvious that the dog was starving, so Brie gave me money to buy two hamburgers from the on campus Carl's Jr. He gobbled them up, but they didn't stay down long. He needed more than TLC, he needed medical attention. Brie grabbed her keys and off we went to take him to the vet. He was horribly mal nourished with a broken leg that started to heal before it had been properly set. The vet ended up keeping him for several weeks.

Brie paid for all the medical bills and named him "Art" for the art department. She convinced me that I could handle taking care of a dog. So I changed his name to Arthur (sounded more dignified) and I took him home. Until the move to Santa Barbara, my "home" for the next couple of weeks was a studio apartment I was sharing in Hollywood. The building didn't allow dogs and three steps into the door Arthur and I ran into the building manager. As I was trying to explain that the arrangement was temporary Arthur lifted his leg and peed on the lobby sofa.

To avoid the manager I spent much of the next few weeks at either one of my parents' house. The first night at my mother's Arthur ate a whole roast off the kitchen counter - the one and only time he took food off the counter. At my father's house he snuck up stairs and chewed up a pair of costume made dress shoes - again an act that he never repeated.

It was a rough start to a new relationship but once we got on the road to Santa Barbara, Arthur and I worked things out. In the 9 years we lived together I can honestly say that I ended up needing him more than he needed me. There is something about a stray dog that has found a good home... undeniably loyal.