Life Measured in Dogs By Eric Chandler
Leo watches the sunrise over Loon Lake on the Border Route Trail. | ERIC CHANDLER
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y dad called him Goosewing Garbage Gut Fredrick the First. Goosewing after the remote ranger station in Wyoming. My dad worked there for the U.S. Forest Service in 1963. That summer, he picked the free runt of a litter in Jackson Hole. While my father worked on horseback, the black Lab puppy curled up inside his shirt and slept. My dad said, “I think that’s why we were so bonded.” My dad’s crew put the dog in the bed of a truck once and drove to work. When they piled out of the cab, the dog had a big round belly from eating all their lunches. Hence, Garbage Gut. I just called him Fred.
Stephen Chandler at the Goosewing Ranger Station, Wyoming, 1963. | SUBMITTED 16
NOVEMBER 2020
NORTHERN WILDS
Fred was there before my dad met my mom. Before they married and had me and my sister. My dad said Fred was never jealous of all the new arrivals to the pack. I look at old photos and notice a patch of white on his chest that I forgot about. Fred loved the water. My dad threw a retrieving buoy for him at a local pond. He only
stopped because his arm got tired, not because Fred was done. I loved the water, too. Fred and I swam together. I can still feel his tail in my hands as he dragged me around like a slow waterskier. I can also feel Fred’s neck as I hugged him on the kitchen floor when I was 10. I cried into his neck until my dad took him to the vet to put him down. He was 14 and his liver was failing. This year, our good friends down the street had to put down their Whippet named Dash. He was my current dog’s good buddy. When they lost Dash, I thought about Fred. Several other people I know have lost their dogs this year, because things weren’t
Fred retrieves for Stephen Chandler, 1965. | NATALIE CHANDLER crappy enough. I was shaken by these deaths. What is it about dogs? Not long after Fred died, my parents found another runt. A German shorthaired pointer. My mom said, “We picked him because he seemed more active than the rest of the litter.” That was a mistake. We named him Jack. Fred used to live outside. After the pink-bellied puppy stage, we took Jack out to live in Fred’s old
