HANS AND YUHANS

Dorothy and I have friends who own dogs – many friends, many dogs. Hunting dogs, lap dogs, mutts, retrievers, shepherds, wieners. We hear of endless dog problems. Cancer, food allergies, vet bills, kennel mishaps, the occasional legal trauma when a neighbor, who happens to be an attorney, gets bit. And of course dog deaths, the most unendurable of all deaths, including those of parents, siblings, oldest friends, employers. The main thing to do after a dog breaks your heart by dying is to go out and get another dog.

Dorothy and I see dogs mostly as a problem. You get a dog, your whole life revolves around it. Take a trip, you need to hire a kennel, or get a sitter. Take the dog on the trip, you have to plan lodging at dog-friendly places, hope the friends or relatives you’re visiting are okay with your pet, keep an eagle’s eye on the thing at all times so it doesn’t run off in some strange town you’re visiting and get lost.

We don’t really love dogs, she and I, but we love all of our friends who have dogs, and soon after we were married we decided to do something to help canine-owners with their problems. We thought to set an example. We acquired a pair of beagles.

I had a beagle when I was a kid in Pennsylvania, the only dog our family ever had, and I knew some things about beagles. An old Austrian immigrant farmer my dad knew, Rudy Zunoni, gave the dog to us one day when we’d finished a morning’s hunt on Rudy’s farm. Mr. Zunoni, as I called him then, had wild woodlots on the hills above his fields and meadows, and lots of cottontail rabbits and grey squirrels, a few pheasants, and a ferociously fine bitch beagle named Lady, who went with us – Rudy and my dad and me – on our hunts on his farm. Lady was the finest hunting dog we’d ever seen – a lean, small package of muscle and sinew, fast and dodgy as a Heisman running back, and utterly single-minded. Lady was out for the kill every time, and if you missed, you felt like you owed her apology.

One Saturday at the end of a hunt, my dad asked Rudy if he ever thought about breeding Lady to pass her sterling genes on to some offspring, because sure enough, if he did, my father would be first in line to buy one. The two men were in Rudy’s homey kitchen when this exchange occurred, sharing a bottle of decent whisky my dad had brought while I sipped a coke and listened. Rudy pushed back his chair and stood up and said to my dad, “Come on. I got somebody I want you to meet.”

We followed him outside, past the barn and some low corrals where he kept his sheep, and on to a set of tiny sheds at the far end of the barnyard. Those were Rudy’s kennels, where he kept Lady and, as it turned out, several of her offspring. She’d had a litter three years ago, and Rudy said he’d sold most of them as pups but kept a few, including one chunky little guy with a long tongue and a friendly face. Butch was his name; Rudy pronounced it “Booch.” Funny we knew nothing of Booch, or any of the remainders of the litter, but we didn’t, and before my delighted father could make an offer, Rudy said, “Here. I geeve you Booch.” He refused to accept a dime, and we went home with a dog. And some explaining to do to my mother.

Butch, it turned out, was a great pet but an absolute dud as a hunter. He seemed to have no nose for game animals, he was slow on his paws, easily confused in the woods, dumb as a box of hammers. Everything his mother was, Butch was not. My dad, not a veteran hunting dog owner, did all he could to stimulate Butch’s hunting instincts, but to no avail. Rudy had said to make sure we never let Booch sleep in the house, as it would “spoil his nose.” He was not to be exposed to central heating, not to be fed fancy new dog foods – Rudy fed nothing but Gravy Train – never to receive table scraps except for the occasional shred of rabbit meat or squirrel, “to keep his nose down,” Rudy said. Build him a little wooden house, fill it with warm straw, keep him on a long chain in the backyard, never let him run except on hunting trails. We followed those directions to a T; no effect. My dad gave up, Butch became my pet, we moved to a different town far away and lost touch with Mr. Zunoni. We did go on to hunt with other people who owned good dogs, most of them beagles.

So it was an easy choice for Dorothy and me when we decided to get a couple of dogs. She had not grown up with any dogs and had no preference for breeds, but for me, there was really only one kind to have: the beagle. Big lungs, big heart, loyal to a fault, soft-coated, endearing ears, soulful brown eyes. The beagle. We got two.

Their names are Hans and Yuhans, both male, both around three years old when we acquired them – also free of charge, as Butch had been. They came along right after we bought our first house in Missoula, 300 Crestline Drive up in the Farviews neighborhood, right next to Missoula’s oldest golf course. We were told the dogs were brothers, but as time went by and we learned their personalities, we came to doubt that claim. Hans is a devoted, gentle, somewhat slow and modest soul who avoids mischief, tends to be tidy as dogs go, watches his weight, minds his masters. Yuhans is a devil on paws. From the day we brought him home, trouble all the way. He turned out to be a Houdini-grade escape artist who could slip any leash, chain, snap, collar, kennel, or fence. He actually seemed to let out a little giggle whenever we moved to contain him. Hans would sleep the day away, like any normal dog; Yuhans never seemed to sleep. He’d be padding around the house at all hours, sort of hunting along the baseboards. In the first month we had him, we had to install a latch on the refrigerator, as he figured out how to open it. He got into the peanut butter, the leftover chicken, the beef, the bread, once the applesauce; he drank a six-pack of beer one night – bit the aluminum cans open one at a time and slurped each one off the kitchen floor. We found him next morning, passed out in the dining room. He was never a biter, a brawler, or a barker, but he was hugely self-interested. Hans would sometimes just sit and stare at him, just as we did, agape.

So it came as no surprise when Yuhans disappeared. We got up one morning, opened the curtains, put on the coffee, called the dogs – but only Hans appeared. We found the patio door open about a foot, and Yuhans was gone. We stapled posters around the neighborhood, went door to door asking, called the animal control people to put them on alert, but nothing happened. No word ever echoed back. After a few weeks, we gave up trying; after a couple months, we gave up hope. Now we had just the one loyal beagle.

And then a funny thing happened.

One night, Dorothy and I were lounging in the living room, sort of mindlessly looking in on one of our television shows, when a commercial for dog food came on, and the commercial had footage of several different breeds of dogs, including one beagle. The shock of recognition was immediate. Dorothy saw it first and called me into the room – I was up getting myself a can of beer – and she said, “You are not going to believe this.” The beagle in the commercial was unmistakably Yuhans. The way he moved, the gib of his tail, the way he cast a sly glance at the camera – Yuhans, down the strike-zone. He had lost a little weight, gained a little speed, looked like a million bucks in the way only a professional make-up artist can make actors look – adults, babies, animals, doesn’t matter. Yuhans had had a full makeover, and it showed; boy did it show! Since then, we’ve seen him in more than a dozen commercials, and once as a family dog who had a bit part in some drab comedy that did not interest us – except for Yuhans’ performance. We’ve come to realize that if a beagle shows up onscreen, there is a pretty good chance it’s Yuhans – so we actively watch for him now. We assume he has an agent, perhaps a family now, or at least offspring; we can plainly see he’s making money paw over fist. We try to alert Hans whenever his “brother” shows up onscreen, in yet another commercial, but the docile dog – and we surely love him – takes no interest, no interest at all. We’re not sure if Hans even remembers Yuhans any more.

All of the above is to say we do think we have set a good example for our dog-owning friends. We found a way to make dog-ownership unburdensome. Hans, and Yuhans when we still had him, cost us nothing – no vet bills, no food receipts, no kennel charges, no chew toys. We still take Hans everywhere we go, with no thought given to pet-friendly anything. We don’t worry about fights with other dogs, complaints from neighbors about barking, the menacing of mail carriers or delivery drivers, illegitimate offspring. We never worry about him dying. The key to keeping dogs with no stress, or grief, or expense is to have them be imaginary.

Hans and Yuhans. Imaginary beagles.