Time To Talk Tuti

Sometime in late November of 2001, I had come up from California to help my Mum and her husband settle in to their new country life. Newly retired but not wealthy, the two had left the expensive real estate of the Bay Area and placed their savings into buying this two acre property outright.

I had already developed lots of friends in the area through mutual friends, and I was eager to buy a fixer-upper nearby and slow my ass down some, having screamed through most of the 90’s in high gear, working, playing, working, playing…

One of my friends was building a house just down the road from Mum’s, so I moved into the studio/shop attached to her house and headed down the road from here everyday, working with a great crew of friends on a large ranch house on 30 acres, putting together some money to up my down payment on a house when I found one.

Dogs were far from my mind, in those days, as I had not had any time for them before. Dogs meant you couldn’t just go places. You had to make arrangements, and you had to always come home to feed and love them. They were a bit like kids, only they never talked back- much.

My morning ritual hasn’t changed much over the years. Get up, make a coffee, sip it some, shower, poop, dress and roll, taking a second cup with me on the road for company.

The day I met Tuti started like that, and I cruised half asleep down the road in no hurry, sipping coffee and letting my mind wander the way it does before I am forced to fully wake and bang on things with my big hammer. In other words, this was the quiet, dreamy part of my day and I drove slowly to hold onto it for just a few seconds longer.

The drive took me down a country road that ran into the road we now live on making a Tee. This was Thompson Creek road, and on its right side, it was covered in younger Douglas Fir forests with the odd driveway heading off into it to where people had driven in trailers and covered them with tarps and were now living in mystery. At least to me. I mean, who can live without the sun on their porch?

On the left side of the road, were a series of 20 and 30 acre parcels. Nice bottom land where horses could be pastured and backed by a nice-sized crinkle of a hill covered in more Douglas Fir forests. Thompson Creek ran along the left side of the road, as well, and each of these properties were accessed by a small driveway bridge, often shared.

About three mile down this road there was a driveway I had come to memorize, and a left turn over a small bridge, and then about a half mile drive on a new shale driveway to the jobsite- the 2600 sq. foot house we were building.

As I drove this one morning in November in the fog, slowly with my coffee in hand, a small white puppy sort of hobby-horsed out in the road in front of me, and I slowed even more. It was a skinny white puppy- I couldn’t see it clearly, and it ran off into the bushes as I called out to it-- “Get yourself home, puppy! Go on! Go home little puppy!”

I turned left onto the bridge, crossed it, then made my way to work where I picked up some steam for the day and started making carpenter noises- bang bang, pow, kazeeeearrrr, and other noises, as well.

Our crew does something rather unique when we build a house. We firstly build a temporary one-sided shed with a roof made out of greenhouse plastic. We do this because it keeps the rain off our tools, and we can set up work benches and a place for a microwave. We set up a fancy saw with a table and special “stops” for making the same length cuts over and over with only one measurement. (I made the brackets for the quick to build shelter with my welder and designed them with my coffee-mind. )

The shed was light inside, and dry, and a large pile of sawdust collected behind the saw on the ground, which gave it all a nice carpenter smell.

About two hours after I had arrived at work, I walked to this saw with numbers written down on a writing pad. I had some things to cut. In the sawdust pile, curled in a tiny, shivering ball, was the white puppy I had yelled at on the road. As I approached she ran off, out into a grassy field but not too far away. I watched her as I made my cuts. She watched me.

“Whatcha doin’ puppy? Where’s your home? You’re da good puppy, aren’t cha?”

The white puppy curled up tight again, into herself, out in the grass.

I carried my lumber back to the house and started banging on nails again. In twenty minutes, I came back out to find the puppy curled up in the fresh sawdust beneath the saw again. Again, it ran off, back out into the grass, and curled up into itself and watched me from a distance.

“Are you da good puppy? What a sweet puppy!” I sang in my talk-to-dog voice.

The little white puppy just stayed curled up and watchful. Every now and then, it would paw at its own face like it had something crawling all over it.

Lunch came and the boys gathered and the little white puppy was nowhere to be seen. We talked bit about the puppy. It looked emaciated and uncared for. It looked sick, actually. I decided that we needed to catch it and get it to a vet, and hoped it would come around again.

A few hours later, there it was, in the sawdust pile again, shivering and afraid. It ran when I approached it. "That’s it", I decided. "I am done working for the day". I went and asked the owners of the house we were building- since they had a dog- for some dog food. I put out a few nuggets and called the little puppy. It was weary of people- seriously frightened actually- and the only way I could get it to eat a nugget was by tossing them quite far from me and quite near to it.

The little white puppy was obviously starving to death, and it became tuned-in to the game I was playing.

I would toss nuggets and make the puppy move toward me in little increments. I was talking to it in my puppy voice. “Heyyo puppy! Oh dat’s a good puppy!”

The white puppy would play along for awhile and then when I was too close, it would run back away and curl up in a ball and watch me again, shivering.

I spent well over an hour playing this game, while the boys all packed up and went home. It was now just me and this puppy out on a jobsite and sundown was less than half an hour away.

If I were to catch this puppy, I would have to run after it, like a kid chasing a pig in a fair.

I tossed out nuggets and gave myself my best chance. When I had the puppy within fifteen feet of me, I sprinted and the puppy ran. I looked silly from a distance, I am sure, a big tall carpenter dude chasing something small in the high grass out in a field. The white puppy ran into some of this high grass like a fence and I managed to scoop up the little puppy and now I had it and it screamed a scared little puppy scream and began pissing like crazy and screaming and writhing like I was about to kill and eat it.

I wasn’t. I held it away from me while it peed and I headed for my truck, where I managed to get both of us in and the door closed. The terrified little puppy went down to the passenger floor board and tried to crawl under an old work jacket that was laying there.

That would do us both, for now. It was almost dark and I needed to be getting home. I talked to the poor, terrified puppy as I drove.

“You’re a good puppy. Oh what a sweet puppy! You sha puppy puppy woo woo woo…”

When I got back to Mum’s, I pulled the truck into the shop and closed the door and turned on the overhead lights. I now had the puppy trapped in a space and I could open the truck up and let the puppy do what it wanted.

It wanted to stay curled up in a ball and shiver and hide beneath that old jacket. I let it. I grabbed another vehicle and went into town and bought flea and tick shampoo and some real puppy food. I bought some bologna for bribery, as well.

That evening, I sat outside my own truck in my shop about six feet away from the open passenger door, and just talked to this poor frightened puppy. I could see she was a she and that she was starving and so underweight that her eyes were starting to sink inside her skull and her eyelids were flipping under and she had goop in both of them. I could see fleas in scary numbers running all over her white fur. I could see ticks hanging all over her. She devoured the food I was giving her and I had to be careful not to give her too much. When I got too close, she would scream like I was killing her and the sincerity and volume of this scream made me back off and go back and sit again, watching her.

I so much wanted to hold her and bath her, and make the fear go away for her, but I had to wait.

She was scared to death and it was going to be up to her when she would allow me to touch her and take care of her. You could sense that she wanted all of that. But she just wasn’t ready for it.

I took the next day off of work and sat there and talked to her and gave her bits of bologna and her puppy food. Fleas crawled across her face and made her cry out in agony. I had slowly added soft things to her pile on the floor of my truck, and she was no longer shivering. By the evening, I was able to sit right next to the open passenger door, reach inside, and pet her emaciated little body while she bravely let me, partly afraid, partly not.

At night while I slept, the little white puppy got out to pee and poo on my garage floor, then went right back inside the truck and hid in the pile I had left for her on the passenger floorboard.

The next day was a Saturday and I spent it all trying to gain the trust of this little puppy. By the end of the day, I had her in my arms where she grew quiet and peaceful. Fleas were all over her and now me, and I carried her into the house and gave her a warm bath in the tub. Flea and tick carcasses floated atop the soapy water and the little white puppy was now rid of them. For the first time, after I had toweled her dry, I could feel how soft her white fir was- like the fur of a rabbit- and so began the long ritual of my running my hands through her fur, gently squeezing her loose skin, until cramps kept me from continuing.

The mystery of where she came from was never solved. I drove around near where I found her and asked around. There were no white recent mother dogs in the area. From her black tongue, I surmised she had some Chow in her. From her head shape and ears, I decided she had some Akita in her, and from her nature and tail, some Shepherd. She ate and put on weight and I took her to the local vet and got her shots (she was scared to death, but I held her and talked to her) and pretty soon she was running comfortably around our fenced two acres and I was saddled with a dog I never meant to have.

My girlfriend back then had a dog named “Mutz”, a purebred long-haired Sharpei that I called “Muti”, and my sister had a new dog she named “Dude”, that I called “Dudi”. and so I named the little white puppy “Tuti” and answered people’s question with this response.

“So I can Muti, Dudi Tuti all day…” (Yes, a bad pun of a song…)

I also decided that “Tuti” was an unusual name and needed a back story. “She was named after a Samoan sleep and fertility goddess from Cleveland…” is what I told everyone.

My Tuti.

Not “tooty”, I told people. She isn’t a coke dog. Not “tutty”. She isn’t Egyptian. “Tuti”. An umlaut over the “U”. Rhymes with “put - ee”…

The two of us grew very connected as I fought to overcome her immense fears of the world and understand where she may have come from.

(to be continued...)