In Pursuit of Dreams

CLANCY
“Look out!”
“What in the world?”
“Someone grab him!”
We heard the commotion coming from the front of the store all the way to the meat counter. We knew immediately what the excitement was Clancy, Mark’s big galoot of a Great Dane. Sure enough, here he came, gallumping happily down the aisle, knocking cereal boxes down with his tail, with a bag boy in frantic pursuit.
Clancy was a case of love-at-first-sight, second thoughts, and enough remaining affection to keep trying to make the relationship work. As Gus grew older, we thought it would be a good idea to get a pup for him to raise and train to be like him: quiet, obedient, docile except for the occasional fight and stick fetish. Mark also assumed he would quickly learn to stay, untied, in the back of the pickup, as Gus had.
I had spotted the ad for a registered Harlequin Great Dane puppy, FREE TO GOOD HOME! Clancy, we learned, descended from distinguished show stock. But instead of sporting black spots on a snow white body, Clancy had great splotches of motley gray, including a patch over one eye reminiscent of Spuds McKenzie. His ears were long and floppy rather than cropped pointed. His eyes were pale blue, giving him a somewhat puzzled dufus demeanor, but he wiggle-waggled his way right into our soft hearts.
The first hint of trouble came when we discovered that Clancy was nocturnal: he would sleep all day and come wide awake at dark, wanting outside all night. Maybe it was his blue eyes, we reasoned. The sunlight hurt his pale eyes, and he could see better at night.
Also, he seemed exceptionally clumsy and destructive. True of any puppy fast growing into a big dog, he tripped over his own feet, ran into things, and knocked over plants and chairs. He chewed on everything, including legs of fine furniture. “Well, that's a puppy for you,” we said.
Then Mark had to be gone for a week and left Clancy in the care of my sister and brother-in-law. They went to a movie one night, leaving him in the house with their two dogs. When they returned, they couldn't locate him. Then they heard frantic scratches on the bathroom door.
Somehow, Clancy had shut himself in the bathroom, then destroyed everything he could. The shower curtain was torn down, the carpet torn up, toilet paper unwound and shredded everywhere. Then he had chewed up a plastic bottle of shampoo, spreading it over the whole mess.
Clancy liked to lie under the coffee table at night while we were sitting on the couch. As a small puppy he would crawl back out. As he grew bigger (and bigger), he would simply stand up with the table teetering on his back. We would grab the table and yell, "Down, Clancy. Lie down." He would, if he felt like it.
One reminder of Clancy's destruction we had for a dozen years. Mark had just bought a new Jeep truck, and we took the dogs out to hunt quail. Not trusting Clancy, we decided to leave him in the pickup while we walked with Gus. We settled Clancy in the front seat, apparently ready to doze.
Yep, you're smart enough to guess that dear Clancy might misbehave. He had scratched and tore at the door, nearly destroying the beaded strip around it. That wasn't the only damage Clancy inflicted on Mark's new truck. He loved to ride in the back, and Mark easily taught him to leap over the tailgate to go for a ride.If Mark wasn't at the back of the truck when he said, "Load up!" Clancy would launch himself onto the truck from wherever he happened to be: over the side of the bed or onto the hood and over the cab.
Thankfully, many of Clancy’s misadventures were more amusing than destructive. One time we were in a cafe with the dogs in the truck near the door. We heard muffled shouts outside the door, then a pale-faced patron slipped in, shoved the door shut behind her and leaned against it.
"Dog," she gasped. "Real big dog. Wants in."
Together Mark and I rushed outside to confront the big dog, who started retreating toward the street with that pathetic I-suppose-I've-done-something-wrong-again look in his pale eyes.
"Load up," Mark shouted.
A big black sedan was parked between Clancy and our truck. Clancy immediately leaped at the front window. Luckily the window was open and no one was in the car. Mark opened the door and dragged Clancy out, carefully positioning him behind the pickup before he commanded to load up again.
Mark's neighbors at the Forest Service station loved Clancy, so they didn't hesitate to take him when Mark went on Christmas vacation.
Soon after Christmas on a sleety afternoon, I parked behind the Penney’s store downtown. I heard shouts at the back door of the store and saw a big dog resembling Clancy trying to get in .A customer came out batting at him with her purse. It couldn't be Clancy I thought, because he was staying with Mark’s friends six miles out in the country. But maybe Mark had returned before he had planned.
"Clancy," I called from the window. He responded immediately with great leaps toward me, his ears flapping joyfully. I jumped out to intercept him before he could intercept my car. "How did you get way down here?" I asked him.
That question was never answered. Mark and I speculated that his care-takers had brought him to town and he got away from them, but they said he just disappeared the afternoon I found him. His pads didn't show the wear one would expect from a dog walking that far on pavement. Did he hitch a ride? Or go cross country on the snow? However he got there, his motive was clear: Mark could probably be found in town behind some door. We wondered how many other doors in town he tried before I spotted him.