Furthermore

I used to sneak out of my room in my early teens.

I don’t think it’s that unusual of an occurrence, but at the time, I thought it was pretty awesome. My room was on the corner of the third floor, so I’d leave out my window onto the roof, around the corner, along the roof, down the edge of the greenhouse, down onto the deck railing to the deck, then over the railing, squat, then drop down onto the ground to freedom.

There was never much to do once I was out, it was late at night, invariably a school night, in Ucluelet, in the mid-eighties. The streets were abandoned except for this skinny kid with a light blue denim jacket and feathered hair, wandering around like he owned the place. It felt pretty good.

Sometimes I’d go check in on my friends and see if they were up. Alfredo had a tv in his room, so maybe we’d watch for a bit or listen to music. I first heard Quiet Riot one of those nights, and we laughed scandalously over the spelling of their hit song. Maybe more nervously on my part because I didn’t know what cum was, but I didn’t want to let on. Soon I’d get antsy and have to leave, and maybe I’d head over to Geoff’s house, and we’d head out to steal christmas light bulbs. We’d discovered, by ‘accident’ that they made the most satisfying popping sound when you threw them like a grenade, and we couldn’t get enough of that for a while, so we’d climb around and steal all the bulbs that we could. I had an entire duffel bag full of them for a time, and I didn’t know what to do with them after we got bored of breaking them, or developed a conscience about the broken glass, or the theft. I still sometimes feel a bit of guilt about that, I hope no dogs cut their feet as a result of our little shenanigans. We didn’t really think about it at the time.

Another thing I didn’t really think about was how hard it would be to climb up the wall of the house to get back into my room that first time. We had cedar board and baton siding, so I was able to do it after a few tries, and I also took to practicing it under the guise of horsing around at recess to get my system down, but that first time it was really frustrating, and no where near as quiet as I would have liked. Lots of scrabbling and chunky-sounding slipping. On those quiet, still nights, you could probably hear me coming home from the Rez across the harbour.

For me, it was always so much easier climbing down than up, but such was not the case for Furthermore the dog. He was a sweet boy, a chocolate Lab crossed with some sort of spaniel, but the spaniel didn’t show up enough to make him completely idiotic. That dog loved his people, loved to swim, and sometimes, to climb things.

My dad had an old surfboard that he got from Laverne, and as far as I know, no one ever used it until I pulled it out of the bush and started paddling around the harbour on it. I’d cruise along the shoreline and weave through all the pilings, looking at all the perch, and shiners, and crabs, and tube worms, and anemones, and old tires, and seals-who were completely non-threatening-and sea lions which were a bit intimidating, occasional oil slicks with all their pretty colours, and....Furthermore? He’d get bored, or lonely waiting for me on the beach, so he’d just swim after me. I’d worry that he’d get tired and drown, but he never did. He just loved his people and always wanted to be around them.

Whenever my brother would take Dad’s dory out, which was a lot, Furthermore would be ever so proudly up at the bow, with his feet precariously set on the gunnels, just as far forward as he could get, ears floating out to the sides, maybe flapping a little, eyes half closed, just king of the world, until he fell off. He fell off a lot. Kevin would then have to circle around and haul him out, after which he’d shake off, get a few pets, wag some, and head back up to the bow. It was funny, and he fell off more than he should have, probably, due to sudden, and inexplicable ‘course corrections’, but whether he never put 2 and 2 together, or just accepted it as worth it, we always thought it was funny.

I’m not exactly sure when Furthermore learned to climb ladders, and if he taught himself, or if we gave him lessons. I’m also not sure if he was just being family dog protective when he started showing up on the roofs, or if he just wanted to hang with us. However it came to be, a dog on a roof is a big problem for a couple of kids. We weren’t NOT allowed to play on the roof, but we were likely to be admonished and ordered down if we weren’t careful, at least until I started jumping off. Anyway, even if Furthermore was able to descend a ladder-some dogs can-there was no way we could get him anywhere near the edge of the roof to access it. It’s possible that we could have, I suppose, but considering how difficult it was to stuff him through that small bathroom window, I think the struggle would have seen us all on the ground in a bruised heap. He made a few trips through that window, but he still he kept following us wherever we went.

I grew up climbing all over stuff and being in places where I wasn’t reeeeally supposed to be, like playing on the log booms, and investigating the shops and heavy equipment down at the log sort. One day, my brother and I came down from the upper levels of the pile-driver to discover Furthermore happily waiting for us on the second. He was so happy to see us, but as with every other time he dog climbed up a ladder, he put us, but mostly himself, in a situation. There was no way we were going to be able to carry him down that ladder. Even if we were strong enough to carry a wriggling 70 pound wet dog to the edge of the deck, any attempt to get out onto the ladder would sure end in disaster, so we picked him up, he went very still, and we carted him to the edge, and we threw him off.

If I recollect correctly, which I usually do, it was about 20 feet to the water. It was higher than I would have wanted to jump, which was weird because I’d jump half that height onto an asphalt driveway, but it was definitely a lot higher than Furthermore wanted to jump. He got some hang time, made a big splash, a really big splash with his less than graceful entry, then disappeared for a bit. When he re-emerged, he was (predictably) dog-paddling away and looking for the boat. We scrambled down the ladder, fired up the boat, and hauled him out, once again, and once again he wagged, shook harbour water all over us, made sure we were ok, then headed back up to his favourite spot on the bow.

Such a good boy.