The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie

Marking Time

By Kathryn Socie, 8-31-08

	Boo, one of the best dogs ever. Oh, the happy memories.

Most people track their lives in some way, capturing important moments in time in an effort to tuck memories away and allow those in their present into their past. Unfortunately for me, I never carry a camera or seem to collect many pictures and I can’t really say why. Laziness perhaps. I write, but chronicling my everyday thoughts and experiences in words has always been a futile effort; an entirely lame entry appears once every few months, causing me to throw out the exercise altogether. Yesterday, however, I discovered I’ve been recording my life’s path in a rather unusual way.

I had gone in search of a bracelet stored in a cheap purple box picked up many moons ago for my “prized” smaller possessions.  It’s one of those boxes divided into sections, consisting of layers.  On one, I keep the few pieces of jewelry I own and in another I’ve been, somewhat absentmindedly, collecting tags; I.D. tags from each and every dog that has spent any amount of time in my life.  Tags marking each move, from state to state or just across town.  Tags recording chapters of my life.  My first dog, my second dog, foster dogs, found dogs, tags including the name of a partner with whom I shared my dogged life for a spell. Each one with little more than the dog’s name, an address, a phone number and, on occasion, an emergency contact. Each one took me back to a time, a place and wonderful, sometimes hard memories. The condition of each reflected how long I was in any one spot or how long a dog was a part of my life, which made it all the more special to me. The wholly intimate, personal nature of something so small and seemingly benign was profound, dare I suggest poetic even.

Granted, if someone else came across this collection chances are they would see it as little more than junk; pieces of plastic or metal in various stages of decay.  Many would even find them rather odd things to hold on to. They’re not something I can flip through and share with friends or family in a way that would easily convey much.  But they serve as placeholders for me, small tokens marking a beginning or an end.  They’re very different from more specific, purposeful memorabilia.  They allow more about a moment or series of moments than a snap shot.

Though these tags were once literally attached to a dog, they convey more to me about places we’d been together, lived together, adventures shared, the people playing a part in our overlapping lives, than the dog specifically. 

So, while I sit sipping coffee on a perfect, rainy Sunday in Montana, looking forward to the seasons changing yet again here on the cusp of fall, I’m reveling in yet another gift, another unforeseen component of being dogged for years. 

As if the health benefits weren’t enough.

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