After Gregory, the Sheltie my folks had owned longer than they’d owned me, died, we mourned for him and were dogless until Megan, the dog across the street, got knocked up. She was owned by the mother of our neighbors, the Dodds. A tri-colored Shetland sheepdog, her manner was sweet and her eyes were clear and dark.
We told them that we would like a puppy from the whelping. They agreed. A puppy was secured. One morning shortly thereafter, Mom called me out of fourth grade to watch the pups get born. It was amazing. I remember being surprised that the puppies were born with their eyelids closed shut. I also remember being grossed out when Megan ate the afterbirth, something that the Dodds took in stride.
I visited the puppies every day. There were 10 in the litter, a group of squirmy blind small silken beasts. The Dodd’s other dogs, including Misty, a prize-winning Norwegian Elkhound with a cinnamon-roll tail, felt left out so I was always sure to pay attention to them on my way in and out of the door.
When we brought Chaucer (named by my Anglophile mother) home, he was a handful of puppy fuzz. His favorite place was our yellow vinyl beanbag chair. Dad constructed a wire-mesh puppy-pen for Chauce in our backyard. Chaucer taught himself to climb up the mesh ladder until he reached the top coil of leftover mesh, at which point he would whine piteously and I would lift him into the air and call him “Super-puppy”.
It was around this time in his life that we discovered Chaucer’s other talent. I was practicing piano when I heard a wail in the background. Chaucer was sitting on the floor beside my piano bench, howling. I tried to not take his action to heart. From that point, I shut him out of the room while practicing. The next summer, Frank Dill and Mike Cleary, then the morning men for KNBR-68, started talking about a festival. The festival was conceived by one of Mike’s character voices, a fellow named Gus. Gus decided that KNBR should throw a festival in his own honor. The name? The Gus Festival! Frank and Mike commenced on-air petitioning for listeners to send in their wacky act ideas. Mom looked at me. I looked at her. I wrote a letter that same day.
Christian, my first friend in the whole world (my Mom and I drove her mom to the hospital to have her when I was six months old), was visiting from North Carolina when I got a response from KNBR. “Miss Benson,” it read, “congratulations on being chosen for the stage of the Gus Festival, to be held at Pier 32 on the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend.” I think the echo of the scream that left my lips is still echoing in the distant peaks of the Himalaya mountains.
Soon after receiving the letter, I started to hear my name on the radio. Frank would talk to “Gus”. “Soooo, Gus, how are the acts lining up for your festival?” “Well, Frank, we’re going to have a fellow who wrestles chaise lounges.” “Hmmmm. Interesting. Got anything else?” “Well, let’s see. Oh! We’ve got Marilynn and her Singing Dog!” “Wow!” Frank would exclaim. It was all terribly thrilling.
I chose a Rondo from one of my more advanced piano books and practiced ceaselessly, bringing in Chaucer only occasionally so he wouldn’t strain his voice.
When the day of the Gus Festival arrived, I dressed up and made a placard that would be propped up on the stage for our act. We arrived with plenty of time to spare so we wandered the perimeter of the pier. People came up to us, asking, “Is this Marilynn and her singing dog?” They were thrilled to find out that it was, we were. KRON-TV filmed me standing with Chaucer and our placard, but I spent so much time telling Chaucer to look at the camera that they didn’t show the clip.
Finally, it was our turn to perform. Chaucer and I mounted the stage, my hand clutching his leash, the spotlights blinding me to the 2,000 people who faced us. I set up the placard and went to the piano they’d provided stage right, sat down, cleared my throat, and began the rondo.
Chaucer didn’t sing. I continued to play. Chaucer sniffed the edges of the stage. The dog wasn’t singing. The dog wasn’t singing! After all this, the dog wasn’t singing!
W.C. Fields said that you should never share the stage with animals or children. Well, I was a child sharing a stage with an animal, and the only thing I could think to do was to finish the rondo. So I did.
Mercifully, that was when Frank and Mike stepped out onto the stage with us. One of them picked up the dog as the other welcomed the festival-goers to the event. After a few minutes of easy banter, they looked out into the crowd.
“Whaddaya say?” they asked. “Should we give the dog another try?”
The audience cheered.
I sat back down at the piano and called to Chaucer. Upon hearing the opening notes, he ran to the piano. And sang his little fuzzy heart out. When the song was over, I picked him up and nuzzled his neck with my face, and it was in this position that we took our victorious bow.
Chaucer doesn’t sing anymore, which probably has to do with the fact that he’s old and deaf deaf deaf. But until the rest of my days, I will be thankful for him, for the thunderous applause he brought to me… to us.