David Teems - And Thereby Hangs a Tale: What I Really Know about the Devoted Life I Learned from My Dogs

My indebtedness is rather exhaustive, but so is my gratitude.

• To Randy Elliott, for his optimism, for his immutable friendship, and, in an indirect sense, for setting this book in motion.
• To Ann Elliott, not the character in Jane Austens book, but Randys wife, the first to read these pages, who came up smiling and wanted to go buy a dog.
• To Bucky Rosenbaum, the Author Whisperer, my agent and friend.
• To Carol Kelly, my editorial fairy godmother.
• To Matt and Julie Kelly, for simply being Matt and Julie Kelly.
• To my sons, Adam and Shad, who were there, who make this little history even richer.
• To our Katie, Julian, Evie, and Audrey Gray.
• To my mother.
• And to Benita, always. Always.

I T IS SOMETHING YOU MIGHT SAY when meaning is implied but not stated, when there is more to be said than is actually spoken. The artful gossip might employ it as a tease. When William Shakespeare minted the phrase and thereby hangs a tale, the context was playful and not without his usual mischief. It was a title I could hardly resist, considering my hosts.

I am not sure I have enjoyed working on anything as much in my life as I have this present book. I can only hope that is reflected in the reading. The long hours, the retracing of memoriessome of them sad, all of them fondthe migration this book made from obscurity to print, the pilgrimage it made in my own heart, my love-afflicted fascination with these amazing creatures who brought something to our young household I may never totally understand or appreciateall these things made the completion of the task somewhat difficult. I just didnt want it to end.

This book is part tribute, part confession, part requiem for three beloved and irreplaceable friends. It may even be part Sunday school lesson, though the last thing I wanted to do was to preach or teach. It is a matter of tone I think, and anyway, the more I thought about it, the more I realized just how good our dogs were for a useful and delightful metaphor to say a few things about the devoted life, which is simply a way of saying that worship, far from being an isolated event, is a way of life, a continuous living current between my master and me. It rises with me at dawn. It follows me about during the day, instructing, comforting, correcting, encouraging. And it never stops.

The devoted life is a life of uncommon love. I would say unconditional love, but I would then have to ask, Is there any other kind? I dont mean to sound glib, but when it comes to the realization of such a life, it truly is all or nothing. A plunge. A submersion. A love that saturates the whole of life to the smallest particulars. The cup of coffee with a friend, the small miracle of conversation, even the afternoon nap are sweetened with as much of the life of God as the prayer I make at the altar. Life and faith become indistinguishable.

As you read, you may think that our dogs were charmed or that I am making stuff up, fabricating, inventing. Perhaps they did live charmed livesall three of them. If so, devotion was their coin of purchase. But I have remained as true as I know how to the memory of those days. That is the real miracle of itI have not made anything up. Where I botched a story here or there or where I got my dates wrong, my wife has been kind enough to correct me.

Of course, the devoted life is much easier to talk about than it is to actually live, and to find a suitable model was not that easy. A friend of mine actually suggested horses, but there were at least two reasons why that wouldnt work. One, I have never had a horse. As great an animal as I know them to be, as dedicated as I understand they are to man, I have no personal experience with them, at least not enough to create a convincing metaphor.

The second reason is the easiest. A horse cant jump in your lap. It cant sleep on your bed or by your desk, and they take up way too much room. It is difficult to pretend they are not there. Plus my wife goes into a mild state of euphoria at the very mention of a horse, and the idea is to gain your attention, not to lose it to a fantasy.

I am more familiar with the emotional indicators of a dog. A horse doesnt wag its tail when it is happy, it doesnt turn around three times before lying down, and I have never seen a horse with its head out the window of a car.

So dog is it.

It was my agent who suggested horses, but with a name like Bucky what can you expect?