Dan Dye - Amazing Gracie: A Dogs Tale

By Dan Dye and Mark Beckloff

Illustrations by Meg Cundiff

WORKMAN PUBLISHING NEW YORK

Copyright 2000 by Dan Dye, Mark Beckloff, and Richard Simon

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproducedmechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopyingwithout written permission of the publisher. Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.

Photographs on 7 Tim Pott
Photographs on (b) Tatjana Alvegaard

Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data is available.

eISBN 9780761153627

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For Gracie and for every other best dog in the world.

This project most certainly would never have come to fruition without the vision and generous involvements of the following people:

Tanya McKinnon, our agent at Mary Evans Inc., who believed in us and this project from the moment we met. Her powerful agenting skills are surpassed only by her ability to overdeliver on everything she promises. We thank the gods (or was it the dogs?) for bringing her to us.

Richard Simon, friend and writer extraordinaire. Imagine 100 tons of writing talent compressed into one unassuming, funny, native New Yorker. His skillful wordsmithing kept improving this book all the way through. Working with Richard was a dream and his contribution to Amazing Gracie immeasurable.

Ruth Sullivantruly a writers editor. Ruths intelligent editing and thoughtful wit made a Great Danesized difference in telling Gracies story. Thanks, Ruthyoure the best. And warm paw-shakes all around to our littermates at Workman PublishingRosie, Meghan, Elainefor helping this project along its way, and especially Peter Workman for embracing Gracies tale from the beginning.

contents

While Gracies tale is true, some places, dates, events, and human names have been changed or combined to protect the lives and sensibilities of the innocent, and the not-so-innocent.

foreword

When an energetic eight-week-old albino Great Dane came into our lives one freezing January day, we didnt realize that our future business advisor and spiritual guide had arrived. She was deaf, and partially blind in one eye. She had a delicate constitution. But her tenacious and generous spirit would soon reshape our ideas, our careers, and our destinies. She would inspire us to believe in ourselves.

People know us best for our entrepreneurial success as the founders of Three Dog Bakery; what they dont know is that we owe it all to a gigantic deaf dog named Gracie. But even though Gracie sowed the seeds of our success, this isnt a book about making it. This is the story of a dog who was born with the cards stacked against her, but whose passionate, joyful nature helped her turn what could have been a dogs life into a victory of the canine spiritand, in the process, save two guys who thought they were saving her.

Mark Beckloff and Dan Dye

one

Blue is a nice word for how I felt. I must have looked like a clich of mourning: gray late-November Sunday afternoon, me in raggedy sweats and a two-day beard, slumped down in a Sears Barca-Lounger that looked almost as good as it had the day I rescued it from a Dumpster my freshman year in college. All I needed was a half-empty bottle of whiskey, a crow on my shoulder, and an ashtray full of unfiltered cigarette stubs to finish the picture: MAN GRIEVING LOST LOVED ONE. It didnt make it any easier that the loved one was my childhood best friend of eighteen yearsmy dog, Blue. The phone could ring all day; I just sat and stared at it. I wasnt trying to avoid people. I just didnt have anything to say. Except to Blue. And she couldnt hear me anymore.

There arent any diplomats or charm school graduates among my friends and family members, so their attempts to comfort me about Blue usually had the opposite effect. Shes probably happier now was a favorite, along with you can always get another onethough nothing could top thank God it was only a dog! Only two people managed not to make me feel worse. One was Anne, my friend and fellow copywriter at Midwestern Company, who had lost her beloved golden retriever, Arthur, only a few months earlier. The other was Mark, my best friend, new housemate, future business partner, and generally the soul of good sense, skepticism, and bad taste.

Mark Beckloff and I had just gone in on a house together, a dilapidated mansion on Holmes Street in the heart of Kansas City. We planned to fix it up and sell it for a cool profit that would let us bankroll our business ideaas soon as we came up with one. For now it was our home until we did well enough to live somewhere else, or one of us pulled a Double Indemnity on the othersomething I almost never considered. Blues passing hadnt left us entirely dogless, because there were still Sarah and Dottie, aka the girls, Marks canine contribution to the household. He likes to think hes their human companion. Reality check: The girls are Marks proud owners. Sarahs a two-year-old black Lab mix whos always in a good mood, especially when shes eating something Mark has to wear the next day. Dottie is an uncontrollable force of nature in the deceptive form of a year-old Dalmatian. Dottie wreaks havoc when shes in a good mood; only her spots keep people from mistaking her for a tornado.

Sarah, Dottie, Mark, and Anne gave me the most valuable gifts you can offer someone whos grieving: solitude and, occasionally, quiet company. Then one frigid morning a few weeks later, Anne added another great gift to quiet caring: distraction.

It was one of those bitter late-January days when you start wondering if a foot of snow might take the edge off the cold, and Anne, who always says her blood is too thin for Missouri winters, came into the office looking unseasonably happy. The fun-loving, energetic mom of two kids, Anne has the kind of call-em-like-I-see-em honesty that people associate with Harry S. Truman, who came from the same hometown. Shes also a former prom queen with a way of flirting that always reminds me of a waitress in a greasy spoonyou know she doesnt mean it seriously, but it still makes you feel special. And once in a blue moon I get the eerie feeling she can read my mind.