The animals who share our lives offer us a world of clear emotion, of understanding beyond language, of being purely in the moment. Without artifice, without agendas, without asking anything of us, they weave through our hearts completely until we cannot imagine how our lives were before them. No judgment, no ego tripping, dogs especially will pretty much go where we lead and do what we ask of them. Occasionally a downcast gaze if we refuse a game of fetch, but not much complaining, generally.
When they leave us, and of course it is generally they who leave us, their absence is a permanent hole, a gaping space in the fabric of our daily lives. The tilt of their head, the way they dropped down beside us, just so, just when without recognizing it ourselves we most needed them, their presence through a decade or more of private and public joys, sorrows, losses, celebrations, reckonings. Where they liked to sleep, what their favorite treats were, the gestures they had that like people reveal their nature, their character.
Our sweet Nocci would have been 14 last month–on March 15, his Ides of March birthday. But he left us in the evening of November 1, All Saints Day, which seemed appropriate as his was a saintlike good nature. He also had a stubborn streak, though, and was a fierce hunter well into his senior years— at age 10 he caught an interloper, a feral cat, in our yard at dawn one morning before I could stop him.
Those who knew and loved him knew him simply as a prince among dogs.
With one big breath he was gone, Clarence and I at guard. I don’t think you can ever be ready, however expected or prepared, for the finality of the moment a loved being leaves their body.
I have not been able to write about this. Perhaps because our animals exist in a world of a different language, words really fail. But I felt, finally, that I had to try.
Nocci was born In Virginia, on the Northern Neck, as was our first Spinone, Fermat. We drove down with Fermat to pick him up on what happened to be Mother’s Day; he was just shy of eight weeks old. It was a year of locust invasion in Princeton, and all summer long Fermat and little Nocci feasted on them. Disgusting, fascinating, and I guess nourishing.
It was 2004. My son was a sophomore in high school; Nocci would pass the year he turned 30. I remember, and I often thought Nocci did as well, the last time we saw Christophe as a family, when he was leaving after Easter 2012. That was the last time Nocci saw his boy, as Christophe always was and would ever remain. For years he would go into Christophe’s old room and sleep on the rug or on the bed, with a bereft air. Is this possible in a dog, the unitiated might ask. Yes is my answer, without question.
But at some point he stopped going in there much, and I felt a shift to acceptance in him, probably well ahead of me. I thought, hoped even, that like Argos, Odysseus’s faithful hound who, old, tired, and blind, could die only once his master returned to Ithaca, Nocci too might live to see Christophe again, be reunited in his old age, stiff of limb, weak in eyesight, but ever great in spirit, with his boy, who though he’d left us could surely not have forgotten the love of his dog.
My mother had a special fondness for Nocci, despite being a self-confessed cat person who did not share my affinity for canines. We had many happy visits to my parents’ house, where Nocci, with Fermat in his time, then briefly with Percy, then alone, would stand as close as possible without being in her lap at the breakfast table for toast treats. In the evening he’d be on the couch in the den, watching TV with his head on my father’s knee.
Their cat, Autumn, would take to the nether reaches of the basement for the duration, though a few times Nocci found her and there were impressive standoffs. In later years they seemed to reach a little détente, though they certainly never curled up together. More like, mutual respect.
After any lengthy trip, and especially once Christophe departed for college and the jobs afterward, the reunions were extraordinary. Nocci would nearly turn somersaults, and the sounds he uttered were a special language all their own. I can still see and hear him in the mudroom at that last visit home, it was a moment of pure love and joy, something I’ll never forget.
As humans we rarely if ever experience anything so essentially, so unconstrainedly as do our animals. This is just one of the countless lessons they offer us. They never ask anything in return. We ourselves are so lacking in grace as to barely notice what they may be telling us, showing us, teaching us. So lacking in grace at times we are barely grateful for their beautiful beings. We express frustration when they don’t live on our terms, and we don’t recognize them sufficiently on theirs.
Like our children when they are very young, our animals offer a connection to other planes of knowing, of being that our cluttered, chaotic lives have forgotten.
Driving, which we did a lot of together, Fermat had his established rear window– he was six when Nocci came– but Nocci would vie for it and occasionally win. He also liked putting his head out the sunroof, into the wind, a joyful figurehead.
He loved the cold and winter, rolling in the snow waving his legs with great glee and amazing flexibility. His intense focus as a hunter would have surprised those who knew him as a laidback dog. I always felt that if we were ever stranded somewhere and needed to survive in the wild Nocci would have kept us fed. He loved most every food, including dark greens, beets, and the cooked quince I prepared ahead of the preserve– he loved the preserve as well; his jar is still in the frig. He loved salmon as much as I, and Woolly Bear was one of my nicknames for him. He loved to swim and looked like an otter in the water.
Fermat did not tolerate much physical closeness with Nocci, but once in awhile, and then frequently after he became ill with hemangiosarcoma, he not only tolerated but seemed to welcome Nocci being near. Once Fermat was ill Nocci seemed to be guarding as well as offering comfort and warmth.
Nooci’s was a bemused outlook, a knowing sense of humor. His steady gaze, warm chocolate eyes and furry eyebrows took it all in. Little Percy was with us less than a year, dying long before his time at 10 1/2 months. He had increasing seizures as the disease, JRD, progressed, and Nocci would often sense them coming on beforehand, becoming restless and pacing.
After Percy, it would be nearly three years before Clarence arrived. Nocci was nearly nine then, and he could have turned up his nose at the interloper, but they became good friends.
His beautiful brown roan fur grew whiter with age, taking on a silvery aspect befitting the wise venerable being he was. Though he had done some AKC hunting training while a pup, he developed a terrible fear of thunderstorms the summer he was four, after a classic horrendous Hudson Valley one that blew out our power with a strike to a nearby transformer; the fear grew to encompass other associated noises like beeping backup systems, then gunshots.
As all my dogs Clarence was crate trained, restricted to the crate when I left the house. But several times I came home to find the crate open, and him out. The first few times I thought I must not have quite latched the crate, so I would double and triple check before leaving. Then I put it together: though these were perfectly clear, storm-free days, a neighbor’s target practice or other similar fear-inducing noise would have triggered Nocci to let Clarence out. Anyone who knows dog crates understands this is improbable at best for a dog from the outside, and impossible from the inside. Whether it was because he feared for Clarence’s safety and thought he should be out of the crate in the face of danger, or my version, that he sought comfort from Clarence, can’t say for sure. But blessedly, as his hearing diminished so did the fear.
In my current house Nocci would run the fence line along the driveway with arriving and departing vehicles. As a very young pup Clarence watched and learned, seeming mesmerized, for several months, sitting on the knoll that was one of Nocci’s favorite resting spots, until one day he joined in. From then on they would go together, then Clare in the lead, then eventually Clare alone, as Nocci watched from the knoll.
They had a good three playful years before Nocci began to really slow, with progressive difficulty in his back leg mobility. Increasingly he would stand as Clarence ran circles round him, both of them vocalizing and making smaller variations of their former wrestling moves. Eventually, anything more than a few stairs became too difficult, so the last year plus we slept on the first floor. The last months, Nocci would mostly make a tour or two of the yard, then rest on his bed next to the gate, getting up to stand and bark for the most important events, arrival and departure of vehicles and people. We were able to continue our car time though, doing a progressive boost up into the back seat. And up to the last days, he was pulling himself up onto his favorite couch to rest– with his head on my knee were I working, on my feet when I slept.
He was our north star, and we remain lost without him.
Prince among dogs, sweetest of animals, fiercest of hunters, noblest of being. Sweet Nocci, friend and companion, thank you, for your great heart, your humor and wisdom, for all you shared with us, for 13 years, 7 and one-half months that were far too short. We miss you beyond words.
