{"id":8763,"date":"2025-01-04T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-04T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/?p=8763"},"modified":"2025-01-03T16:03:55","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T16:03:55","slug":"a-dog-named-ulysses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/a-dog-named-ulysses\/","title":{"rendered":"A Dog Named Ulysses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

First off, I don’t know the dog’s name. Ulysses was the name I had for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He, or maybe she, was the sort of dog I think of as a hound-dog: medium size, long legs. Bear in mind that I don’t know much about dog breeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t call him Ulysses for the way he looked, but for the way he acted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That brings me to what’s still one of my favorite poems: Tennyson’s “Ulysses”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>The Sceptre, the Isle, and the Daily Grind<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"Header<\/a>
My Facebook page (Brian H. Gill<\/a>) header: “To follow knowledge like a sinking star….”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The title character’s chucking his family and civic responsibilities doesn’t seem admirable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, maybe turning the reins over to Telemachus was a win-win. At least for the folks who’d had Ulysses as their ruler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some folks are cut out for the daily grind of an administrator, others are like Ulysses. Tennyson’s title character looks at the good life he’s living, then at \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“…that untravell’d world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move….”
(“Ulysses<\/a> ” , from “Poems”, Alfred Tennyson (1843) via Wikisource)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 and he wants something more than meetings, agendas, and the drudgery that comes with “the sceptre and the isle”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see his point, which is why I used a couple lines from the poem for my Facebook page’s header image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“…this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.<\/strong>…”
(“Ulysses<\/a> ” , from “Poems”, Alfred Tennyson (1843) via Wikisource) (emphasis mine)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But that’s not why I thought “Ulysses” when I saw that dog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>A Happy Dog<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This was back in my teens. My mother was spending time with my grandmother, her mother, at a nursing home, and that’s another topic. Several, actually. The point is that my folks and I were driving up and down North Broadway in Fargo quite a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the houses we passed had an unremarkable front yard. Unremarkable, that is, apart from the dog enjoying its grass and sunshine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That, by itself, wasn’t particularly remarkable either. Quite a few dogs will enjoy being outside, and stay within a specified territory: defined by the owners or the dogs, and I’m drifting off-topic again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What set this dog apart from most were his back legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They may have started out matching his front pair. But by the time we were noticing him, they’d gotten stuck in a configuration that worked fine for sitting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the dog wanted to move, however, he didn’t walk or run: he bounded. Planting his front paws, he’d hop his back end forward, sit, and repeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His movements weren’t elegant, but he could make pretty good time: and didn’t seem a bit concerned about his alternatively-graceful gait. In fact, he seemed like a happy dog who enjoyed his time outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way he worked around his immobile hindquarters reminded me of Ulysses in Tennyson’s poem:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“…Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.<\/strong>”
(“Ulysses<\/a> ” , from “Poems”, Alfred Tennyson (1843) via Wikisource) (emphasis mine)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Granted, I was assigning human qualities to an animal. Dogs aren’t people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I don’t see a problem with admiring his apparent determination “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”. And how, even with odd-looking hind legs, he enjoyed being a dog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as I enjoyed being a human, despite having a defective hip joint. And that’s yet another topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More \u2014 mainly about animals, family, and coping with quirks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n