REX AND THE CITY, Part XXIII - "Rex Heals His Inner Bird Dog"

In which our traumatized shelter dog finally discovers his True Nature

Each time Rilke leapt onto the rocks to shake himself off, Wallace would pause and give Rilke a disdainful look. He seemed to be saying: "What real male would want to go off chasing sticks when he could be lying in the sun licking himself?"

Hello, Dear Readers—

Warm summer greetings after another two-month hiatus! I’ve been on vacation in Maine, then I spent a week at a Tibetan monastery for a retreat, then I spent several days with the hugging-saint Amma, then I spent a week teaching mediation at the Omega Institute, and now—finally—the pace has slowed down enough for me to sit down and write. It has been an extraordinary summer, but, as always, time has passed too swiftly; I find myself wishing that August—my favorite month here in the Northeast—could last all year round. I hope that, wherever you are, you are having a quintessential summer experience that brightens your days.

Today, as usual, I am posting yet another installment (shared as PDFs below) of my “Rex in the City'' series from the late, great BARK magazine. For those of you who are new subscribers: BARK was primarily a print magazine, so a lot of these pieces never appeared online. That’s why I am sharing this series. You can also find most of these pieces—in revised form—within chapters of my memoir REX AND THE CITY, published by Random House in 2006 with a 10th anniversary paperback edition published by Diversion Books in 2016. 

Through Substack. I’ve been enjoying this opportunity to re-connect with readers who were long-time fans of Bark and of Rex and the City for so many years. We all share the same love of dogs. And sharing what we love is an uplifting practice.

This installment chronicles the first time Wallace*—our traumatized shelter dog—made friends with a friend’s Chesapeake Bay Retriever and truly learned how to be a proper bird dog who swam. Those of you with rescue dogs will find a lot to relate to in this piece—for instance, how totally heartwarming it is when you witness your shut-down dog open up into his own dog-ness and learn how to be a “normal” dog. (What I am saying will only make sense to dog people, and given that this is a Substack for dog-lovers, I won’t even bother to try to translate that sentence.) *And if you are questioning my use of the name “Wallace,” please note that our dog was actually named Wallace, not Rex. To read more about why we changed the dog’s name for the Bark series, read here.

This particular piece is light—more of an anecdote than a full essay—but it was fun to remember visiting Ed’s super-nice friend and his super-nice dog, and to witness Wallace coming more and more into his true self. This was the beginning of the amazing, well-balanced, exuberant bird-dog he would become.

I hope you enjoy reading the piece. And please comment and share! I still need to convince the Great Algorithm that I am not the Lee Harrington author who writes about bondage. Totally different person, my friends. And yet Google keeps merging me and him into one “entity” who writes about S&M and dogs. I am just a dog-lady, my friends. Nothing more :)

This 23nd installment of the REX AND THE CITY/REX IN THE CITY series—“HEALING THE INNER BIRD DOG” —originally appeared in Bark magazine, Volume 39, Nov/Dec 2006, Copyright © Lee Harrington (writing as Lee Forgotson and E. M. Harrington).

• Illustrations copyright Bark and the credited artists.

• I have no affiliation or agreement with any advertisers shown—those are all old ads from the original print edition.

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