REX IN THE CITY: Part VII - The City Dog Experiences the Country

In which our rescued city dog has his first off-leash experience (unintentionally) in the country. And harmony is restored.

precious illustration of a Dalmatian (who is not Wallace) by Suzanne Lewis

Welcome to another installment of “Rex and the City”—a serial column which ran in the late, great Bark magazine for several years (and which became the basis of my memoir REX AND THE CITY, published by Random House in 2006). For those readers who are new: many of these pieces appeared in print only, so I recently decided to start sharing them all, in order of appearance, in digital form. Please note that the dog I refer to as “Rex” was actually named “Wallace” (a long story I explain in earlier posts) and that I myself used to publish under my married name “Forgotson” (another long story). Please also note that, because these events all took place in the 90s and were published in the Aughts, I sometimes used language and/or references that do not date well and many not be considered woke. In this piece, for instance, I make references to Guiliani, who was mayor of New York City at the time these events took place, and who was always trying to police the day-to-day actions of the citizens. He seemed to have a particular distaste for artists, so I used to reference this a lot in my pieces. It was kind of a NYC in-joke. Now I am just praying that, as I write this, the Algorithm Monster does not start algo-ing me into some Guiliani-related sphere. :)

I’ve written about this in previous posts on Substack, but it continues to be a surreal experience to read about my past self and my past behaviors and attitudes. Even my sense of humor seems— to the present-day me—a bit too cutting, a bit too sharp-edged. In my defense, I was raised in Massachusetts, where sarcasm is a common language and a hard habit to break. But I made a conscious decision to not use sarcasm about twenty years ago, and seeing it in use again is a strange experience. I can feel the energetics of it.

The other thing I noticed in re-reading this piece (and I’ve written about this before) is how often Ed and I argued and how often Wallace—our canine equalizer—would literally step between us an intervene. It’s one of the many things I loved about that dog. Even though he had been abused and mistreated, he still recognized the importance—the rightness—of harmony, and he always worked tirelessly to make sure that, at the end of every day (indeed, the end of every hour) Ed and I dropped our argumentative dynamic and returned to the dynamic of love and respect and companionship. Wallace always helped us press the reset button in our relationship.

And finally, apologies to all the wonderful friends of Ed at whom I poke fun in this piece. (I blame the conditioning of sarcasm!). I remember holding great love and admiration for those friends, but sarcasm does not often translate well on the page.

And finally, those of you with energetic dogs of your own may well remember the first time you saw them run freely off-leash. This was my moment. It was a joyous thing to behold and I can still feel a sense of joy and freedom simply remembering that. (And yes, I can spend hours and hours watching slow-motion Tik Toks of dogs running happily through fields.). Oh, the freedom and bliss they exude!

This installment of REX IN THE CITY appeared in Bark magazine, Volume 21, Winter 2002, Copyright © Lee Harrington (writing as Lee Forgotson). Wallace illustrations by Susan Synarski

Illo of Wallace (known as “Rex” throughout the series) by Susan Synarski

“[Living inside a three-hundred square foot apartment] is challenging enough when you're sharing it with a live-in boyfriend, but we had added a seventy-pound dog to the equation – a hunting dog, a hyper dog, a dog who, to date, had not been off leash.“