CKNW Editorial
for August 6, 2001

Clancy Duke of Deveron - July 15, 1989 to August 3, 2001

I didn't know whether or not to talk about Clancy this morning but there was such a huge response to the show Dr Moe Milstein and I did last week when we talked about dealing with the end of an animal's life I thought I might just let you have the happy story that ended with him in our arms last Friday afternoon. I wept - I wish I could say unashamedly but men are mostly ashamed of themselves when they blubber. I'm no exception, And blubber I did. But as we drove home I was overcome by a strange emotion - it was one of extraordinary happiness within my grief. As I wept, I laughed . I laughed at one of the most unusual beings I have ever encountered.

We made all the mistakes about getting Clancy. I had just said goodbye to my yellow Lab Casey. Instead of giving it time, then searching for the right breeder and just the right litter my then wife and I looked in the paper, saw a litter of purebred chocolate Labs was available in Aldergrove and away we went. To make things even worse, this was the breeders first litter and it was huge - 11 puppies as I recall about 8 weeks old. One of them came over and lay on my foot. Needless to say, that was Clancy.

At first I was a bit concerned that he might be a little too laid back but the breeder told me I had no need to worry. He was right.

When we got him home the first order of business was to meet Sesame, the ginger cat who had been around the block a few times, sporting a permanent hole in one ear from a fight with a raccoon. Clancy wriggled up to Sesame and, in exchange for his affectionate look and an attempt at a friendly lick, got an open-clawed swat in the face for his trouble. It was lesson number one, and a lesson he never forgot. Sesame was not to be trifled with.

Labs are, of course, water dogs and Clancy was sure no exception. We had a swimming pool and for the next 11 years of his life, he used it as his own. His siblings were probably shivering in some damn pond waiting for their master to bring down a duck but Clancy liked and got it at about 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

He developed a game we called the boing boing. Somewhere down the line he got this rubber toy shaped sort of like a bee hive. It would all but sink, leaving just the tip above water. The game - an interminable one so far as I was able to judge - was to throw the boing boing in the pool by lobbing it so it would initially sink. Clancy would immediately give chase and, if necessary go completely under water, just a bit of wagging tail to be seen, as he went after his precious boing boing. This led to another game which he invented. If no one would play the first game he would nudge the damn thing closer and closer to the edge with it sometimes going over the edge to be caught just before it hit the water. Soon it would topple in. Clancy would then bark it back to the edge. He had, you see, seen this work because it would be pulled back by the action of one of the filters. On the theory that if the sun comes up when the rooster crows it must be the rooster crowing that brings the sun up, Clancy would bark until the boing boing came close enough to grab. In practice, out of deference to the neighbours, we would often have to retrieve it whereupon - because it was now in your hand - it was well nigh impossible not to get back into the number one boing boing game.

One time in 1990, just as the program ended, I received a call saying that I was too hard on the premier of the day . that he was a fine, friendly, intelligent good looking man. I replied that I had someone with just those very qualifications at home, my dog Clancy and he would make every bit as good a leader as the premier. Well, it hit the fan. All the "Zalmoids" as we called the premier's loyalists called Doug Rutherford, then our beleaguered Program Director, all threatening never to listen again if I didn't apologize. Hearing of the scores of calls Rutherford was beating off I waited for a couple of hours and phoned him and said this:- "Doug - I know you've had a hell of a day but I have to make it worse. I just had hand-delivered this letter . it has come to my attention that you said that the premier and your dog Clancy were about even in the looks, intelligence and smarts departments. Sir, if these scurrilous and libelous statements are not immediately withdrawn a lawsuit will follow immediately . signed "Clancy". There was dead silence on the other end that seemed like a full minute. The Doug started to laugh . and laugh . and laugh. "You know", he said, "I think the dog has an f'ing case!"

This led to us running Clancy for leader under the slogan "I Fancy Clancy" and, "Get a Leg up in Your Neighbourhood, Vote Clancy." We had sweatshirts and tee shirts made up and it was great fun.

In 1993, something happened that changed Clancy's life and mine forever - we met Wendy. From that moment on, he never left her side. I would come home and hear voices and wonder who was there only to find Wendy and Clancy happily chatting away. One day soon after we'd all moved in together - very soon after, in fact - Wendy and I were on the bed, well, if you must know, making love. Clancy, who has started out lying by the bed became quite concerned at what he was hearing and not knowing whether the noises were of pleasure or pain jumped up on the bed . there, with us in tender embrace, was this damned dog looking down on us, head cocked as if to say "can I be of any help? . or, " if it's fun you're having, may I join in?"

A couple of years later, I entered Clancy in a celebrity dog-a-thon and he won it - beat out Neil MacRae's fleabag as I recall - he received his ribbon and promptly dumped in front of the dignitaries. Clancy always did have a sense of occasion.

One day I heard Clancy barking his head off in the kitchen. I went out to investigate to find him, head cocked, tail going a mile a minute, looking at his dinner. "Stop your barking and eat your bluddy dinner" I yelled at him . he wagged his tail and started eating. I guess I taught him, I congratulated myself . and then it dawned on me. It was Clancy, not I, who had won. This game would be played every night for the rest of his life - I haven't any idea how long he would have barked if I hadn't played the game but I'm sure long enough for the neighbours to call the police.

When we lived in North Vancouver, one day when I was roused from my computer by a knock on the door. There were these half dozen kids from the neighbourhood, who always played road hockey in front of our place, one of whom asked "can Clancy come out to play?" Clancy was, you see, sort of the rover who played for both sides and he was, far from a nuisance, an integral part of the game.

As you have no doubt surmised, Clancy had an enormous sense of fun. Life was a game and the game was afoot whether you were ready to play or not. And he was a dog of habit. When he came up to you and whined, you knew it was precisely 5:00 and time for his dinner, or exactly 8:30 and time for his evening stroll, or whatever.

One of his habits was, at nightcap time, to sit at Wendy's knee, staring into her glass. The concentration on that glass was something to behold. You see, he always got the deliciously single malt Scotch whisky tasting ice cubes when Wendy was through.

Clancy had heart - and determination. At the end, when he was in pain both internally and in his legs, he would still bound to the top of the hill by our creek - a climb that I can barely walk - then go down the steep banks and wallow in the water. He did that an hour before he died, leaving Wendy with the image forever of her wonderful pal.

I have had a number of dogs - all wonderful and characters in their own right. But Clancy was something else again. I would give anything to be able to hear him bark at his food . or talk to Wendy . or see him kiss my small grandkids who adored him, and he them in return.

But his run is over. Wendy and I have some wonderful friends who annually give us a bottle of Pol Roget, Churchill's champagne, for our anniversary on July 29 . it was our wake for our wonderful pal and family member. And we cried as we thought of him . but we laughed a lot too.

He was the character of every place we went . everybody loved Clancy . would that that could be said of all of us when we go.

Rest in peace, old friend, rest in peace.