ohmidog!

How could you not love a guy whose last name ends with “mutt?”

How could you not be smitten with a man with the mug of a pug, the work ethic of a sled dog; the insatiable curiosity of a boxer; and the droopy demeanor of a basset hound?

If you were to mix Yogi Bear with Rocky Balboa, then southern fry them, you’d have David Perlmutt, in whose house Ace and I spent the last three days. He’s one of those guys who underwhelms you (to borrow a friend’s description) on first impression. (I, too, am a member of that club.) He’s very low key, quite soft spoken, and doesn’t feel the need to publicly exhibit vast amounts of enthusiasm, which is not to say he doesn’t have it. It’s in there, percolating. But being perky is not his thing. He’s not exactly Mr. Bubbly.

In that way, and a few others, we are peas in a pod. We both graduated, the same year, from the University of North Carolina’s journalism school – though we don’t think we knew each other back then. We both worked at the Charlotte Observer, though in my case just for a year. He’s been there nearly 30.

We’re both divorced (though in my case twice) and we both have only children headed off to college this month.

We’ve both written books – he one called “Charlie Two Shoes” that may be on its way to becoming a movie; me a soon-to-be-released one called “Dog, Inc.”

We’re both disheartened by what’s happened to newspapers in the past decade or more, and worry about their future, but he has hung in, while I – for the time being, anyway — abandoned that ship.

And we’re both plum dog crazy.

(And no, I’m not proposing. He has already turned me down.)

But he did invite Ace and me to be guests in his lovely home among towering trees in a quiet Charlotte neighborhood that’s filled with dogs. His two, Caki and Clancy, were at the home of his ex (with whom he shares custody of the canines) so I didn’t get a chance to meet them.

But I did get a chance to meet his neighbor’s dog, a  golden retriever mix named Winnie, who consented to show me her trademark trick, opening, then closing, the Archer family’s front door.

She performed it flawlessly three times in a row, because that’s how many tries it took for me to get a decent photo. (Perhaps I should train Ace to take pictures and let him handle the photography from now on.)

Winnie, who’s three-years-old, is assisted in the task by a rubber band, wrapped around the door knob (one of those regular round door knobs), which allows her front paws to get some traction, and twist the knob. Then she pushes the door open, walks inside, turns around, closes it with a flick of her front paws and beams proudly.

“She picked it up in no time,” said Ellen Archer, who, with the aid of treats, taught Winnie the trick.

My visit to Charlotte — on top of checking out The Dog Bar, spending some time with cousin Laura, reconnecting with Perlmutt and re-meeting his now-grown and multi-talented daughter, Ainslie (today’s guest columnist) — also gave me a chance to look up another old friend, Ray Owens.

He’s one of my ex-college roommates who, despite being in near constant prank mode — then and now —  somehow managed to become a successful attorney. As it turns out, he has lost neither his hair, his sense of humor, nor his detailed memories of college days, including the time, driving home from a Deep Purple/Uriah Heap/Black Sabbath concert in Fayetteville, we hit a furious rainstorm. My yellow Firebird — though, I would argue still, a totally  hot car — had broken windshield wipers, so we resolved the matter by tying shoestrings to each wiper and, from inside the car, pulling the wipers back and forth manually the whole way home.

Not a bad trick, either. I think we rewarded ourselves from the sack of treats we carried with us for the trip — Fritos and bean dip, as I recall.

You might imagine that we’ve grown up since then — that we’ve all become respectable and responsible adults as we pass through middle age and beyond; that we’ ve realized that life is serious business and, once your hair is gone or going grey, it’s time to close the door on Black Sabbath, childish pranks, dopey behavior, running in circles and needless frivolity.

But if we’ve learned anything from or dogs, it’s this: Naaaah.

By Ainslie Perlmutt

Biscoe was no hero. He was just a dog, a gentle, ragged Brittany Spaniel who stumbled into my life ten years ago. My parents found him on the interstate outside the small town of Biscoe, North Carolina. He walked with a slant and his clipped tail wagged furiously whenever he saw a friendly face.

From the start, his life wasn’t perfect. Stricken with heartworm, his first days in our home didn’t go beyond the walls of our kitchen. Biscoe didn’t mind. As the years passed, his eyes marbleized to a cloudy blue and his life turned to darkness. His hearing disappeared and after an emergency tracheotomy his bark turned to a muffled woof. But Biscoe happily trudged on. Over time, he taught me that obstacles were to be overcome, that when asthma slowed me on the soccer field, I kept playing. Or when a judge gave my Odyssey of the Mind team an unfair point reduction, we kept competing.

Biscoe was a hunting dog without hunting instincts, yelping when he stepped on sharp twigs. But he loved to swim. His ears perked up as his paws first dipped into the water’s edge. Every chance he got, he’d follow my mother’s kayak, his nose navigating just above the water. A few years ago, all of that changed. Biscoe’s larynx had paralyzed, forcing him to gasp for air. After the surgery, Biscoe breathed through a hole in his neck, the size of a quarter. Swimming was no longer an option. He was already fifteen and his days were spent mostly sleeping. Now he was deaf and blind, his once magnificent bark muted. Biscoe didn’t mind. He still had his nose; smell was his GPS. And when my father carried him into the back yard, he’d rally like a puppy and proudly prance off wherever his nose took him.

I have grown up around dogs, most of them rescued like Biscoe. They have come and gone, always leaving a paw print on my life. But Biscoe was different. His needs were simple, happy with the occasional belly rub and his nightly meal. When the other dogs were in our faces, Biscoe was off in the corner sleeping, waiting patiently for his chance. He played a paternal figure. He was never annoyed when our rambunctious Golden Retriever, Caki, nipped at his ears wanting to play, or when Clancy, our wiry-haired, hole-digging terrier, growled, protecting his precious bone. From Biscoe I learned to appreciate the underdog: Everyone has a purpose and a contribution to make to society. Biscoe never got the attention he deserved, but he knew he was loved.

Last summer, I was at Virginia Commonwealth University in an intensive art program, when my father called. The sadness in his voice told me all I needed to know: Biscoe had passed away. Tears flowed, as I took a journey through memories of my beloved dog. Then I smiled, knowing that wherever death took Biscoe, he went with that noble, broken-tooth smile I always loved.

He will always have a spot on our family bench. No, he wasn’t the typical hero, but he was my hero. Biscoe has inspired me to confront problems in life with strong determination, purpose, and a smile.

(Ainslie Perlmutt, of Charlotte, N.C., is an incoming freshman at the University of North Carolina. She wrote this essay as part of her college application. The painting of Biscoe is also by her.)