A Tribute To Gator. For the first time we are cruising without our incredible canine First Mate – Gator. Finally, after 17 years this old and wonderful dog passed on just before last Christmas. Given how much he cruised with us, I’d like to start with a toast to this wonderful “guy” and a bit of his background.
Gator when he was "working'. Lisa was showing him at the Eukanuba National Championship in Tampa (FL), in January, 2005.
Gator when he wasn't working. This was his favorite place to snooz on the boat.
Gator had a really full life and an amazing show career. For his first seven years (until he retired from the show ring), he lived with us during the week, and traveled to shows with his other owner (and breeder), Lisa Hart, on weekends (Gator’s official AKC registered name: Emerant’s The Instigator). During one year of serious showing (2004) he was ranked #4 Basenji in the U.S., with an incredible showing at the Eukanaba National Championship in January, 2005.
A month later Gator was in the show ring at the prestigious Westminster Dog Show in New York City (held at Madison Square Garden). Of course, Kap and I went on this trip as Gator’s “roadies”, and we cheered him on from the spectator seats at this famous venue. What a hoot, although he didn’t place in the show ring, although in our eyes he was the best dog in the ring.
Gator and Lisa shivering at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris
As a result of his Eukanuba placing in early 2005, Gator was invited to the huge (26,000 dogs!!) Crufts Dog Show in Birmingham (England) in 2006, organized by The Kennel Club (this is the kennel club, oldest in the world, it doesn’t need a country identifier). Since this would be a really cool show for Gator, we again decided this was another good trip to be roadies, and we planned to accompany Lisa and her husband Dudley. Things turned challenging when we discovered that flights into the U.K. don’t allow small dogs under the seat in the passenger cabin – and it would therefore entail more than 24 hours for Gator to be stuck in a crate in the aircraft hold. It was a no brainer – we opted to fly from Seattle to Paris. The French love their dogs, so of course, they allow it. We then planned to cross the English Channel by rental car to Birmingham. It was great having Gator with us in Paris, as he was welcomed in the hotel, and he accompanied us to every meal in a restaurant (the wait staff would usually bring a little rug for him to sleep under the table, along with a bowl of water and some doggie snacks). Of course, he rode the Paris Metro with us as we toured Montmartre and the Sacré-Cœur basilica.
Kap and Gator peering over the canal bridge railing on a typical Amsterdam street.
We – and Gator – had so much fun on the 2006 Crufts trip that we opted for a repeat in 2007 (we had just sold our software company the summer before, so we were foot loose). This time we decided to fly into Amsterdam instead of Paris. It was equally fun, but in a very different way, with lots of canal streets to roam and museums to see.
Gator lived to the ripe old age of 17, and for the last two years he soldiered on but we could tell his heart wasn’t in it. When he lost both eyes due to cornea calcification we knew it was the end, and had to make one of the most difficult decisions of our life.
Once we leave the dock, it takes Jamie all of five minutes to get accustomed to being a boat dog. She slept here for the entire cruise over to Friday Harbor.
Jamie is our new Canine First Mate. Gator was obviously one of the best-ever Basenji specimens, and when he was two years old (in 2002) and Lisa was showing him at a national Basenji show in Portland, Kap and I stopped by on a drive south. Lisa asked if we’d take Gator to a small trailer outside the convention center – staffed by the International Canine Semen Bank – to have his semen drawn . . . “just in case he gets run over by a bus” was how Lisa put it. Every year – for 11 years – I paid $70 to keep his “bullets” frozen (but never used) until early 2012 when Lisa suggested a breeding with them. Who would have thought that it would still be usable after being frozen for that long!
The result was a small litter of two girl puppies, and out of it we selected a very special red and white female that we named Jamie (registered name is Emerant’s Hush Hush, after the 2004 Etta James’ hit blues song of the same name). The snoozing pose I’ve included here is Jamie’s technique for handling the rigors of a typical cruising day.
Jamie loves to run, and that’s a good excuse for Kap to get away from the boat for a morning run with her. They typically do three miles if possible, although many of the places we moor at after heading north from Sidney are either too hilly (and really steep hills), or no roads at all to get away on.
ZuZu napping, wedged in between the pilot house dashboard and windshield.
ZuZu is still our best Rough-O-Meter. Whenever ZuZu is on board, we can easily tell if we’ve ventured into water that’s too rough for her sensibilities – she slinks off to hide under or inside a hidey-hole blanket or bed that we keep on the pilot house settee for just that situation. And when she wants to tell us in no uncertain terms that things are getting too rough, she lets out a low cat-growl that’s unmistakable in meaning.
But otherwise, much of ZuZu’s time is spent sleeping – and as always, in very photogenic positions. Scrunched above the pilot house dashboard and wedged against the windscreen is a favorite place, particularly when the sun is shining.
ZuZu’s other main task is jumping ship. Being an indoor/outdoor cat at home and free to stay in or go out at any time, being cooped up on the boat gives her cabin fever. We like to let her roam on the deck as much as possible, but we have to keep an eye on her all the time. She’s jumped ship about four times in the past few days – but the amazing thing is, once she’s off the boat all I have to do is say, “ZuZu, back on the boat!” in a commanding tone, and invariably she jumps from the dock to the teak rail and onto the boat.
Over the years ZuZu has unintentionally gone overboard three times (the fiberglass surfaces, particularly on the dinghy deck where she likes to roam, are heavily waxed for weather protection, with no place for her claws to grab). Kap has nicknamed her Teabag – and each time she’s made it back onto the boat all on her own. She’s an amazing swimmer, and she can be at the boat’s swim step faster than we can run there, and she somehow propels herself right out of the water and onto the swim step, them jumps onto the teak rail and scampers into the boat to hide. She knows that a very cold freshwater rinse is coming next, as she’d otherwise try to clean up with her tongue, and the salt water would make her sick.
I’ll catch up with our cruising update in a couple of days.
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