Big friends good thing to have

As featured October 29, 2011, on cnjonline.com

“Oaf!”
Make no mistake, there’s no name calling going on here.
Rather, that is the sound one makes when 100-some pounds of dog barrels into you, somewhere between the air rushing from your lungs and your hands flying out to stop your fall.
I discovered the root origins of the word as I was filling the large concrete mixing tub that doubles as a water dish.
He was playing with his little buddy, Gilligan, and I was regrettably not paying attention.
Struck by one of his bouncing axles as it swung my way, I planted my hands inside the water dish and prayed the rest of me wouldn’t follow.
Water dripping from my nose, I had an instant epiphany.
Amazingly, not only did the utterance come about naturally, it perfectly described the bumbling large goofball that knocked it out of me and I have no doubt it must have entered our language much the same way in a cave long, long ago.
He just doesn’t think — or at least not a lot — about a lot of complicated stuff. Nor does he pay a lot of attention to detail.
It would be easy to attribute to the fact he only has one eye — he came that way — but it’s more his state of mind than anything else. Rather than using his good eye to view the minutia, he just kind of plugs through life with the same happy-goofy expression, regardless.
He does try to go around anything on his right and usually stops short of bulldozing, but some days he’s so oblivious, I have to check to make sure his good eye is still there.
For the most part, he gets along just great with his one-sided view of the world, except when you yell hello to him from across the yard and the electric fence — which happens to be at head-level for him — is on his left.
I would say in all reality, we’re the only ones who seem to notice the missing eye, and, as if somehow casting him as a mercenary or complicated hero pirate would make up for it, we named him Demetrius.
But his name is rarely used and things like — Move you big Galoot! are more commonly heard as I navigate the obstacle course that is him. Or, “Slow down Meat Head!” when he comes at me like a cross-country skier, legs going left-to-right in unison, ears flapping and slobber strings trailing in his wake.
Knowing how I feel, being at least relative in size to the bumbling drool monster, I figured he’d get along best with those who at least draw breath in the same stratosphere as he.
Instead, I was shocked when a deep bond form between him and Gilligan, the littlest, scrappiest mammal on the place.
I understand Gilligan’s side easy enough ... he has someone to look up to (literally), a great big, warm, floppy, furry pillow, and when you’re little and mouthy, big friends are a good thing to have.
Gilligan, however, is something of an acquired taste whose 30-some pounds of unthinking, whirling dervish, stand-still-to-spring-action ways can be a bit much.
Then again, Gilligan doesn’t seem to mind the drool, snuggling under the jowls from which it drips in the most apparent, ignorant bliss.
Maybe it’s because opposites attract, or when you only have one eye it’s harder to size things up, or even because friendship should be blind.
Better yet, with one who looks but can’t see and one who can see but never seems to look, together, maybe they have the perfect view.