Man’s Best Walk Happens at the End of a Leash

Moses is a 3-year-old, 11-pound, long-legged Phantom poodle. He lives in an apartment. My friend Rick is a 39-year-old, 150 pound, medium-legged writer. He lives in the same apartment.

Because Rick and I spend too much time locked up in our respective homes mesmerized by word processors, we need to get outside occasionally to breathe quasi-fresh air. Because Moses is a dog, he needs to do the same thing--and other things that dogs periodically need to do. So several times a day, in the vicinity of palm-lined Maple Drive in Beverly Hills, Moses and Rick go for a stroll. Because I don’t have either quasi-fresh air or a dog, I sometimes drive over the hill from the Valley and join them.

Moses is the multicolored issue of a black father and a white mother--a kind of canine embodiment of multiculturalism. Dog breeders say he is so unusual as to almost be freakish, since such a mixture of black, white, silver, gray and apricot colors is said to be impossible to breed intentionally. This rare cooperation makes him, says Rick, “an ideal mascot for Rebuild L.A.”

Moses’ original owner christened the dog after Moses Horowitz, better known as Moe Howard of the Three Stooges. My friend Rick is not a Stoogeophile, and prefers to think that Moses was named after Mose Allison, the philosophical jazz pianist from Tippo, Miss.

I side with Rick in this matter. Nothing against Moe Howard--I just think that dogs destined to spend their lives in apartments and on sidewalks need all the dignity they can get. Besides, Moses lives in Beverly Hills. His neighbors are poodles named Scheherazade and Rachmaninov.

Our walks always start the same way. When Rick whispers, “Moses, you wanna go for a walk?” it is, of course, like asking George Foreman if he wants a cheeseburger. Outside, Moses dashes to the screen door of his neighbors, the tiny poodles Rachmaninov and Scheherazade, and they engage in a few moments of nose-to-nose poodle politics. I tell Rick that this looks like a prison visitation, and he scowls. Then we’re off, with Moses leading us on a tour of favored local fauna.

Without exception, on each walk, I notice a cloud of tension lifts almost tangibly from Rick, a hard-working guy usually too preoccupied for his own good. He gives all the credit to Moses.

“Moses doesn’t care how much money I make, what my religious affiliation is, what I look like in the morning, who I voted for, what kind of car I drive or if I have halitosis,” Rick rhapsodizes. “He gives me loyalty at all times, cheers me up, listens intently to whatever I say, and never tries to cheat at backgammon. And he works absolute magic on strangers.”

I’m not sure how Rick has ascertained Moses’ attitude toward finance, religion and halitosis, but I have seen evidence of the beast’s social charms. Go out to walk dog-less in this town and usual human “contact” is likely to amount to nervous glances from people either trying to avoid awkward sidewalk encounters, or figure out if you’re carrying a gun. Go out and walk with Moses and citizens exhibit behavior I thought was either extinct or illegal--they smile and stop to chat.

On one sojourn, a frazzled middle-aged woman hustling groceries into a condo spotted Moses, and literally dropped everything. The harried look on her vanished as she petted the “cute little doggie,” and she chattered on like someone under hypnosis about how wonderful it is to be a dog owner. Yes, the conversation was full of cliches (“You know, dogs are just like family”), but it was friendly conversation, and these days, friendly conversation among strangers is a good thing. It might even be news.

It struck me that Moses is on better terms with his neighbors than I am with mine--and possibly, than many other locals are with theirs. For example, a Jack Russell terrier puppy named Stella dashed across intersections, risking her life, just to greet Moses by playfully nipping his ears. I can’t remember the last time a neighbor did this for me.

To this day, Rick swears, Moses remembers Daisy, a cocker spaniel owned by a “beautiful woman” who used to work at one of the nearby luxury hotels. “Moses and Daisy would chase each other and roll all over the front lawn, oblivious to the mad world around them,” Rick said. “The beautiful woman and I did not. Alas, Daisy’s owner was transferred to San Francisco a few months ago--leaving Moses to look longingly at their former house on each walk.”

There is a buffed jogger who commits the ‘90s sacrilege of interrupting her pulse beat just to run her fingers through Moses’ curly mop. Another woman, a furtive blonde of the type that causes certain construction workers to express their well-known brand of admiration (you know, poetic things like “OWWWWWWWWWWW!”), once opened up to Rick to an extent she never did to strollers devoid of dog.

“She was accompanied by a long-haired Afghan named Bubu--accent on the first syllable,” said Rick. Moses evidently found Bubu as spectacular a sight as construction guys found its owner. The gray, dignified, impressively groomed animal stood impassively still while Moses walked carefully on his hind legs, feather-duster tail wagging, and licked his nose. I wasn’t sure what to make of this.

Meanwhile, Bubu’s owner told me in a pronounced German accent that she spends half the year in Beverly Hills and the other half in France--and that Bubu goes wherever she goes. I wondered if she was a stewardess, or an actress or model, but when I asked what she did for a living, she replied cryptically, “I’ve never worked a day in my life,” and moved on.

It is somewhere near the corner of 3rd Street and Maple Drive that Rick sometimes becomes eyewitness to an occasion of near-paralyzing religious and historical implication. For it is there that Moses occasionally comes snout-to-snout with a huge Alaskan malamute named Jesus. Yes, there on the streets of Beverly Hills, once or twice a week, Moses meets Jesus.

Rick’s quips are endless: “One parts his water dish, the other walks across it.” “I’ve never seen so much religious dogma in one place,” etc.

I’ve never met Jesus, and maybe it’s for the best--Rick says Moses and Jesus do not get along. Moses affects a fierce, if petite, snarl, and Jesus acquires a mean, famished look--while their masters hold tight to their restraints. Interpretation of all this, I think, is better left to dog psychologists, or theologians.

The walks with Moses are invariably punctuated by one of those timeless dog rituals played out millions of times a day the world over. Moses spots a small army of bivouacking birds that seems to be eternally stationed on a particular Palm Drive lawn. The sight of these pastoral, well-organized creatures mightily offends his sense of dog order. He sprints toward them at top speed, ears flapping, and the birds scatter like shrapnel. Then he returns, looking so profoundly satisfied that I wonder if maybe I should try chasing a few sparrows myself.

At about this point, all the courting, chasing and drama have taken a toll on Moses, and Rick returns him to their apartment, drained (literally and figuratively). My friend then returns to his word processor, seemingly more at peace--often whistling a tune that onetime fellow Beverly Hills resident George Gershwin wrote for the film “Shall We Dance.” A little number called “Walking the Dog.”

And I drive home, wondering what in the hell Bubu’s owner does for a living. And if I’ll ever get to see Moses and Jesus together.