BY: GILBERT PILAYRE
Transitions
Like leaves shifting from green to gold, our lives changed course some three years ago. This ball of fur was gifted to us by a stranger—a man confined to a wheelchair who thought the creature was something of a lapdog. But he is not. His breed is called Lagotto Romagnolo, an ancient breed of hunter’s companion dog from the swamps of Northern Italy. He is rugged by nature and loves the outdoors absolutely. The breed is considered the most ancient water dog breed and potentially the ancestor of all water dogs, with origins tracing back to Etruscan times in the seventh century before Christ. Archaeological evidence from the Etruscan city of Spina (near present-day Ferrara) depicts scenes of hunting and fishing involving dogs remarkably similar to today’s Lagotto. The Lagotto originated in the formerly extensive marshlands and lagoons of the Delta del Po in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, particularly in areas such as Comacchio and Ravenna.
“Lagotto” is a Venetian-Romagnan dialect word meaning “duck dog,” and the breed has been described as “the Italian equivalent of the Irish Water Spaniel.” The breed was traditionally used as a gun dog, specifically as a water retriever for waterfowl hunting. The inhabitants of the marshlands, known as “vallaroli” or “lagotti,” used these small dogs with very curly coats as inseparable companions who watched boats and houses and served as excellent retrievers of coots, diving and plunging underwater for many hours even on the coldest days, breaking ice to bring killed birds back onto the boats. Today, the Lagotto Romagnolo is the only dog bred specifically to find truffles across all types of terrain, after the swamps were drained. The drainage of the Po Delta marshlands and wetlands in northern Italy occurred in multiple phases spanning centuries, with the most intensive efforts happening in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the building of factories. These rapid changes in the lives of people caused them to abandon their farms and flock to the cities.
To be honest, we felt a kind of burden when he came into our lives. We simply cannot pursue vacations that involve traveling by plane without planning ahead who will take care of him in our absence. All dog owners avoid letting their pets feel abandoned, even for just a few days. So, either we bring him along by car, or we find somebody close enough that he will not feel abandoned.
People in their middle years, like me, cannot avoid taking medications, however much they maintain an active lifestyle with daily walks or visits to the fitness studio. Secretly, many of us would rather stop taking these medications if it were possible without consequences.
I spoke of this to my attending physician. She was dismissive, telling me this might be just what I had gathered from the internet. I found this a bit unjust. I, being a researcher, do not simply fall for unproven opinions. But I did not protest. I continue my daily walks with Floki and alternate them with the weights. One thing I know is that there exists also a kind of culture among medical professionals, though they are not immune to uncertainty and insecurities. They remind me here of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis. Now it is your turn to discover who he was.
Seasons are like portals to another world. Spring acts like a drawn curtain after months of only white and gray. Autumn arrives as nature’s grand finale—a symphony painted in fire and gold. The world transforms into a living canvas where green surrenders to warmth: first subtle hints of yellow at the edges, then bold strokes of amber, rust, and crimson spreading through each leaf like watercolor on paper.
They accumulate quietly, these fallen soldiers of summer. First a scattering, then drifts that rustle and crunch underfoot. They gather in corners, pile against fences, carpet the ground in mosaics of color that shift and deepen with each passing day. The sound of walking through them—that distinctive whisper and crackle—becomes autumn’s signature music. They reminded me of what an activist friend once said about comrades who simply fade away unceremoniously, like autumn leaves.
And with each leaf that falls, the world grows lighter, more transparent. The hidden architecture of branches emerges. The sky expands. Everything essentially becomes visible again, stripped down to what endures when the spectacle is over.
As we walk beneath the trees and step upon the leaf-carpeted earth, we notice the soft whisper of the wind as it blows some of the leaves from the trees. Floki rushes ahead, then circles back, his curly coat collecting bits of autumn’s debris. He does not know—how could he?—that his ancestors once broke ice in those distant Italian marshes, that they served masters who have long since turned to dust, that the swamps themselves were drained and paved over by the march of progress. He knows only this moment, this walk, this master.
And perhaps there is wisdom in that ignorance. We humans carry our histories like stones in our pockets—the medications we resent, the vacations we cannot take, the insecurities of doctors who cannot admit what they do not know, the comrades who fade like leaves. We are burdened by knowledge, by memory, by the terrible gift of understanding that all things pass.
But on this particular October morning, as Floki stands by my chair with eyes fixed on me—a stare that pierces through to something essential—I understand that he has given us more than he has taken. Yes, we are tethered now in ways we were not before. Yes, our freedom has been curtailed. But what is freedom, after all, if not another word for loneliness? What are those medications I take each morning if not a desperate bargaining with time itself?
The stranger in the wheelchair who gave us this creature three years ago—did he know what he was doing? Did he understand that in losing his companion, he was passing along not just a dog, but a kind of duty, a daily reminder that we are not meant to face the autumn of our lives alone?
Like leaves shifting from green to gold, our lives changed course. And now, watching Floki wait with that ancient patience bred into his bones over centuries, I realize we have not simply gained a dog. We have gained a witness to our diminishing days, a creature whose simple presence insists that we rise each morning, that we walk, that we continue the motion of living even when the medications multiply and the leaves fall and the comrades fade away. He does not know he is saving us. But then again, we did not know we needed saving—not until he arrived, this ball of fur from the drained swamps of a distant country, carrying in his blood the memory of a world that no longer exists.