Whenever it snows in Portland, I recall the late Dr. H. Clagett Harding (known more pronounceably to his friends as Larry) and his family's dog.
Dr. and Mrs. Harding and their children liked to ski. They owned a cabin near Mount Hood. They also owned a dachshund, which they named Schmalz.
If you own a dog, and you ski, what do you do with your dog when you go skiing? You can leave Fido at home, or at your cabin, or you can do what the Hardings did: teach Fido, or in this case Schmalz, to ski. Schmalz learned to ski at age 1-1/2 and remained a skier for most of the rest of his 15 years, heading down the slopes in Oregon, California, and even in Europe. No snowy winter in Portland was complete without a photograph in the Oregonian of Dr. Harding and his skiing dog Schmalz, schussing down a street in the West Hills.
Dr. Harding died in 1979, and Schmalz went to the Big Slope in 1981. Since then I haven't read of any other skiing dogs in the area. The famous St. Bernards at Timberline Lodge don't ski. Portland could use another skiing dog, even if only to show our commitment to multimodal transportation.
A longer look at the photograph reminded me that Dr. Harding was knowledgeable about hypnosis, and Schmalz looks amazingly focused.
Posted by: Isaac Laquedem | December 18, 2008 at 09:42 PM