Bjorn-Lass

When changes fail there is a kennel in NJ on the banks of the Passaic River not too far from the confluence of 3 major interstate roadways and about a 30 mile distance from New York City where I go to rest. It’s a place where change is measured in life spans. It moves at a steady rhythm and largely to the pace of the creatures it houses. At the kennel, on any given day, there are boarding dogs coming and going, fluctuating with the months and seasons. The summer is busiest as vacationers travel to the shore or further on and leave the family dog to our care. The winter is slow and, much like the wild creatures living within the kennel’s borders, we make preparations for the coming season by stocking and storing the bounty of the summer.

At the kennel, communication is kept direct and simple. Instructions and business transactions are written by hand in pen on scraps paper and the tools in use are primitive; shovel, hoe, pitchfork, metal bowls, palettes, water, everything in a constant state of reuse, all serving a direct purpose. There are at any one time fifteen to thirty pure bred Norwegian Elkhounds, two to ten humans, thirty or so chickens, three goats, two or three horses, four ducks, five or more cats, twelve fish, one apiary, three bullfrogs and a variety of wild critters who come from the surrounding forests and swamps to glean for scraps of spilled food and the occasional chicken stolen by a transient fox or hawk. In this place it is impossible to forget the land and our animal nature upon it. There are no days off, every animal, every day, needs care. The work requires a strong back and a humble heart. The animals eat, get sick, shit, on occasion fight or escape, break bones, get frightened, desire comfort, need all variety of domestic oversight. All of which must be attended to prudently, in a direct manner, with calm. All days at the kennel pass with equal importance from Christmas morning to the heat and humidity of August to the rainy days of March. Most who get to know this place return to it. Those who choose to skirt the periphery remain outsiders, although the invitation to enter is extended indefinitely. The dirt here receives the low and revered in the same manner, from a deceased goat to a house dog to a elderly human, all are laid to rest with due respect, all while work continues to meet the daily needs of those who’ve come. The work is honest because it must be, necessarily so. The kennel is my dirt floor.