My daughter and I trailed behind our rapidly fleaing (as in flea) designer dog on the long, stretch of Asilomar Beach.  Awed tourists, jaws agape, inside or near their out of state-licensed vehicles watched the sun drop in a fiery salmon-colored backwash.  My daughter and I also absorbed the scenery, but not satisfied to merely be observers, we became the scenery by habitual default.

    Our beloved four-legged beast is a DNA special, sort of. Dog breeders had constructed our critter from the best ma and pa dog DNA around. Others have paid $1400 - $3000 for a creature of their selection and our dog has been costly, too.  But how can a price be accurately put on man’s best friend?

     From the get-go, our canine had been the subject of debate.  My twelve-year-old daughter named our whelp Binny.  I renamed her Beany.

      “Look,” I declared to my daughter, “For what we paid for this, this …hound.  I’m not giving her a moniker that sounds like she’s an AFL-CIO dock-working, hairy-chested goon named Vinny.”

     “It’s Binny with a B and…Beany? Beany???” My daughter uttered exasperated, “You think the name BEANY gives her…dignity?”  Twelve year-olds do not suppress disgust well.

      “Well,” I replied, speaking before I thought it through, “it never hurts to have a little… whimsy in our lives.” 

      “Whimsy!” Obviously the daughter didn’t buy it.  “How about Dork?  Let’s just name her Dork.”

     But I prevailed - an advantage of parental omnipotence -- and eventually the daughter spoke to me. But she refused to call the dog Beany.  So we found ourselves on Asilomar Beach in Carmel, letting the dog run leashless, as permitted, south of the brackish stream.  She sniffed, whiffed, and squatted in a most degrading fashion, helping nature recycle the rich foods we had given her.  But she knew her humans well; she finished her toiletry and bounded off, nose at the fore.  We cleaned up after her and had no doubts who was master and who was slave.  She paused, and we, being well-trained, threw her ball on her ready command.  Later, she permitted us to hold the leash attached to her.  For all our good behavior she would eventually allow us to feed her a sacred and holy cookie.

      The ritual began soon after. Passersby noticed Beany or Binny, depending which of us loomed closest, and the tourists (readily identifiably by their still attached Asilomar name tags and inappropriate light clothing)  asked, “What kind of dog is that?”

     A small smile grew on my daughter’s face. “She’s a designer dog. An Icelandic Penzum. Their species is about four-hundred years old. See her legs?”  Beany engaged in a series of contented full body wiggles and dug near my daughter’s feet.  My daughter continued, “See her fur?”

     “Yes,” said the tourist, squinting, hugging himself for warmth and waiting for the rest of the information to come.

      “It is double-layered.  Let’s them survive the cold water longer, when they go after the salmon.”

      “Hmmmm,” said the tourist, “never heard of a..Pen…”

      “Penzum. Icelandic Penzum.”

      Beany spotted an orange-legged oyster catcher in the surf and she sprang off in a full trot determined to throttle the bird.

      My daughter and I ran off in the opposite direction and burst into laughter.     

     “Man…are you Pinocchio or what?” I said. I tried to take a swipe at her, but she kept out of range and dodged me, chuckling the whole time.

     I shook my head. “Icelandic Penzum?  I don’t know if I should be proud or frightened.”

     She smiled. Most of our walks are pretty much the same: people are amazed at our designer dog and they pepper us with questions.

      “What kind of a dog is that?”  

      “Is it a…???”

      But our expensive designer dog is a mutt - half pug, half boxer.  Her front end is mostly pug, from the shoulders back she’s muscle-city boxer. Thirty-five pounds of solid, canine beast.  She’s sooo ugly she’s beautiful.

      Truth be known, she’s an S.P.C.A. special. We only call her a designer dog.  Cost a hundred bucks after the license, shots, spaying, and I.D. microchip injected between her powerful shoulder blades.

        The sun set and we turned around. The oyster catcher lumbered upward at the last moment putting space between itself and our beast.  My daughter called the dog and we headed toward our car.  Some people stopped, pointed, and headed in our direction. My daughter hung back and the word ambush came to my mind. White name tags on their lapels mark them as more Conference Center attendees and possibly soon-to-be daughter-victims.

     Mark Twain said it all, “A lie will travel twice around the world before the truth even gets out of bed.”

     I sat in our car, turned on the heater, shook my head, and laughed. My daughter couldn’t even find Iceland on a map.