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Tom: Canine Executive Officer

CEO, Alice Entertainment, Inc.

By Alice Donenfeld-VernouxPublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 12 min read
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Tom: Canine Executive Officer
Photo by Margo Brodowicz on Unsplash

Tom's Business Card Logo

Tom and I travelled the world together for almost eighteen years. I am sure he remembered the good old days when the two of us roamed the globe together and he packed his own suitcase.

He was a gift from a friend in England. I had admired one of his Jack Russell Terriers when visiting London. He had seven or eight dogs roaming the house, but one of his Jack Russells spent several nights sharing my bed as well as anything that passed by my plate. It seems their Uncle had two Jacks and after his wife passed away, he let them breed so he could play with the puppies. The entire family was up to their eyeballs in Jack Russells and after the next litter; Uncle’s were off to the vet for some snipping. Please, no more puppies.

“Would I like one?” I was politely asked. That is, if there was another litter on the way before the great snip.

“Sure, I'd love one, especially a female.” I replied and went off to one of the Cannes television festivals without giving it another thought. As one of the first women executives in the international television and film distribution business, I attended both TV and film conventions all around the world, seven to eight a year just in Europe.

Receiving a call in Cannes, my friends had checked with British Airways and a dog had to be twelve weeks old to be shipped from England. Another litter of Jacks had arrived a week ago and the one female was reserved for me. I was delighted!

Eleven weeks later to the day, a fax appeared at my office with the enigmatic message the “puppies” were arriving by Airway Bill number so and so with British Air.

I immediately faxed back I did not understand the reference to “puppies” rather than “puppy.” There was no response and I was due at BA freight offices in two days. At midnight, calling from California eight hours earlier than London, I spoke to my friend's wife. “I have the information, but I don’t understand the reference to the ‘puppies’? It was my understanding I was to get a little female.”

“Well, yes, that was the understanding.” Her lovely British accent lilted over the telephone. “Uncle doesn’t want JoJo the female to travel alone, he is afraid she will be frightened, so he is sending her brother Tom to protect her and keep her company. When they arrive, if you don’t want Tom, please find a good home for him.”

I understood. The family was fully stocked with Jacks and I was an American patsy they could unload an extra one onto. “Okay, I’ll do my best to find him a good home, no problem.” What else could I say?

On the appointed day I arrived at the BA freight office with the Airway Bill number in my hand. “I’m here for this package, please.” I pushed the fax with the number across the counter.

“What’s in the package?” the man behind the counter asked.

“Puppies.”

“Oh, you mean the puppies from hell!” he declared emphatically as he shoved a medium sized wooden crate at me. It was very elegantly crafted, with a wire mesh panel front and back. Inside were two tiny puppies, not more than three pounds each. Both white with black spots and beautiful symmetrical marked tri-colored faces.

Thinking ahead, I had brought tiny adjustable collars and leashes to put on the squirming mass of puppyhood bursting to get out of the crate. Think of cockroaches with springs on their feet or maybe Mexican jumping beans with fur. I was unleashing on the world a blur of unbridled energy bouncing at least four feet in the air.

After fifteen minutes of gyrating, barking, running, pulling, twisting leashes, hysteria from all parties, myself probably more than the pups, we all settled down.

One of the tiny dogs sat down and looked at me, or should I say fixed on me. I took a good look at the pensive face with the black mask and brown markings like eyebrows arched over each eye. Oh my, I thought to myself, this one looks very worried. Its eyebrows were furrowed and pulled together in a perplexed and anxious frown. Wherever I moved, the stare followed me.

We finally arrived home, a three hour drive filled with barking, flinging of bodies around in crate, and general discomfort on all parts. Once home and uncrated, the dogs explored their new home. The one with the worried look kept pace with me, fixing me with that stare. All I could think of was no matter what, one of them was going! I had to admit I was getting attached to the weird one with the fixated stare. I finally picked it up and looked – it was the male.

That was the start of my life with Tom. We didn’t know of the aggressive littermate syndrome at the time, but the female constantly attacked and bit poor Tom. She was eventually rehomed with friends who treated her like the queen of the house.

For most of my business life I traveled for a living. Not just simple United States travel, but all over the world for five to six months a year. I would pack my suitcase and Tom would stare at me, his eyebrows crunched together in obvious concern. I would imagine him worrying about plane crashes, riots, police, gunfire, accidents, and robberies; all occurrences that could keep me from him and his regular supply of biscuits. How a little dog could foster such guilt is inconceivable. I started to worry. Who would take care of him if I were killed? I seldom worried as much about my kids.

The major part of my travel was in dog-friendly Europe. I decided to try and experiment taking him with me. I checked with the airline to make sure he could travel in the cabin with me, made sure he had the right medical papers, and purchased a “dog” ticket for him. He curled up in a ball in a traveling case I pushed under the seat in front of me and we were off.

Tom immediately took to the life of a world traveler. From that moment on, he went with me to conventions and on business trips to Paris, Cannes, Milan, Monte Carlo, and Spain. For more than a decade we two jetted around so much he was known to both TWA and Air France ground personnel and airhostesses as Monsieur Tom. At our regular stop at Biarritz Airport they tried to get him frequent flyer status but Air France management refused.

He had his own badge at many of the conventions and was wildly popular with the buyers. They would come and sit with him on their lap while they screened the television programs I was selling. You could always tell when a buyer had been at my stand and was a Tom fan; they would be covered with white hair on their elegant dark suits. Before a convention, Tom would get email asking for appointments because some of the buyers came to see him more than look at my programs. Nothing is more comforting in the midst of the insanity of a huge convention than sitting with a dog on your lap.

Tom had his own business cards made up after Dom Serafini, owner of the wonderful Video Age trade paper, gave him the title of CEO, Canine Executive Officer of Alice Entertainment, Inc., my company. I had similar cards made up with my lesser title: “Assistant to Tom.”

Tom's charming doggie face appeared on French, Brazilian, Japanese, English, Australian and many other television channels. As a magnet for press covering the conventions, Tom would ham it up as soon as he saw a camera. I think he was a little jealous about the popular PBS series featuring Wishbone, another Jack Russell Terrier he didn’t think as handsome as he was.

As Tom got older, he took to sleeping under the monitors at my conventions stands and would only come out when special friends arrived. The people he knew carried treats just for him. The men I worked with fought for the chance to take him for walks; he was a sure-fire way to pick up the pretty ladies strolling along the Croisette in Cannes.

Tom's special girl friend was Spike, a tiny Maltese. Spike was owned by Donna, a gorgeous woman who came to the conventions in wild outfits only she and Spike could wear. One time she arrived in a lace skirt with black leather motorcycle jacket and hat, followed by Spike in her own leather jacket, tutu, and Harley cap. Tom was so smitten he even let Spike be dominant and rolled over for her.

Learning how to be smuggled into many places such as the cabin on the overnight ferry to Corsica, five star hotels and restaurants all around Europe was easy for Tom. He knew the score and kept his yap shut. He often stayed at the Maurice in Paris but never complained when we were on a money saving routine and he was downgraded to a two-star hotel. He especially liked the Hotel Lindberg because of the tiny poodle who barked at him from the reception desk.

In Italy he'd sit at a sidewalk café and have his own bowl of water while strange ladies cooed over him in Italian and asked if he could be petted. He was gracious and licked their hands as they fawned over him. In Cannes he was recognized at his favorite pet supply store and received a discount as a “preferred customer” when he bought a new leopard collar every year.

Restaurants in France are heaven for dogs. The fancier the restaurant the better the dog service as we soon found out. He would be allowed to sit on banquettes with me, and always offered some water. He never begged at the table, but after everyone ate, he jumped to the floor and would neatly devour his own plate of table scraps. A gentleman to the core, Tom always knew how to behave. Perhaps it was his English breeding coming through?

My husband and I kept a pied a terre in Spain as we spent much of our time doing business in Europe. It was Tom’s favorite place to bury his bones in the patio. He knew where they were and where he had hidden his toys when last at his “other” home. The huge beach nearby was a great place to run and Tom would fly like the wind, his tongue hanging out and ears erect with joy as he ran from one end to the other chasing the birds and feral cats that lived in the breakwater.

For business, we always rented the same apartment in Cannes three times a year. Tom knew it was another ‘home’ and could be let off his leash as soon as we entered the building. He would run to the elevator and wait, then off the elevator at the right floor and to the apartment door, even though he hadn’t been there for months.

One time I was in Cannes, convention finished, packing to go home to Spain. Tom watched me bring out my suitcase and start the packing ritual he had seen so many times before. My husband called and I was chatting with him when I heard an odd scraping sound.

“Hold on a minute, I hear something strange.” I put the phone down and went to see what was happening. Tom had opened his traveling case and was pushing the new shearling bed we had bought him into it.

“You won’t believe this,” I said to my husband, “Tom has managed to open his travel case and is shoving his new bed into it.

“You’re teasing me.” My husband said. “Dogs don’t pack suitcases.”

“This one does, and he is doing a good job of it.” I watched as he gathered up his bone and another toy, carefully putting them on top of the bed already in the case.

When I got off the phone, Tom sat in front of me staring until I stood up. He led me into the kitchen where he looked pointedly at his bowl. I got the message, and packed it into my suitcase with his food. He then went and lay down in front of his case until I was finished. He was packed; he was going, no worries.

Several weeks later, my husband and I were leaving our home in Spain to go back to the United States. The suitcases came out and we were packing up and moving out again.

My husband came running in from the spare bedroom where his clothes were on the bed ready for the open suitcase. He grabbed my arm and we went into the room.

Tom had been sleeping there so his bed was in the corner. He had found his travel case, opened it, dragged it over to his bed, and was once again busy stuffing it in. My husband and I watched as he moved around the flat, found his bone and some toys, which he put inside. Satisfied, he lay down in front of the case to watch us finish our packing.

Tom and I didn’t travel as much after my husband passed away and I retired from business. It was just the two of us left to remember those glory days when we all jetted back and forth across the Atlantic together so many times a year. There were other dogs in the household now, but they don’t have the same travel savvy and never smelled thousand-year-old pee-mail left on ancient cathedral stones.

Tom still waited in front of his case when he saw me packing but we only went by car to our home in Baja. Sometimes I saw him staring into nowhere and I thought he must be remembering all those French poodles he used to sniff as he strutted down the Croisette in the soft air of the Mediterranean in the good old days.

Rest in peace Tom. You were the best traveling buddy ever!

dog
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About the Creator

Alice Donenfeld-Vernoux

Alice Donenfeld, entertainment attorney, TV producer, international TV distributor, former VP Marvel Comics & Executive VP of Filmation Studios. Now retired, three published novels on Amazon, and runs Baja Wordsmiths creative writing group.

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