I SHOULD SAY RIGHT-OFF-THE BAT...
THAT DOWN THROUGH THE YEARS I have grown less than enamored about having any real or imagined relationship with any animal whatsoever. I did not want to feed them, give them a bed, groom them, find kennels for them when I go off on a vacation, or arrange for some neighbor to shoot at them when they annoy me. I did not, in short, ever want to own one ever again. On the other hand, I now find myself in a rather awkward position, in that I do now have a somewhat recent and clandestine relationship with two dogs. And as a consequence I think that I may be changing my mind.
The dogs live with my Son and his girlfriend. They reside in Sacramento, California, which is an odd place for a dog, or indeed, anyone else, to live; since it happens to be in the State of California. If you have ever visited or spent time in California, then let me say this: the odds are that you might be becoming an addle brained eccentric. I can't bother to explain why I say that, in that I, too, now happen to be a resident of California; so the best thing for me to do is just leave well-enough-alone, other than mention that many of the Californians that I have seen thus far seem to enjoy a morning run, jog, or gentle stroll in order to live a healthier lifestyle, which a former New Yorker like myself never ever began to think about, and I found it more than a bit off-base that they would want to take their dogs on the jog with them, in that I seriously doubt whether the dogs give a hoot-in-hell about their own health or how well-toned their owners happen to be.
THAT DOWN THROUGH THE YEARS I have grown less than enamored about having any real or imagined relationship with any animal whatsoever. I did not want to feed them, give them a bed, groom them, find kennels for them when I go off on a vacation, or arrange for some neighbor to shoot at them when they annoy me. I did not, in short, ever want to own one ever again. On the other hand, I now find myself in a rather awkward position, in that I do now have a somewhat recent and clandestine relationship with two dogs. And as a consequence I think that I may be changing my mind.
The dogs live with my Son and his girlfriend. They reside in Sacramento, California, which is an odd place for a dog, or indeed, anyone else, to live; since it happens to be in the State of California. If you have ever visited or spent time in California, then let me say this: the odds are that you might be becoming an addle brained eccentric. I can't bother to explain why I say that, in that I, too, now happen to be a resident of California; so the best thing for me to do is just leave well-enough-alone, other than mention that many of the Californians that I have seen thus far seem to enjoy a morning run, jog, or gentle stroll in order to live a healthier lifestyle, which a former New Yorker like myself never ever began to think about, and I found it more than a bit off-base that they would want to take their dogs on the jog with them, in that I seriously doubt whether the dogs give a hoot-in-hell about their own health or how well-toned their owners happen to be.
The names of the two dogs are Loki and Moe. Moe is the real classic of the two, obviously a mix between a schnauzer and dachshund, who turned out to be rather good-looking. Loki is vaguely sort of a hound sort of thing with some other breed like a pit-bull tossed-in as an after thought, a little like a poorly mixed salad which did not turn-out all that well. They seemed to be so deliriously pleased to see me when I first met them that the two of them jumped upward with all four legs simultaneously. Once the jump was completely done, they would sniff and lick one another on the heinie, then attempt to do the same thing to my face. My advice: Do not ever allow a dog to get close enough to your face to give it a lick after you know where their tongue has recently been.
The way in which Moe would signify every morning that she was aware of my presence was was to allow me to see her scratch her ear with her paw. This was also the way she let me to know that she was ready for a long and pleasant morning walk around the backyard, it was also her way to signify that she wanted to be allowed back into the house, and the method by which she would signify that she was ready to eat. It was, in short, her way of life. A Morse Code of sorts in a simplified form. I began to feel that I knew her well enough to admit to myself that she was either a brilliant dog or I was a somewhat birdbrained man. Either way, it seemed to work out well for the both of us.
Loki, on the other hand, seemed to be fond of taking a lick or two at my crotch whenever I chose to sit down in a chair. She was extraordinarily good-natured and long-suffering about this whenever I would shoo her away, but every now and then would get monumentally fed up, and would execute an about-turn with her ears flapping, go to a corner of the room where she eyed me, gave me an extremely disappointed look and gently start gnawing her own left rear foot as if she were bored with me anyway.
Further depths to their thinking were revealed when my Son's girlfriend Ginny told me not to even attempt to throw a ball for Loki or Moe to chase, that the two of them would just sit there and watch stony-faced as the ball went upward and then downward, and at last dribbled along the grass to a halt. They just hung out all day, every day. They would moon around at my feet and keep nudging at my elbow and rest their chins on my lap and gaze mournfully up at me in the hope that I would see a reason to give them a pat-or-two so that they could continue to ignore me.
In the evening Loki and Moe would be fed, watered, and trot off to bed for the night. Which seemed to me to be a fine arrangement, because I got all the pleasure of their company, which was beginning to become immense, without having any responsibility for them. And it continued to be a fine arrangement till the day when Ginny and my Son moved to another house and left me to care for Loki and Moe by myself until I, too, made the move.
It was a couple of weeks after that when Loki turned up bright and early in the morning ready and eager to ignore me on her own. No Moe. Moe was not with her. I was startled. I had no way of knowing what had happened to Moe and no way of finding out, because she wasn't mine.
"Has she been run over by a car? Is she lying somewhere, bleeding on the street?" I asked Loki. Loki looked restless and worried, too, but seemed unable to give me an answer. I put on my shoes and hurried out with Loki trailing along after me. Eventually, I realized that Loki wasn't looking for Moe at all, that she was only taking a sniff-or-two at other dog's turds that were strewn-about on the grass like she was Captain Ahab chasing a whale, so I returned to the house, and Loki sat at my feet and moped. All I could do was sit and worry in silence. That night, I slept badly.
And in the morning Moe was back. She looked sly. It looked to me as if she may have been out attempting to rob a bank. I knew that she had been up to something. We went out for a walk. I was embarrassed, frankly. I actually wanted to know where she had been, what she had been up to while she was gone, and why she refused to tell me where she went? In other words, I had missed having her around.
It was a few days later when I had to tell them that the three of us were about to move into the new house. I tried to explain this to the dogs, to prepare them for it, but they seemed to be in denial. They began to keep their distance, became tremendously interested in listening to anyone else's voice other than mine. They began to ignore me, and I felt odd about that. The only time the two of them seemed happy was when Ginny popped-in for a visit.
I knew right-then-and-there that sooner-or-later I would have get a dog of my own, and for some odd reason that really pleased me...
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