Aug
4
Just checking on you
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JB always emerges from the water at the cabin with a happy sigh, briskly polishing himself with a towel and announcing “AHH, RIVER CLEAN.” I admire his manly pleasure in replacing a hot shower and actual soap with the great outdoors, but I do not share this perspective. I spent a good part of yesterday afternoon lying half-submerged on a little floatie (a terrible purchase, this thing is a mostly-mesh deal with only a small amount of plastic that actually gets inflated, which results in your body — once you get on the damn thing, which is no joke, or more precisely it is in fact a hilarious joke for anyone observing your tragic harpooned heavings — “floating” in the sense that you’re several inches under water, but yes, I guess technically you are buoyed somewhat; every time I use it I think of its cheery packaging, which shows a perfectly made-up lady posed on the side of a pool while the floatie lies nearby, which is clearly the only way it can live up to its promise of keeping you dry), face down and peering into the water as I was lazily moved this way and that by the sluggish summer waters, and while I was quite content — the combo of the hot sun and being permanently half-dunked turned out to be pretty nice — I was eyeballing all the things in the water that were lapping against or near my skin: clump of brownish whatever, dead bug, seaweed wisp, fish, fish, dead bug, wing of a bug, vague biological material of some sort, sodden leaf, bug, fish, giant spooky algae-covered tree snag in a deep section that didn’t actually touch me or anything but ugh that’s so creepy, severed crawdad pincer arm, brownish-green goop from where I brushed up against a rock, bug, wet feather that maybe has some goose poop on it. Just saying: “river clean” = no BJ for you.
Dog wasn’t particularly interested in swimming but she was happy to come along for various outings, even riding complacently in the canoe without a single look of bewilderment. (I sometimes wonder what she must be thinking, having gone from one home to another, and then we take her somewhere else completely and, like, put her in a boat. She’s so easygoing it’s almost suspicious, like maybe she’s somehow secretly wearing a little dog-sized vest of explosives.)
We took her out in the woods a couple times for some hiking and I had forgotten that full-bodied pleasure of being out in the middle of nowhere with a dog, no need for leashes or pockets full of poop bags. Why exactly is that so great? I don’t know, but it is. And here’s something I really love about her: I’m always the slowpoke when we’re making our way down some treacherous hill or scrambling over rocks or whatever, mostly because 1) I’m always wearing the wrong damn shoes, and 2) I’m kind of a giant pussy, and Ruby kept circling back to me. She’d go up ahead with the boys for a minute, then come gallumping back to gently snout me on the leg. Just checking on you, was the message of that snouting.
Aug
1
Felled by a snout
Filed Under Uncategorized | 53 Comments
Since Ruby the dog has arrived, I’ve:
• Been snouted in the back of the leg at least 57391 times. She has a habit of excitedly coming up behind you and pressing her nose against your skin, and if I’m wearing shorts it feels a tiny bit like being goosed by a slug. If I’m wearing a skirt, she’ll go right ahead and lift the fabric in order to deliver a proper snouting, and we had one incident in a park when she skirt-snouted a lady whose facial expression I can only describe as “Initially horrified, then (thankfully) amused.”
• Seen this face every time I eat something:
I know Labs are notoriously food-driven but wow, this dog really wants you to believe she has never eaten ever. On the training front, we need to work on begging, along with most of the other basics, which she soooort of has down but really more as the result of being good-natured than actually following any directions, if that makes sense. “Drop it” needs to be a priority, since she practically gulped down a hair scrunchie yesterday thinking it was some sort of snack.
• Been completely surprised by how the cat’s behaving around the dog. I was so worried about the cat’s safety ahead of time and whether she’d be traumatized, and instead she has the dog scuttling around looking worried. The cat is doing all these dickish things like lurking around a corner in order to hump up and do a bunch of swatting whenever the dog comes derping her way into the room and it’s just MEAN. I mean, I’m glad she’s holding her ground and all, but at this point the dog wants nothing whatsoever to do with her, so, like, can’t we all just get along? Also considering the cat’s past history of being scared of bathmats (seriously) and other inanimate objects the entire act is faintly ridiculous, like:
Cat still sleeps next to my pillow at night and I can almost feel the waves of superiority coming off of her body as she bores little stare-holes into the dog’s place down on the floor. Neener.
• Slipped in dog-slop water like fifty times. We have her food and water bowl in the kitchen where there are wood floors, which means every time she drinks (BLORT SLORP BLOP MLORP) water gets everywhere and yikes, someone’s eventually going to break a hip.
• Given this dog EIGHT MILLION SNOOGLES. And smoothed her ears back in order to say, idiotically, “Who looks like a seal? YOU do! YOU look like a seal!” And repeatedly chanted with the boys to the tune of the Spider-Man theme, “Ruby dog, Ruby dog, doin’ everything a Ruby dog can. Can she snout? On your leg? Yes she can, she’s a dog. LOOK OUT, here comes Ruuuuby dooooooog.” (Dog’s tail reaction: WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM.)
• Been followed everywhere I go in the house, all day long. NOW what are you doing, her face says, and I’m like, uh sorry just going to the bathroom, and she’s like I WILL WAIT OUTSIDE THE DOOR. I WILL WAIT FOREVER IF I HAVE TO. Jeez I love this dog so much already.
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