Grievance

It is happening again.  ‘Bekah is being tapped by an over-protective dog owner to dogsit overnight, leaving me lost, lorn and lonely.  I always feel abandoned when ‘Bekah has to sleep over at her charge’s place, which means that she will be home somewhere between seldom and never for the duration – in this case through Saturday.  What makes it even worse this time is that it is Merlyn’s dog Z’nah that ‘Bekah is dogsitting.  Z’nah!  That dog has more native intelligence, common sense, and responsibility than most latch-key kids!  Merlyn could probably just leave her his credit card and have her check herself into a hotel, where she would sit, quietly watching Telemundo to improve her Spanish when not preparing her own meals or going outside to potty.  This is the dog that ‘Bekah insists must be attended at all times, even if it means that me and Clementine must be left unsupervised.  Clementine!  Me!  With nobody watching us!  Last time this happened I was reduced to a state of howling savagery, roaming the neighborhood in makeshift garments composed of discarded bathroom mats and paper grocery bags and foraging for food – which has gotten a good deal harder now that Ella May has stopped leaving pies out on her windowsill to cool.  Clementine, meanwhile, had taken my wallet and clothes and disappeared for nearly the entire time ‘Bekah was gone, losing both before staggering through the front door in the wee hours of the morning smelling of cured meats and debauchery.

This is just an awful situation, just awful.  I certainly hope you are happy, Z’nah, you homewrecker.

Inclementine Weather

It’s time to put a stop to the importunate emails and death threats from our neighbors to the south, who have been clamoring for more stories about Clementine.

Yesterday there was a pretty stiff winter storm here – not a blizzard, quite, but the worst of the year nonetheless.  Clementine, a very spoilt dog, trotted obediently to the back door yesterday morning, ready to do her morning potty run.  I slid the door aside to reveal the cold snowy expanse of the back yard, accompanied by a blast of frigid winter air, whereupon Clementine skittered back behind me.  I laughed, but left the door open and looked at Clem expectantly – the snow hadn’t really piled up near the door, maybe an inch or two, and it seemed like a quick trip might be doable.  Clem looked back at me anxiously, then skittered another couple inches backward.  I resigned myself to cleaning up a little yellow puddle and slid the door shut.

Several times throughout the day, Clem wandered to the backdoor, even groaned plaintively as though she wished to go outside, but always made herself scarce when that cold air blew into the room.  At some point, however, the snowfall stopped, and the more ambitious denizens of the neighborhood emerged to shovel their driveways.  One of them let his big shaggy dog out into the snow, where it bounded around gleefully barking to all the other dogs in the neighborhood.  Including Clementine.  The small terrier instantly interpreted this as a challenge to her dominion over the fenced-in yard which no other dog can get into.  She shot furiously to the back door, yapping maniacally.  This prompted her bemused keeper to pad into the kitchen and open the door, anticipating another abject flight from the wintry cold.

When the door opened, our yard’s small berserk defender sprang out into the snow, which was now chest height for her, and plowed across the back patio.  While I stood there aghast, Clem plunged off the patio and into the deeper snow in the yard proper.  Now up to her neck, she forged onward to the back fence still yipping her fierce, fierce challenge to the big, goofy-looking dog who sported, unconcerned, around his shoveling masters.

When she reached the back fence she rose up on her hind feet, still covered in snow up to her middle, and apparently settled in to bark until all potential invaders left the field.  My head was filled with visions of my tiny frozen dog as an impromptu icy gargoyle, a small vigilant statue against the fence, and I called for her to come back.  As usual, Clem ignored me, her canine pride was involved.  Thinking quickly, I went to the cupboard and unscrewed the lid on the jar of peanut butter, scooping a small dab onto one finger.  Waving this enchanted digit while I called overrode Clem’s warrior instincts, and brought her barreling back through the snow and into the kitchen for the presentation of her commendation for bravery.  She arrived spattered with winter, and as I dusted her off with one hand I pondered once more the consequences of loving the fragile, crazy things of this world.

Ain’t No Sunshine

Recent developments have raised the surreality quotient around here.  For one thing, Rebekah has been dog/house sitting for a week now, which entails her sleeping elsewhere.  Although the overprotective pet owners she does this for pay her well for her time, it has the effect of bachelorizing me and orphaning the cats (though not Clem, who is her own support network), since Rebek is home for maybe two hours a day.

The absence of our home’s bright, shining center makes the cats incredibly clingy.  As I write this, Cleo is draped across my shoulders, a position she crawled into, with much scrabbling on her part and many muttered imprecations on mine.  She has been preceded this morning by Gypsy, whose awkward attempts to snuggle are rendered poignant by the fact that neither of us really like each other.

I too have decayed at an alarming rate, like a building abandoned in the jungle one week and discovered as a vine-choked ruin the next.  I’ve stopped shaving, stopped sleeping, and the last time I saw my pants was when Clem ran off with them two days ago – since then I’ve just been wrapping a towel around my waist before I go to work each day, but how long I can keep this up is anyone’s guess.

In addition, I am embarking on a new career.  Like most new careers, it will involve extensive making of good impressions upon potential employers/clients.  Now, I am pretty insecure about my appearance, mostly due to my weight.  While I was merely “soft” at my wedding, I have steadily let myself get heavier in the years since, until recently I’ve found myself parked firmly in “frickin’ porker” territory.  I decided that this had to change if I was going to possess the necessary aura of confidence to win new clients, so I started a diet.

I have tried various formulas for weight loss before, but none have ever worked as well for me in the long term as exercise and the Atkins diet, so that is what I’ve gone back to.  I’ll probably post more about it in a couple days, assuming ‘Bekah comes back and halts the our slide

Our Thrilling Conclusion

Well, apparently it has taken me too long to get here, but it all ends today.

“Can I see your ID badge?” asked the security guard.  There was no attached “sir” which experience has taught me is a bad sign where security people are concerned.

“I don’t have one, but-”

“This entrance is for employees only.  Use the service counter entrance.”

I gave the security guard an appraising look.  Evidently he was a good enough reader of body language that he picked up on the whole “swift kick to the groin, then race down the hallway” strategy I was piecing together, because his hand moved purposefully toward the taser holstered on his right hip.

“Alright,” I said, backing toward the door, “I’ll go.”

The next moment I was standing outside Wesco again, and it was definitely the low point of the whole ordeal.  Then I realized it was my turn to pick up Clem from the Collie-seum.  Dejectedly I began trudging toward the moat.

If the route into Wesco is intended to discourage visitors, navigating it in reverse after having been foiled by the security at their actual location is utterly demoralizing.  I doubt many people have the gumption to ever come back a second time….

Which I bet is why the security guard was so surprised when I came barreling back through the door an hour later,  15 pounds of squirming terrier clutched tightly to my chest with one hand.  I’ll give the guy some credit – he was awfully fast on the draw.  He already had his taser out by the time I flung Clem at him.

Unfortunately, he also had a very steady hand, and managed to taser Clem when she was still in midair.

I call this “unfortunate” because anything which delivers a smaller charge than the electric chair only gets Clem excited.  I strolled slowly down the corridor toward the service counter, knowing that any additional security personnel would be busy for a while.

And so it was that at long last I stood in front of someone who was willing (albeit grudgingly so) and able to sell me a thousand watt light-bulb.  He was a little confused at first when I walked around the service counter from behind him, and he did falter sometimes when the sounds of people running in fear or being dragged from their offices by a wild animal got especially loud (I thought all was lost when the fire alarm went off, but I was able to convince my paint-befuddled interlocutor that it was just my cell phone’s ring tone), but I was able to get him through the checkout process in the end.

Finally, I carefully accepted the proffered replacement bulb, shot back the double bolts securing the service counter door, and stepped outside.  Clem was waiting by the moat, using the taser to fish for piranhas.

“Good girl,” I said, reaching down to scritch her with my free hand.

“Wanna go get some hamburgers?”

Clem snorted, then began to butt her head into my knee.  Hard.

I took that as a yes.

The Arena

During the months when I have to put on Clementine’s coat, we always arrive at her school after all the other dogs are already there.  I carry a squirming Clementine inside and hand her to a pair of burly wranglers that proceed to shuck her out of her coat.  She cooperates beautifully.  Meanwhile, I check in with the receptionist, an ex-navy seal named Marla, who asks if I will be staying to watch.  This is not normally allowed, but as the backer of the Arena’s brightest star I am accorded certain privileges.  When I answer in the affirmative, she signals to the two wranglers, one of whom holds an astonishingly still Clementine while the other rolls back the big sheet metal partition that separates the front room from the arena proper.

At this stage the arena is a pit filled with a writhing, yapping, snarling mass of canine lunacy.  If it is true that all dogs go to heaven, the decision is not based on what is going on in this room, into which Clem is flung by her wrangler.  She briefly disappears into the tangle of combatants, and I always experience a pang of worry.  She’s so little!

Soon enough Clem resurfaces riding an English bulldog,  her forepaws snaked around its thick neck, one of its ears in her mouth….

The first part of every day at Berenson’s Doggie Arena is the Battle Royal portion, where all the dogs are grouped together in a pit, into which single toys are thrown at intervals to “stimulate competition”.  Clem never tries for the first couple of toys; she has to pace herself if she is to meet her many obligations for the day.  After the dogs are split up into weight-classes she will be almost an instructor herself, moving between groups to work with tiny terriers and chihuahuas as well as bulldogs, mastiffs, and assorted hounds.

This is actually Clem’s chief claim to fame at the arena.  From the very beginning she was something of a “giant-killer”, adept at sliding under larger dogs in a crouch and then stiffening her legs to flip them over, or harrying them until they tire and then pouncing atop them.  I like to think that I contribute in some small way to her growth in this area.

At first, in fact, Clementine was grouped with the larger dogs exclusively.  As time went on though, Clem became bored with larger dogs, and got excessively bitey as a result.  It was with some trepidation that we decided to move her into the smaller weight classes.  She excelled here as well, however, proving gentle enough to work with even the smallest dogs.  She seemed livelier as well, forming friendships with other dogs and just genuinely having a good time.  As the Battle Royal breaks up and the doggies begin moving en masse toward the outside doors for their first “potty break”, I notice that Clem is next to her best friend, an adorable Sheltie named Maymee.

Matters of the Heart

(Note: Although I am still pretty whacked out from sleep deprivation and cold medicine, I am being compelled to take a serious shot at posting today, no more lazy “journaling”.  The folks from The Internet called last night and said that overall web traffic has dropped .05% in the last couple of days, with even larger numbers in South America, where Clementine has become something of a folk hero, for reasons I can’t begin to fathom.)

An old friend of mine recently came to me seeking counsel.  It concerned an affair of the heart, he said.  I asked why he came to me for this advice, as I hadn’t been at all easy to get in touch with, and we haven’t really been that close lately.

“Because,” he replied, “Out of all my circle of acquaintance, I feel that you know the most about love.”

“Then you’re screwed.” I retorted, unwilling to accept this particular compliment from this particular individual at this particular moment.

“No, seriously,” he insisted, “You’re a scholar, and in both your studies of the humanities and your travels I feel that you have seen more than anyone else I can turn to.”

I reflected that, as his circle of acquaintance was mostly internet trolls, perhaps the compliment was small enough that I could let it pass unchallenged for the sake of discussion.

I’ll spare you the details of our conversation, as I am a just and merciful internet crank, but at some point he raised that old chestnut, “What is Love?”.

Though I may have put at risk my newly-conferred authority as an expert on the matter, I had to reply that the whole concept of “love” is so nebulous, and has been so widely appropriated and abused, that no definitive answer to that question is possible.

Since then, I have reconsidered.  I was trolling the internet myself, looking for new music, and I stumbled across the interesting fact that grunge stalwarts Mudhoney had covered “The Rose”.  I couldn’t imagine what this would be like, so I tracked down the video on Youtube.  As I listened to the song, it all became clear to me, and now, with the help of Amanda McBroom’s timeless lyrics (what, you thought Bette Midler wrote that, didn’t you?  Well, she doesn’t have to write, darling, she’s a diva), I will attempt to answer the question “What is Love?” for once and for all:

(Note: If you are Amanda McBroom, you may want to stop reading right now, before you see what I am going to do to your song.)

Some say love, it is a river

That drowns the tender reed

Some say love, it is a razor

That leaves your soul to bleed

Some say love, it is a hunger

An endless aching need

But I say love, it is a carpet

Upon which your dog has peed

(and yes, Bolivia, the dog is Clementine.)

Clem’s Worst Habit

The other day when Rebekah took Clem for a walk, the little weirdo (Clementine, not Rebekah) came across some tiny pellets that had been produced by the adorable bunnies that haunt our neighborhood.  So she started to eat them.  ‘Bekah, like many human beings, retains the capacity to be appalled at this particularly outré brand of canine behavior, no matter how time-honoured and widespread a part of their culture it is.  ‘Bekah pulled Clem off of the rabbit droppings and had some hard words with her, and when they returned home the incident was duly reported to the hapless husband, who really would rather remain in the dark about all things copraphagic (for our less lexophiliac readers, “lexophiliac” means “word-loving”, and a “copraphage” is someone who eats poop.)

It seemed likely that this would have been just another gross little incident in Clem’s long record, and might soon have passed into the blessed oblivion conferred upon all such petty little horrors by the miracle of human forgetfulness.  That night, however, as Clem raced several feet straight up the wall before somersaulting down onto Gypsy, Rebekah asked me “D’you think Clemmy seems…well, faster than usual, tonight?”.  I agreed that Clementine did seem rather more rapid than I was used to seeing her, whereupon Rebekah advanced the startling hypothesis that perhaps Clem’s new-found speed had something to do with her, well, assimilation of some organic matter that had once been associated with rabbits, a breed of animals noted for their fleetness of foot.

“Wait a minute,” I said, “Are you suggesting that when Clem eats an animal’s doodoo, she is somehow attempting to steal its power?”  We were both silent for a moment.  “Well,” ‘Bekah finally said “it would explain a lot…”

So now we live in fear that one night Clementine will be watching the news with us when some paleontologist discovers fossilized velociraptor puckey.

Dogfight

I believe we left our account of a typical attempt to get Clementine’s coat on with our tiny protagonist atop her would-be oppressor’s back gripping his arm in a hammerlock…

Although I don’t have the leverage to pull my arm free (that being the whole point of a hammerlock), I quickly realize that Clem weighs about sixteen pounds.  I take a moment to plan ahead, that being my biggest advantage over my diminutive adversary.  Then I roll over.  Clementine is more than fast enough to leap clear, but she is also a terrier, and loathes giving up a good hold.  I am counting on her to hang on too long, and she obliges me.

This allows me to employ my other big advantage over Clementine: weight.  I can feel her mighty back legs pressing against my ribs as I turn so that she is pinned under my right side, but she is as likely to budge me as I am to leg press a minivan, so I concentrate on poking her in the chest repeatedly with my left hand so that she’ll be distracted while I slowly lever myself up on my right elbow, taking care to leave enough weight on Clem that she can’t scoot out from under me.

Once I have regained the use of my right hand, I gradually work it around behind her neck as she attempts to wrap her forepaws around my left wrist and begin gnawing on my left hand.  This nearly proves my undoing, but somehow I manage to pass my right hand behind her neck while frantically jerking my left hand away from her mouth.  Once my right hand has passed behind Clem’s neck, I am ready for the trickiest part of the operation.  Suddenly I snake my left arm down between Clem’s left forepaw and neck, trapping her paw and enabling my hand to press against the side of her neck.  I exert similar pressure with my right to complete the katahajime sleeper hold.

Clem struggles a little bit, but gradually her bulbous eyes begin to close and she relaxes.  I’ve learned the hard way to wait until I am sure she’s not faking before releasing the hold and scrambling over to retrieve her coat.  It is imperative that I have at least the three  primary straps buckled before she wakes up.

Clem is usually awake enough to squirm and snap at me as I finish securing the numerous secondary cinches and ties, but it is the last trouble I’ll have with her for a while.  Once her coat is on she’s generally far more preoccupied with worrying at the straps than interfering with me as I scoop her up and bundle her into the car.

We’re usually running late by now, so I tuck Clementine into her car bed, insert her mix CD into the CD player, and give her a quick scritch behind the ears, pulling my hand away quickly to avoid the surly little snap she gives me by way of reply, and throw the car in gear.  It’s off to the Doggie Arena.

Round One

Some mornings, right after I put Coke in ‘Bekah’s bag, I have to take Clem to Doggie Arena.  The first step in this process is to get Clem’s coat and tuck it carefully into one of my pockets.  Then I head to the kitchen, reach carefully down past the razor wire that tops Clementine’s enclosure, and pick up my little dog.  I cradle her in my arms like a baby as we head to the laundry room, where I set her down in front of the door to the garage.  I open the door and head through, Clem frisking merrily about my feet.  ‘Bekah and I park on the street now so that the garage is empty for this particular morning ritual.  I take a few deep breaths and try to empty my mind of extraneous thoughts.  Clem scampers about, snuffling at the floor and chasing scraps of paper or stray autumn leaves.

All the romping stops the instant I pull Clem’s coat out of my pocket.  Clem’s coat is a cross between a flak vest and a straight jacket.  As soon as Clem catches a glimpse of it’s black expanse, festooned with heavy-duty straps and buckles, she comes to a complete stop.  For a single pristine moment she is utterly still, her head up, ears cocked forward, bizarre bulging eyes regarding me intently.

In the next instant Clem is hurtling through the air toward me, propelled by one of her lighting-quick leaps.  It is her usual opening gambit, so I am able to anticipate it and pivot out of the way, preventing her little black cannonball of a head from colliding with my groin or abdomen, her targets of choice.  A loud crack followed by a series of crashes tells me that Clem has at least partially demolished a shelving unit, so I turn and lunge at her as she attempts to scrabble out from under the wreckage.

I capitalize on my temporary advantage by rolling Clem onto her back.  This impairs her mobility, if not her capacity to fight back, which she swiftly demonstrates by snaking her hind legs around my left wrist and clamping her teeth onto three fingers of my right hand, causing me to drop her coat in the process.

While I carefully work my right forearm away from Clem to prevent her from wrapping her forepaws around it, I make my next move.  Although there’s little I can do with my left hand, which is held tight to Clementine’s belly by her amazingly strong hind legs, I start sliding it slowly to my left.  Clementine, still intent on consolidating her hold on my right arm, doesn’t notice until my hand reaches the pressure point behind her ribs.  She gives a low growl when she realizes what is about to happen, but it is too late.  I scritch gently with the tips of my fingers.  After a moment, the steely bands of muscle which are Clementine’s hind legs relax, and her jaws loose their hold on my right hand.  She lays there panting,  paralyzed by the canine euphoria I have unleashed with my underhanded belly-rubbing tactics.

Unfortunately, putting Clementine’s coat on requires both hands.  I grab the coat with my right hand and drag it over Clem’s head, scritching madly with my left.  Then I have to use both hands to pull it down over her torso, and that’s when she shakes off the lingering effects of the belly-scritch.  She writhes like a thing possessed and kicks me in the wrist with her hind leg, knocking one of my hands away.  Before I can recover she has wriggled out of her coat and corkscrewed back onto her feet.  I go for a waistlock, but just as I get an arm around her middle she pushes off my chest with her back feet and shoots out of my grasp like a bar of soap in a convict’s nightmare.

I stumble to my feet and race after, not wanting her to have time to regroup.  She easily stays just out of my grasp, then, with no warning, she turns on a dime, darts between my legs, and delivers a two-footed mule kick to the back of my left knee.  My leg folds up faster than a topless bar in Tehran, and I crash to the hard, hard cement floor.  Clementine grabs my right hand in her mouth and leaps onto my back, dragging my arm around into a hammerlock.  I tug experimentally to see if I can just pull my hand free, but I can feel her feet dig into my back for purchase and she pulls back hard enough that I can feel it in both my elbow and shoulder.  “Dammit Clem,” I mutter, “I’m just trying to put your coat on.”  Clem gives a little terrier growl as she squeezes down on my hand…

Feeding the Beasties

(part III in an intermittent and ongoing series)

I shall resume my tale of a typical morning at the point where Clementine, who is being a right bastard today by the way, has gone outside.  While she offloads her metabolic byproducts, it is time for me to feed the cats.  Now, on mornings when Gypsy begins his food-yowling before sunrise, or augments it by flinging himself bodily into the bedroom door, I usually give him discount cat food we get from Sam’s Club.  This may not seem like much of a punishment unless you’ve read the ingredient label, so I reproduce it for your edification:

Ingredients: Brewer’s Rice, Shredded Newspaper, Toenail Clippings, Powdered Cellulose, Gravel, Scabs, Calcium Sulfate, Strychnine, Potassium Sulfate, Despair.

Anyhow, Gypsy’s been good this morning, so he gets his prescription weight-loss food from the vet, which is made mostly from black magic and guys who squealed on the mob.  I quickly dial the combination on the cat food safe and scoop Gypsy out some of the good stuff, then deposit it in his bowl in the laundry room.  After Gypsy minces in there, I close the door for his protection and head back to the kitchen.  Clementine is pawing at the door now, so I scoop food into Cleo’s bowl, pluck her out of the air as she drifts by, and set her down in front of it.  Past observation has shown that it will now take her anywhere from five to seven minutes to find the food directly in front of her, but I don’t have time to watch, because it’s time for Clemmy to come back in.

Clem shoots a stiff paw to my groin as I let her in, and I do my best to shrug it off as I head over to turn on the stove and get the ingredients for her breakfast out of the refrigerator.  For the next fifteen minutes or so I will be busy searing steak and sautéing mushrooms, as well as preparing a fresh green salad.  It may not sound that hard, but trust me: anything becomes a challenge when you have a sixteen-pound dog hanging off your sweat pants and snarling incessantly.

Finally  I’m done cooking and can lay Clem’s breakfast out in front of her.  She dives into the steak and mushrooms while I croon encouragements to her: “That’s it Clem, eat up so you’ll grow big and strong”.  I watch anxiously as she sniffs at the salad, because I’ve decided to try something new today: Arugula!  Clem snuffles around the salad bowl very carefully, then turns and squats over it, urinating deliberately as she looks back over her shoulder at me to make sure I get the message.  When she’s finished weeing, I scoop her up and carry her to her corral.