Pappy is our mustachioed terrier mutt, with the bandy-legged gait of a cowpoke and the grizzled mug of a chuckwagon cook. These are his ongoing adventures...
One of the lessons I learned from the Charles Atlas ads in comic books is that skinny pukes get pushed around. This is a sad fact that Pappy has discovered over the years. While they were closer in size when Pappy first met Jack at the dog park, Jack now has a solid 30 pound advantage on the Papster. These days when they wrangle Pappy starts with a lot of lunging and juking around in flashing terrier style, but eventually Jack just steamrolls him. Then Pappy tends to focus on ball fetching instead.
But over the past couple of weekends a dog has been coming to the park who has revived Pappy's passion for wrestling. This dog is the very image of Jack as a puppy, and is oft referred to as Jack's Mini-Me. Pappy can't restrain himself from knocking this pup down over and over again, and the pup keeps coming back for more. I have the sense that Pappy's getting a little payback.
When Pappy and I go to the dog park, I only spot him pooing every third or fourth visit. My underlying assumption in this isn't that he has extraordinary bowel endurance, but rather that I simply missed the moment of truth. Feeling that I have incurred a pretty heavy karmic debt from this neglect, I try to regularly go on poo patrol at the bottom of the dog park to pick up the miscellaneous cold stray turds lurking around the remote grassy section.
That being said, I hope that the off-leash walkers of the world register on one key message. It's awfully hard to ignore a dog taking a crap when he's on leash-- it's not impossible, but I think it's a bit harder to make that conscious decision to leave a mound in the middle of the path. When I see a mound lying there, I generally assume that in a disproportionate number of cases that was the doo-doing of an off-leash dog out of immediate sight of the walker. So, thinking about your karmic debt when you are walking a dog off-leash, be sure to pick up a few random dog-pies to fill in your quota.
One of our big projects over the past months has been to plot out our lives after retirement, and a big part of that was the plan to relocate to Austin, Texas and spend our summers in Maine. Pappy is decidedly in the equation, because he will be a spry eight-year-old when I hope to pull the trigger.
Today I was supposed to be down in Texas looking at our dream home. Near Deep Eddy pool, it is a mere hop-skip-and-jump from the great Town Lake trail. More importantly it is striking distance from Redbud Island, an off-leash area known to haters everywhere as Doggy-doo Island. So what if the house is purple and has an oddball driveway that looks like a graphic designer's nightmare (what were they thinking?), it has a great studio out back! My life of making art and tending to Pappy's every need was perfectly mapped out.
Unfortunately I got the call yesterday from our realtor just hours before I was supposed to fly down that the house is under contract. I need to go now, my wife is in mourning.
After the nice reception I got after my hiatus from blogging, I was getting ready to do a posting about how funny it is when we get home and Pappy tosses his Kong up in the air to indicate that he couldn't get a treat out. Then I started to think that that sounded familiar, and sure enough I already had done a posting on the subject. I'm realizing that my brain is only so big, and only has so many ideas in it.
I've even done the topic of repeating myself before. Blogging is like a horrible hall of mirrors.
Never one to ride stoically into the sunset, I thought I might throw up another blog posting (heh, heh, I said throw up). There's been no great reason for the dearth of postings; I've been busy at work, had some family responsibilities, and just got on to thinking about other stuff. Pappy is swell, as are my wife and I.
This weekend marks a banner event-- Pappy is hosting his first slumber party. Neighbor dog Molly has been staying with us for a few days. Pappy has slept over at other peoples' houses, and we've had dogsitters come to our house, but this is the first time we have had another dog stay with us.
Highlights for Pappy are the occasional wrestling match, the novelty of licking atoms of unfamiliar kibble from another dog's bowl, and the excuse to bark in the middle of the night because Molly barked first. Lowlights... well where do I start? Pappy was never accustomed to competing for attention, so jealousy over another dog had never crossed his mind. Never quick on the uptake, he now just looks vaguely puzzled as to why Molly is in the way when he wants to be petted. Then, of course, Molly is an irrepressible tease. She loves to steal some stuffed toy Pappy has never looked twice at, and then squeak, squeak, squeak away until he takes notice. Worst of all, she steals his ball and then flops on her back waiting for Pappy to lock muzzles to haul it from her mouth. This scene always gets hot and heavy, and Pappy is a bit of a prude.
With me posting less and less, it seems like Pappy's Blog is dying the death of a thousand tiny cuts. The one assurance I can provide is that I give every bit as much attention to Pappy as ever, maybe a bit more since I spend less time pounding away on a keyboard. We go to the dog park every weekend morning, and you have to pry me out of the house if Pappy doesn't get to come along. Sick.
So here's the question... how has Pappy changed since two years ago when this blog started? One change is that he has figured out the whole ball retrieving thing, but that came pretty early on. Another is that he's packed on a few lbs-- we went to the vet last week, and they said he is now tipping the scales at a robust, Schwarzeneggerian 41.2 pounds, up two and a half pounds from last year ("perfect" said the vet). Shortly after we got him when we raced him to the vet because his eyes were red (eek!), I think his weight had fallen from 31 to a puny 29.5 pounds.
But the biggest way he has changed is that he truly appreciates being petted. Before he was always anxious to be around us, and getting petted seemed like the price he paid for being close at hand-- it was like he could take it or leave it. He's still a bit aloof, but now, when he's in the mood, he clearly relishes a good massage. And it still seems special when he comes up, gives me a poke on the elbow, and sits down next to me for a little head rub.
This is the big day... Pappy's third birthday. We celebrated last night by having over my brother's family including Pappy's dog-cousin, Ruby. The two dogs had a lovely celebratory dinner of a cake made out of chicken and rice, with a frosting made of peanut butter and chicken stock-- nobody threw up. Ruby gave Pappy some lovely stuffed animals, then she proceeded to take them into the other room and tear them to shreds in the spirit of giving.
My wife arranged to leave for work a little late yesterday because some workers were coming to install crown molding. When they got delayed, my wife asked them if it was okay if she just left a key and went on to work. Pappy has been around construction workers a fair amount over his years with us, so she figured all would be well. She didn't realize that the dog-loving guy who had visited us for the estimate wasn't going to be there.
When my wife got to work she got a call from the workers. They couldn't get in the house. Pappy was at the front door like the Spartans at Thermopylae blocking the way to Xerxes massing armies. Except that these were just a couple of workers, and Pappy was growling and barking at them rather than lopping off heads and arms. Fortunately neighbor-dog Molly's mom was home, and we called her to come dognap our stalwart warrior while the workers went about their business.
When we got home Pappy was back to normal-- still scared of the slippery kitchen floor, and he shied away from a black trashbag that blew across the street during our evening walk. Our mighty protector.
Neighbor dog Molly is about as sweet as they come, and it's easy-as-can-be for Pappy and me to pick her up on the way to the dog park. Her owners say she gets so excited anticipating weekend mornings. With other dogs she's not at all aggressive, and wouldn't hurt a fly-- except for her aim to collide with other dogs like a sandbag fired out of a cannon, but that's not out of meanness. She's great to have along, but for one thing...
Above all other things she craves someone chasing her. I've worked around her stealing Pappy's fetching ball and running away by just bringing a second ball. But then when it's time to go, she's got the ball in her mouth, her tail is wagging away, and she won't come or let anybody corral her. We used to have Molly over in the mornings before work, but had to discontinue that because it took fifteen minutes to get a leash on her. She has always been good at the dog park about coming when it was time to go, but this weekend she played her funny chase-me game both visits. If I take Pappy out to the car she looks a little forlorn for a second, but as soon as I come back she's ready to play. The only way I have had to get her to stop is to give her the hairy eyeball and repeat "bad dog"; she reacts to faces and disapproval more than Pappy. Unfortunately that wasn't working, and I don't enjoy browbeating a dog at the park.
So now I'm reduced to bribery, or training as some would call it. I'll try bringing along a little cheese (aka "Canine Kryptonite") to see if that is a stronger draw, but I have a bad feeling that she's more interested in the game. If it doesn't work, old Molly's going to be mighty sad come weekend mornings when she's staying home.
We had a big group over last night for a dinner party. For people who have watched the Pappy movies, their first time meeting him is always a surprise. First off he doesn't talk. But even more, every other person says he's much taller than they expected.
At the end of the evening one of our guests, who had played devil's advocate at dinner by pointing out the unnatural and neurotic entanglements between pets and owners, sat on the floor with Pappy. Pappy gave him a little lick on the face, and he laughed. Then Pappy licked him some more, and he started to giggle. Then Pappy laid into him full bore, licking nose, mouth, scalp, eyeball, and wrapping up with a big old wet willie. Our guest was in such paroxisms of laughter, that Pappy got a little freaked out. But that didn't keep Pappy from licking him some more.
Today I had an unexpected day off from work, so Pappy and I took a long walk through the slushy wonderland left behind after yesterday's wet snow. The interesting thing was that, when Pappy insistently followed his nose in one direction or another, I could clearly see evidence of the spoor he was following. Prominently showing in the slush were the dog and deer footprints he was tracking like a bloodhound. When he hunkered down immovable with his nose pressed to the ground, I could see a clearly delineated yellow patch. I guess he really isn't just making this stuff up.
For Christmas, my aunt picked out a toy monkey for Pappy which seemed appropriately rugged, with sturdy rope arms and legs. Around the same time I gave Pappy a rope chew toy. I can't help but notice that the rope chew toy has barely attracted passing attention. But put that same rope in humanoid form, and Pappy's all about tearing it limb from limb before finally eviscerating it. In just a couple of days he's reduced the monkey to one leg.
The next time I'm feeling a little faint, I'm planning on keeping a locked door between Pappy and me. I'm not sure I'm even comfortable napping around him.
I kind of dread taking Pappy on a walk following a rain. The moisture brings out all the smells. This morning he spent the entire walk with head cocked down and nose glued to the ground, constantly straining to follow some scent. Every damp spot on the pavement and every soggy phone pole is alive with olfactory sumptuousness. The world stinks, and Pappy loves it.
Early this afternoon I got a call from the dog walker. She'd taken Pappy out for his daily walk, when he was suddenly overtaken by some digestive awfulness. Stuff started coming out of both ends. I've been around Pappy yakking often enough to know that it's probably a good thing that he has this outlet for the occasional indigestible tidbit, but coupled with the diarrhea was a little troubling. My wife headed home from work early, but when she arrived Pappy seemed none the worse for wear. When I took him for a walk in the evening, he seemed to have a reasonably solid poop-- aren't you glad you checked in on the blog?
It's sad to think of Pappy had such a bad time early in the day, but it gave me a great idea for a garden fountain.
A couple of weeks ago at the dog park, Pappy was engaged in one of his signature endless rounds of fetch. It was just me and one other owner at the park, and Pappy started dropping the ball at his feet-- I'm always at the end of Pappy's list.
Some folks are thrilled to have Pappy single them out, but this guy was clearly a bit diffident to being a cog in my dog's obsession. He mentioned to me that endless fetching seemed like a joyless preoccupation. I responded with a platitude about it being good exercise. He said he used to have a dog that would fetch incessantly, and he'd always felt it was associated with the dog's epileptic seizures. I said that Pappy had never had any trace of a problem, he's just terrier obsessive. He asked how old Pappy was, and I said almost three. He said that epilepsy could come on in older dogs, mentioning he thought he saw a little tremor when Pappy was waiting for the ball. Then he recalled fondly how he would sit and stroke his dog during one of the seizures.
It was a perfectly pleasant conversation, but I just wanted to yell at the guy "my dog does not have epilepsy just because he chases a stinking ball!" Even at the time the situation cracked me up... the discussion couldn't have been better scripted to drive me crazy.
Since the National Geographic Channel trimmed Pappy's dynamite footage down to just a few seconds in the "Dog Genius" program, I've decided to take matters into my own hands. Here's my cut of the TV show, destined to become a classic. It doesn't get all caught up in that science junk, and gets right to the point-- Pappy.
My wife surprised me this Christmas with a little Pappy homunculus. A veritable doppelganger, ball and all. There's a web site that specializes in making Oaxacan carvings from photographs of your pet, and the Pappy commission is featured on their site.
I'm thinking of using this as the model for my planned Pappy colossus, with his treelike legs spanning the Potomac near the Mall in DC. It could even function as the perfect pedestrian bridge, where tourists walk in the mouth and come out the... never mind.
While I was busily wrapping the dog presents for Pappy and dog cousins Polly and Ruby, a nosey little head poked through under my arm. It seems like someone likes Pupperoni. When I turned my back to do something, he started pushing around the packages with his nose. Someone 'round here has a serious deficiency in the old Christmas Spirit department.
Merry Christmas to all, and here's hoping that Pappy doesn't get into everything under the tree while we are asleep tonight.
