subject: nothing much

I’ve been curiously unSnarlied lately, maybe because in general I’m just kind of lying low, a bit tired of worrying about dogs. At the same time, I’ve been especially grateful for both dogs now that I semester is ending and I’m looking at more days at home (yay!) and then again more days at home (sometimes a little disorienting and lonely). Last night Pearl and Kosmo were in particularly good moods, Kosmo determined to play and Pearl frequently on her back kicking her legs around as she hasn’t done in ages. They were relaxed and happy and thus so was I.

With her D.A.P collar and her latest homeopathic remedy, Pearl has had long moments of very peaceful sleep during which she gives off an energy that is bordering on the Lucy-like. This is entirely new and enormously heartening. It’s weak and fleeting, but it’s there. And since Kosmo’s recent blood tests revealed healthy liver enzymes, he’s cleared for regular Rimadyl, with the result that he’s spry and lively. (I know that Rimadyl is not without its detractors, but for now, I’m blocking up my ears to the criticism on the grounds that I can’t argue with his renewed energy, ability to rise from his feet without a struggle, and improved appetite for food and play.)

Meanwhile, I’m reading Temple Grandin’s Animals in Translation, avoiding anything to do with slaughter houses, but finding lots of interesting observations on animals and on autism, both of which interest me inordinately. Tidbits that ring true: fearful animals are also the most curious, a claim that makes sense out of what have always seemed conflicting behaviors: if Pearl is so spooked—and she is—why does go right up to something that clearly unnerves her? Dogs are predators. You can’t tell me this enough; I have real trouble keeping it in my head. But somehow Grandin is getting it in there, where it’s rattling around with other observations—for instance, Pearl’s chase reflex, which is instantaneous and really seems to have a life of its own. And I love thinking about our lives with these predators who agree to live among us not only peacefully, but with deep, loving bonds.

kerfuffle

Bones are making them loco. Those great frozen raw bones that have given me many a peaceful moment, dogs happily gnawing away, have suddenly become the source of much snarling and snarking. Last night, a full-scale fight broke out, with neither dog backing down and both of them barking and snapping their teeth. Because of all the noise they were making, I couldn’t really tell what was going on, and probably the whole thing sounded a lot worse than it was, especially after Patrick and I joined the fun by shouting so loudly that my throat hurt for the rest of the night. But when Kosmo kept coming back at Pearl, who kept coming back at him, I did what you aren’t ever supposed to do, that is, get yourself in the middle of it because you might get bitten. Having never heeded such advice before to no bad end, I stuck my hand between them and.. . . got bitten. I had two small, shallow punctures and bruised bone that got swollen and hurt quite a lot under the circumstances, but not much in the scheme of things. Still.

Kosmo has never had a flap with anybody. Sometimes he irritates other dogs by trying to climb on them and sometimes he barks agitatedly at another dog, but his only “fight” occurred when the former neighbor’s dog rushed out and knocked him to the ground, her jaws at his throat. Lucy flew into the middle of things, knocked the other dog away, then backed her out of our yard and onto her own porch, where she remained staring at Lucy until Lucy took a small , purposeful step forward and frightened the dog into the house. Lucy, among her innumerable gifts, was a big, brave dog who knew so thoroughly how to handle herself that she never got into a single fight because she didn’t have to. And that last bit was a shameless digression into the virtues of Lucy, the scope and nature of which I never tire of detailing. And as you can see, Kosmo’s fight wasn’t really a fight at all because he immediately panicked and gave way. It was, if anything, an excuse for me to talk about Lucy.

For a long time, Pearl feared Kosmo. If he snipped at her for some infraction, she’d flee, then creep back and lick his face until he seemed molified. But right around the same time that the rest of the problems escalated—and if you believe in the notion, possibly when she reached “social maturity—she began to snip back. Encounters once barely perceptible to the human eye grew larger and louder, though never as large or loud as the this time, when, perhaps because she’d been stealing everything of Kosmo’s all day long (Pearl subscribes completely to the statement, “Everything here is MINE”) he finally snapped, literally. She reached in to take his bone and the kerfuffling began. Though I realize that blaming Pearl for the episode looks dangerously like canine profiling, Kosmo’s 10+ years of living peacefully does speak loudly for his general character. Unlike Pearl, he was not looking for trouble. On the other hand, he didn't walk away from it.

After the fur stopped flying, I felt bruised in more ways than one, and it seemed to me that Pearl needed to spend the night in the pokey, sleeping things off. Kosmo needed a long time-out and a chance to think about what he’d done. I also decided that all bones must go promptly in the trash can, along, alas, with the peace of mind they brought.