Nov. 30th
Charlie and Peppa are the two superdogs we’re stuck taking care of here while the woman of the house is away on vacation. Charlie is four, Peppa two, and both come from hunting stock (Peppa even more so – Charlie is more of a mongrel), and I would not give you this information if it did not play a role later in this story.
We’re supposed to take the dogs for a walk twice a day, as they are young and full of energy. Once we’ll walk them on the leash just to stretch their legs and let them do their “duty“, and once we’ll let them run free, Charlie for the first half of the walk and Peppa for the latter, and hopefully they’ll be tuckered out enough then to lie around and leave us alone for a few hours. I like cats.
Before I continue with the misadventures of “Chuck“ and “Peppermint“, let me draw a quick picture to show you what we’re up against:
The other day Charlie barked at the back door, wanting to be let in, but before I could reach the door, he heard something somewhere he needed to yowl at. Moving out to the back porch, I watched Charlie and Peppa storm down the steps, race across the back yard, bark at nothing I could see, and then begin to playfully maul each other. I observed this nonsense for a little, then, as they tackled and bit each other, I whistled at them to come back.
They stormed back across the back yard, raced up the steps – each almost knocking the other back down in the process – and when when they got to me I yelled “Good dogs!!“ loudly and proudly, to which they jumped up and down excitedly.
On a whim, I yelled “Go get ‚em!!“ in my command voice, and wouldn’t you know it? They stormed down the steps, raced across the back yard, barked at nothing, and then resumed gouging each other again. There is no doubt in my mind I could have kept this up all day, but I had things to do. I decided they were “mentally challenged“ and went back inside.
During our long walks, when we drive to the hills with them, the routine breaks down like this: on the way there Peppa girlie-whines the entire time, we arrive and we let the dogs out, Charlie free from his leash at first and Peppa not. If they’re both allowed to run free they won’t come back until 2035. Charlie takes off – but only to pee his Three Drops – that’s his nickname: every twelve meters three drops. Charlie is a typical boy with no imagination of his own so he needs to play “fetch“ or he will short-circuit, maybe, and his peabrain will melt. After anywhere from two to five kilometers, in which Charlie has fetched the stick at least one hundred and fifty seven times, and peed three drops another one hundred and six times, it’s time to switch. The switch only goes smoothly if Charlie can be tempted to come back and enjoy a biscuit, while Peppa whines because she, too, wants to run free, because she wants a sixth biscuit, because she wants those scary afternoon clouds to go away, oh, she’s got millions of reasons to whine. So they both get their biscuit, Charlie is leashed up, Peppa is released, and after one ear-piercing yelp, is gone.
One of the first times we took them for a walk we let Charlie “run free”, or: “run back and forth” free, and tried to grow ourselves accustomed to Peppa’s whining. “When do I get to run free?” she seemed to whine. And, “what if he never comes back?” Or, “Why does Thursday end in a ‘Y’?” Maybe. At any rate, on this day Charlie was gone a little longer than usual, which meant that Peppa whined ever more fervently, until finally O my God can it be yes it is! my friend has finally returned!!! And Peppa half-whined, half-cried, half-jumped up and down excitedly, which is a lot of halfs, and runned to greet her best friend heroically returning. Unfortunately, as I’ve implied, Charlie always has a fetched stick in his trap, and promptly drilled Peppa in the face with it. It could have been a real Kodak moment.
Peppa is a typical girl and has an imagination and knows what to do when she is not leashed up and doesn’t have to chase a stick, and does.
Back at the car later we wait anywhere from ten minurtes to an hour until the little lady notices she’s completely alone in the woods and makes her way back. Did I mention I prefer cats? See, Peppa likes to hunt, and as soon as she sees a blade of grass bent suspiciously, she’ll start yelping and “chasing the scent“. Which can continue for a while. Once she disappeared into the bushes “chasing the scent“ and came back an hour later without her collar, which actually had been tight enough around her neck. Wish I had a video of how she got that off!
The short walks are kind of amusing because Charlie has to sniff everything Peppa does, pee where Peppa has peed (three drops), and, when Peppa puts her front paws up onto a wall that marks property lines, he does to. He could miss something. They have also obviously never seen “Ghostbusters“, and aren’t aware of the dangers of crossing the streams, because they crisscross paths every eight minutes and get their leashes tangled.
The other day we came back from our long walk and about two hundred meters from the car my wife and a friend of ours got the dogs leashed up unusually early. Peppa had come back and it had just worked out that way. I had been hanging back with my daughter, and my wife and our friend were waiting for us, primarily because I had the car key. When I finally caught up to them some two-odd minutes later both dogs went nuts, jumping up and down, Charlie putting his front paws up on my abdomen, then both of them cuddling excitedly around my legs, because even though I had been with them every step of the way for the last five kilometers or so, they had blinked, maybe, and apparently were somehow convinced they would never ever see me again but O Joy!! there I was.
I like cats!
The all time low was near the end of our stay when my daughter and I took Peppa and Charlie, respectively, for their short walk. We made it along the path across the street for almost three kilometers before turning around and heading back, and, almost immediately, my daughter noticed others walking towards us. Upon seeing that they also had a small dog, I tightened my grip on Charlie’s leash. I had just enough time in that half-second to fall completely in love with what must have been the most beautiful puppy in the history of the, like, Earth, before Charlie decided to go for the kill. He tried to run – no dice. My grip was too tight on his leash. He really tried to run – no go! I had pulled the leash back so his front paws were no longer on the ground. Then he went completely apeshoot and started twisting and writhing – I felt as though I was trying to reel in a swordfish – and it was then that I felt his collar slipping. Gulp.
I couldn’t see anymore what the people were doing, or my daughter, and did the only thing I could think of, right as he tore himself away from his collar:
I sat on him.
Well, at least we had something to laugh about later. And the puppy was not harmed in any way , thank God!
The reason I’m going into such detail about the dogs is because I don’t really want to do my hill runs today and I want to procrastinate, and because even when their A.Q. (Annoyance Quotient) is at its absolute zenith, I remember what it was like to be young. Charlie, especially, is talented in this regard-he’ll pull and tug and grind his way forward when he’s excited, no matter the odds, no matter how steep the hill is, with a power my wife and daughter have trouble handling, and this reminds me of the power I have inside me to push and grind my way up over the odds and obstacles I face no matter how difficult they appear to be, if I only release it. I just have to remain true to my roots, the way Charlie (and Peppa) are true to their hunting roots and are always ready to “give chase“.
But physically, as well, I’m tied to that youth, that power, and I’m forced to perform at the level of a .. what’s dogs? times seven? twenty-eight year old. They’re both keeping me young and plucky despite how my wife’s training plan tries to age me.
So yeah, I’m grateful to these goofy Wonderdogs for helping me to achieve my goals and stay on course.
Did I mention that we caught Peppa the other day licking another dog’s feces?
I like cats.