Visitor(s)
Peter, hellhounds and I had a visitor yesterday.
Meet Nemo.
This is Nemo.
This is his Facebook photo [sic]. Nemo has more followers than most humans do.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Robin-McKinley/149327572983#!/nemo.bullterrier
(There is undoubtedly a way of bringing this up without going through one’s own FB page, but I can’t seem to claw it out of Google.)
But if you ask him nicely he may come lie on your kitchen floor in an alert manner.
THERE IS CHEESE IN THAT HAND.
Oh yes, and Alex, our southdowner, was attached to the other end of the lead. But, you know, another human. Eh. He brought her along to carry the cheese.
I ask very nicely for cheese.
Alex says she didn’t teach him to sit up. He figured out this was a way to get cheese by seeing one of her other bullies ask for desirable ingestibles like this. IT MUST BE REALLY TERRIFIC HAVING FOOD ORIENTED DOGS, SO YOU HAVE A HOPE.
Why yes, thank you, you're very kind, I'd love some CHEESE.
There's another dog in our kitchen. Havent you noticed there's another DOG in our KITCHEN?
Hellhounds were somewhat nonplussed.
Cheese? What would a dog want with cheese?
SIIIIIIIIGH. Nemo is, you understand, lying down at Alex’s request so as not to intimidate the hellhound.
Apologies for awfulness of photography. Conditions were somewhat challenging.
You're just not getting it. There's another DOG in our KITCHEN.
I am therefore going to sacrifice my serenity and repose for the greater good and lie in the doorway to the kitchen outside my comfortable bed and keep an eye on things.
And while I’m at it, I’ll protect your knitting stash. Which hasn’t fit either in that tote bag or under that table in months, but I’ll do my best.
Humans are, as we know, peculiar. You want me to give you my paw for cheese? Fine. Whatever. CHEESE.
Eventually we all went for a hurtle together. Don’t let those little short mini-bull-terrier legs fool you, the only panting in wakes going on was from us two-legs. (And Nemo weighs about the same as a hellhound—it’s just differently arranged.)
It was pretty gorgeous yesterday and partly in a foolish desire to show off some of New Arcadia and partly with some ridiculous notion that three dogs counts as a pack and if there were any roving malfeasants we would be left alone, we went across one of the big recreation grounds with grass and trees and copses and verdant whatsit and tweeting birds and a general sense of nature happening even within town borders. We don’t usually go here—any more—because it’s been repeatedly wrecked for us by off lead dogs with agendas and owners with none.*
So we sauntered up through the gate and. . . at the far end, there was a Man and a Large Black Dog. Alex immediately said, the dog’s off lead. Alex has much better vision than I do.** So she suggested hellhounds and I hug the hedgerow and she, with her bull terrier, would run interference, if interference was needed. Even I could see the bloody dog go into (you should forgive the term) bully mode: head, ears and tail all went up, and you could assume the hackles. Alex and Nemo were closer, so it went strutting up to them, all chest and attitude. And Nemo proceeded to bounce all over it. If one weren’t already furious (and worried) about the situation it would have been funny. Have I posted the ep of KES where she comments that terriers have bedsprings where most dogs have legs? Nemo, without any sign of aggression whatsoever, was bouncing pretty much as high as Alex is tall and at land speed record rate, and the other dog didn’t know what hit it. The moron of an owner was finally jogging toward the scene of the action having somewhat belatedly noticed that there was a bull terrier involved—Alex had shouted to please call his dog—and was probably having visions of his all-mouth-and-no-trousers animal being an hors d’oeuvre. Nemo has better taste.***
Nemo came away from this encounter totally jolly and pleased with himself—as well he might be, of course, but hellhounds and I were skulking along the hedgerow being delicate and sensitive and I’d rather just have a nice walk in the park, you know?
There is no CHEESE in this bed. Saaaaaaaaaaad.
* * *
* This was where the one occasion Chaos ever snarled and went for another dog occurred, I think because he thought the other dog was going for me. I was cluelessly dubbing along, not noticing what was going on behind me/us. I had clocked the dog in question but it was way on the either side of the field—it had to have a major attitude problem to cover that amount of ground to give us a hard time. Only it did.
** Alex is younger than I am. Most people are, any more. She also reads dogs better than I do, not surprising in a dog behaviourist.
*** Of course Nemo was full of cheese. But I don’t think I’d count on this.
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