Yeah, it’s another dog story…
Last night we go on our walk, something that is generally a quiet affair. 2 dogs, a girl, some poop, excessive sniffing. Easy.
Maddie has an arch nemesis. I’m not sure what brought on the nemesisitude with this particular dog. Surely, we pass a number of houses on our walk that have dogs, but this dog she hates. My first indication was only an indication of extreme interest on her part. This dog was never actually outside when we walked by but she always managed to save some tiny amount of pee to release on his fence.
I know dogs have some sort of fucked communication through their pee. I figure dog pee is the equivilent of an internet forum but more interesting and the dogs tend to stay on topic. I do wonder about urine based flame wars among the dogs, “u p like a n00b!”
If I was particularly lucky, she’d manage to save a crap and drop it by the fence. This was a particular pain since there’s a nice incline up from the alley to get to this fence and I have to go up there, secure the dogs and pick up crap. On days when karma punishes me, they both crap up there, but 4 feet apart so I can’t just grab them both.
Last night, things were going my way, Maddie evacuated herself early and seemed in a good mood. We rounded the corner and I stopped and made Ghengis go. In a few feet we’d be in the alley and with the exception of the yard of Maddie’s pee buddy, there aren’t so many options to poop. Let’s be clear, he’s had pleanty of opportunity, he just hasn’t taken it. He does his business and I am glad.
The easiest way to deal with 2 dogs while picking up dog crap is to put their leashes on the ground and step on the at the handles. I have the plastic handled retractable leashes. This allows me to keep the dogs with me but also allows me the freedom to pick up the poop in the bag without being jerked around because Ghengis has decided to play jackass rodeo on Maddie.
As I started to put the leashes down Maddie caught me by surprise and took off, pulling the leash from my hand. This is odd because when I walk her she rarely takes off after anything and if I do accidentally drop her leash, she immediately stops because the scraping of the leash handle freaks her out. Of course none of this mattered because pee buddy was out and I was to learn immediately that the exchange of effluvia between them had been done with enmity.
“MY NAME IS MADDIE!!! MY NAME IS MADDIE!!!”
“YOU! You pee on my fence and I have to go pee on it! Get off my yard! I am the boss of this yard! ME!”
“MY NAME IS MADDIE!!!!!!!”
“GET OFF MY YARD!!!!!! I hate you! I am the boss of my yard!!!”
“MY NAME IS MADDIE!!!! ME! MADDIE!!!”
This is what I imagine their barks translated into. At some point, Scooter’s owner (scooter is a dumb name for a dog so big, but whatever) stepped out on the deck to tell Scooter to shut up. He had no idea what was going on. Maddie let him know her name.
Now I have to abandon the poop and go get Maddie and shut her up. She’s announcing her name left and right which excites Ghengis and things devolve.
“MY NAME IS MADDIE!!!!!!!”
“OOOH hey! Maddie! Tell him my name too! Tell him my name is Ghengis!! Tell him my name! Tell him! Tell him I like rawhides and squeaky toys and my names is Ghengis”
“MY NAME IS MADDIE!!! MADDIE!!! MADDIE!”
“Tell him my name too!”
“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY YARD YOU FREAK!! Stop peeing on my fence! I hate you! I don’t care if your name is Maddie or Fart Fume!!
What makes all of this more difficult, besides the fact that I am truly imagining that my dog is yelling and announcing her name over and over like the idiot that she is, is that she doesn’t run up to the fence on the normal, easy to access side. No, that would have been easy on her and me. She decides she needs to take the straight line through the terraced landscaping on the side yard. Yes, terraced landscaping filled with frozen, pokey, icy, sharp little evergreen shrubs. She’s so engrossed in saying her name and having him understand that SHE IS MADDIE that she won’t listen to me. I have to haul my fat ass up the terraced side yard trying not to ruin anything in the process so I can get her down.
And drag her back down the block so I can finish picking up the poop. Then I have to prepare them for walking by the house again as that is the way home.
We get home, I go to the bathroom and it is then, at the far end of the house from the front door, that I realize she has cut her foot. I learn this only because there is blood all over the goddammed floor.
David came up and he got her in the tub and we cleaned and assessed the damage, she probably cut herself on a shrub. We bandaged it up and she looked pretty miserable.
But she is confident that her name is Maddie.