Sunday, March 29, 2009

The Rainbow Bridge

It's been one year today that I lost my friend Duchess.

I remember like it was yesterday; how I couldn't bare going into her house because I knew she was ill. I'd stand on her back porch not daring to enter no matter how the tasty and familiar aromas reached out like tendrils from the backdoor and tempted my nose and stomach; the promise of food could sate my ready belly but the heart break I new would one day befall us all is what would fill me. It is a secret she and I held alone, a secret I longed to share and it was at those moments the chasm between Mom and me was the greatest; I needing so to tell Mom but having no human words, I remained silent.

Mom would grumble at my refusal to enter, grab me up wholesale and bring me into the light and warmth of the house. I would go to Duchess sniff her ears; ears that still moved like radars tuning into all of her surroundings enabling her to process her world via her heart and express it through the folds of skin appearing around her eyes as she smiled up at me, eyes I would kiss. I needed to go be with Mom, to mend my breaking heart, pull together it's unravelling strings that threatened to leave my heart and me in pieces.

On march 29th 2008 Duchess left us for the Rainbow Bridge, she's okay, waiting on the Rainbow Bridge to be reunited with her family and friends.

It took me more time to be able to reenter her house after she was gone. The loss of a great friend is a great loss indeed. There is a place in the house that holds her picture, at my height so I can see it when I need to. Sometimes there are biscuits shaped like bones or hearts left near her picture.
It's okay to eat them.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Tuna Surprise

I've got to give it to Dung Bug, he made a great score this afternoon, Mom didn't even know she'd been hit. I'm still in a state of shock and awe at the speed of which Beetle moves on those little truncated stubs he calls legs juxtaposed with the speedlessness of Mom's apparently equally truncated slug she calls a brain. She's seriously slow on the uptake.

Apparently when all of Inigo's unfettered, undisciplined, careless energy is condensed into his four sausage limbs and pea sized brain it can be channelled into what can only be described as a food thieving laser of world domination proportions. It need only be focused on, say, a victims cheese and zap the cheese is gone, the victim is left wondering if they ever pulled cheese from the fridge in the first place. It's fairly remarkable to witness.

Mom was retrieving food stuffs from the refrigerator I was being super vigilant; my need to keep my eye on food over-road by my desire to keep my eye on Mom, I kept myself safely within the drop zone for any potential accidental releases, the heal of bread or a little piece of cheese. She placed a slice of cheese on the edge of the table and brought two slices of bread to the toaster. Busying herself with the toasting Inigo focused his laser on the cheese slice.

His stubby legs deployed his brick of a body over my head with surprising slowness; my brain dragging all of my eye's images through thick syrup before processing them in my brain, landing on the kitchen chair as effortlessly as a gymnast mounting a balance beam, with grace and hardly a whisper from the pads of his feet. I held my breath and stared as his canines hitched to the back end of the cheese slowly dragging it curling into his open maw. I could almost taste the cheese as the slice folded in on it's self and lingered for a moment in my view before it slid down his throat to swim with the belly swill of prior consumptions.

The room was still moving like a thick slow fog as Inigo unfurled his tongue from with in it's chamber of horrors and protruded it's length for the tuna bowl; he slowly turned his head, mocking me as our eyes met, he gave his full attentions to the bowl. His muzzle sank beyond the rim as he lowered his head into the mechanically processed fish, fragrant onion and dill released from the tuna mass. The sound of the fork being slung around the bowl by his tongue is a sound Mom had long ago been familiarized with. It was the sound of his undoing.

INIGO!!! Her words pierced the the sticky slowness like a butter knife, slit it down the middle and exposed the real time inside like a fresh wound. She shot across the floor to put out the little fire on the kitchen table that threatened to consume her tuna sandwich layer by layer before she could build it. Inigo made his escape and peeked around the doorway licking his lips for any last taste of the fish mash and onion and dill that might remain.

Mom examined the tuna and gave it a stir, as if stirring it changed the fact that Inigo had his grubby beak all up in it. Giving Beetle the stink eye Mom grabbed the toast and spread a layer of tuna mash on it, she reached for the missing cheese and then looked at Inigo again; from his hiding place he lifted his chin and gave a little cheesy burp.

Damn he's good I said to myself. My stomach, an empty chamber, rumbled an echoed and hungry reply.

Monday, March 23, 2009

My Beautiful Kona

I feel I am in love. She's beautiful, I see her still, springing on the glistening beach the rays of sunlight sparkling in her eyes the breeze catching her ebony locks as she kicks up the sands. I wanted for her to stay still for just a moment so I could charm her. I'm afraid I made a fool of myself, all high pitched yipping but I couldn't seem to contain myself. oh-I long to see her again, beautiful beautiful Kona my ebony laberdoodle...I think I love you.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

The Ginger Tail

It's a drizzly day the sun hasn't been able to break it's way out of the gray felted clouds once this morning. The snow from the last few days has melted into a recent memory, mostly by yesterdays rays and finally by today's drizzle. We are all having an unmotivated day.

Once when asked about her mood, my sister replied, I'm not like this, (she displayed an over smiled smile) and I'm not like this, (furrowing a deep frown) I'm like this.(pulling her mouth into a line showing neither pleasure or displeasure of any remarkable degree) This is my day today drizzly and fairly unremarkable. Since it's that kind of day, I've decided to write about the first thought that turns the edges of my mouth into a smile.

The Ginger tail:

I'm not making this up; I swear an oath, I will eat dead wrapped in rancid drizzled with curd if I'm lying.

Ginger lives in Las Vegas with Gran ma and Gran pa, she's like a showgirl dog; beautiful blond hair that smells like she came straight from a salon where they put bows on her ears and bandannas around her neck. She smells of fancy perfumed soaps and her hair is clipped to give curve to all of her curvy parts.

Ginger was walking with Grandma at the park one sunny Vegas day; the children's joy hung round the air as they swept by on their swings, sneakers plowing rows in the sand, the sun's rays warmed the walk and sucked the moisture from the grass one blade at a time and unsuspicious birds that aught to be suspicious, pecked about looking for grubs, berries and seed; every sight teasing Ginger's eye and every smell tempting her nose. All was mostly right and mostly orderly with Ginger, Gran ma and the pecking bird, when suddenly Ginger sprung herself to just about the end of her slackly leash; like she was partial to and pleased to do, she out stretched her maw and wrapped it's whole tongue filled self around a fairly sizable and unsuspicious bird just as it was given to flight. The bird was pecking grubs, berries and seeds within Ginger's reach and quite simply failed to be given to flight in a timely and orderly fashion thus finding itself looked at, sprung to, and pecked by Ginger before it could know it should be doing something about the looking, the springing and the pecking.

Ginger opened wide her mouth; in such way as to suggest she had the dislocating jaw of a python snake and folded that whole of the bird; beak, feet and asshole included, right in. Gran ma was in a fairly alarmed and agitated state, as one might suspect one to be while watching her pretty little dog with a dislocating jaw eat down an unsuspicious bird not quite given to flight; trying to simultaneously reel Ginger in and search her mind for any and all bird extraction techniques gran ma might have hidden amongst all that alarm and agitation.

Gran ma grabbed and gripped on to the wings, which were trying in earnest to continue the exercise of being given to flight, grabbed and gripped the bird the best she could which was difficult what with all the flapping and grabbing and gripping by both her hands and the unsuspicious bird. Gran ma tried to prise the bird from the confines of Ginger's over filled dislocating jaw; which was all frothy by now with bird stuff and Ginger stuff, trying hard in a throaty gulping kind of way to shove the recently ate bird down to the catcher's mitt that is her belly. The bird, rightly unsuspicious and rightly unexpecting, was in mid grab by gran ma when it's wings popped off and remained popped in gran ma's rightly unsuspicious and unexpecting hands.

Gran ma stood for a moment, looking at the wings disembodied and plucked resting in her hands all popped off, tossed them to the ground and searched deeper among all the mental alarm and all the mental agitation for other and possibly better extraction methods than the grabbing and the plucking and the tossing of the wings which left the whole of the bird fairly well resuspicious and fairly well lodged in ginger's dislocating jaw. I'd think an unsuspicous bird that's being looked at, sprung at and pecked at might want wings not so easily plucked from the sides of it's body so that if by good fortune it found it's self on the outside of Ginger's mouth it could still be given to flight.

There stood Gran ma, plucked wings, loosed feathers all over the ground and her salon dog with it's fancy smells and fancy bows consuming a bird somewhat larger than even her dislocating jaw can comfortably masticate. Ginger gulped the bird with her own brand of alarm and agitation needing to eat it fully before Gran ma could find a way to grab and grip it again and extract the disappearing mass of feathers. The last thing the suspicious bird saw on it's way down her slick and gulping throat was it's own wiggling feet and possibly its given to flight but flightless wings laying on the ground. The bird was gulped, gulped gulped down into the acidic swill of Gingers blond neatly clipped and neatly styled showgirl mitt of a belly.

I've tried to imagine the look of alarm, the look of agitation mixed with shock and maybe some bit of awe as the scene played out on Gran ma's changing features and the look of a satisfied gastric glow playing out on Gingers, the dull realization that there would be no more gulping and there would be no more viewing on either part of Ginger or Grandma and certainly not on the part of the bird which was neither suspicious or unsuspicious by now. Finally the wonder of how exactly what went in would be coming back out; that final thought being of Grandma's alone.

How did it all come out? From what I've been told the ate bird churned around in Ginger's belly for a couple of suspicious hours and rightly found it's way out the proper hole with exception of the beak, feet and asshole which were uncerimoniously regurgitated on the back lawn. The wings? They were found the next day right where they were grabbed, gripped and tossed, then Ginger...
ate those too.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Nothing Like the Smell of Duck Hunt In the Morning

I've never felt so connected to my ancestral lupine brethren as I do on a duck hunt in the morning. I, a great wolf knight; hackles stacked on my back I'm half my size again, stalk the duck on the river's bend. Inigo Montoya, my fearless squire keeping equal time,healing my right flank on his little truncated legs. Creeping stealth our long shadows are our companions, seeming to double our army from two to four, no doubt doubling the duck fear when we finally strike down with our mighty claws and teeth.

In concert we wind the upper edge of the bank unseen to our little feathered prey. I suspect floating duck are pods or schools while their kind in flight are described as a flock; I count nine duck head. They alternately hoist their wiggly ends out of the water, tiny orange paddles kicking the air as they nibble at the mossy bits under the glassy surface. We circle wide, my squire has concealed us with the kind of stink that even suspicious ducks would assume wolves would not have on their persons. Our cover is most brilliant and the duck are obliviously swimming to and fro as we size up their old and weak. Hunkering closer still we look like two little mossy rocks near the waters edge, our subterfuge is complete.

Inigo waits my command. Alternately I smell the oil on the little ducks backs and Inigo's cover of stink as the breeze swirls about the shore. In the corner of my eye Inigo readies himself, our breaths are of one. My chin dips like the dropping of a gauntlet. We spring. In unison we break free of our mossy rock disguises and rush the unsuspecting duck. Pebbles and sticks fly from behind our 16 flying feet of shadow and lupine fury, crashing through the water one duck after another fleeing our mad hunt of water, mud and wolf spittle. Chomping at the last duck left to die by it's oily backed water fowl brothers we crash further still into the rushing river; up to our knees and ankles the cold water threatens to sweep us away.

Squire Inigo and I look at each other our feet are wet the water has bite and it seems kinda deep, I give Inigo the signal for retreat. Wolves don't like duck, wolves like squirrels.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

A letter From a Concerned Reader

Gentle Reader, I must ask your forgiveness before advancing this paragraph further. Inigo has been most persistent in the inclusion of some of his musings. I regret to inform you that I have given in and what follows is what is foremost in his little pea sized brain. i instructed Beetle as to what one includes in a journal: delightful or troubling events, funny situations or memories or maybe musings such as mine, I am of a poetical nature.
I limited him, however, to one sentence it follows. It follows.
The mind of Inigo:
" I'm afraid my poop will get stuck to my butt."
Good grief my brother's a maroon. I have no more to share. I've come down with a headache in my eye. I need to take a nap.
Dear Ricky,
Was the Mind of Inigo really the product of said deranged mind? I think not. To judge by your musings I take it Inigo wouldn’t care a wit about such trivial matters, unless it was to actually encourage the adhesion of a smelly mass to his bottom. What better way to maintain his often noxious odor. No, upon further contemplation I feel any normal creature would fear a dirty bottom - it is that very fear that motivates a certain level of hygiene after all. I therefore think that in this case you are projecting your own fears onto the unwitting, albeit smelly, Inigo. Go easy on the little guy. He's probably trying to please you in the only way he knows how... unless of course it involves food. Then you're on your own.
A Restless Reader
Dear Restless Reader,
You sound like a very intelligent person with a keen insight to the inner workings of canines as well as the humans around you. However; there's always a however, I think if you would have had a little brother or sister you might feel differently.
Might I ask you for to put your human self into my little schnoodle body and walk in my paws for one day and experience what I experience to feel what I feel, to hear what I hear. I suspect you would last moments in my body and flee at the first stripping and shredding of your delicate leg hairs.
Imagine having a cute, sweet little sister; it goes without saying your fond of her and there's mutual love for each other, but she is like a pervasive ringing in your ears; unnoticed by those around you, benign health wise, annoying nonetheless.
Imagine then having to share a room with her as she putters about making her noises. She getting into your things; hoarding, losing or breaking them. Blah, blah, blah she persists while you want peace and quiet. Think for one moment what it would be like sitting in a chair minding your own business watching cartoons and she walks up and socks you in the nose. You know you aren't supposed to hit, complaint seems futile, sometimes ruffing her up just enough to scare her straight without it actually being categorised as a beating in your dad's eyes.
Reader can you for a moment understand? Chances are you are the older sibling of a younger brother or sister and if this is so, I think you may feel my pain.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

The Vigil

I lie on the bed, facing the window, watching the sky turn various shades of blue like my hearts longing as I wait for Mom's return. As soon as hear her I can peek out the curtains, hoping she looks up; maybe to see me waiting, my tags flashing in the moon light, even if she can not see me fully, she'll know I wait. Inigo says I'm a tool and goes to find trouble. I warn him, he may miss Mom, but that news seems only to hastened his retreat into other rooms.


We live in an old house without a bedroom door, Mom's made a sliding one out of a panel of wood and it would appear she left it ajar once again. The benefit for me is I am not sequestered in the room with Beetle. The benefit for Inigo is he has the run of the house. There is no benefit for Mom.


I can hear him rummaging in the bathroom garbage. He's brought me a toilet paper tube, or maybe it's for a new hoard pile, who's to say. I, however, plan on ignoring him and continuing my solitary vigil. Mom neglected to push the kitchen chair in again and it appears as if Inigo has gained purchase to the table and everything on it, which just moved noisily to the floor. He really should never be let out of his box, crate, monkey cage.

Mom's still not back; Beetle's run out of trouble or the energy to fuel more trouble, his stomach sure to be full of the garbage of which he's pillaged. Inigo circles a nest into the blankets, gives a surprisingly robust belch and cuddles his paper tube. Curiously he smells of butter.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Musings

I must beg your forgiveness before you read one more word. I honestly was up against the wall without option and I sincerely apologise for any inconvenience or discomfort the following might cause.

Inigo has been showing an ever increasing interest in my writings; asking questions, mouthing my journals, eating my pens. Three have been found tortured, lying in a pools of ink within the folds of bedding beneath his nocturnal hoard piles. You can see my dilemma when he's become more persistent about including some of his musings.

I gave in. I explained at length as to what he might include; delightful observations, troubles or events he might like to share. What follows is what churns through his runt brain, such that it is.

The Mind of Inigo:
"I'm afraid my poop will get stuck to my butt."

There is is. In all it's glory. Is there any doubt, my brother 's a maroon? I have no more to share. I've come down with a headache in my eye and I'm need to take a nap.