"Slingshot"
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EAU DE DOGGIE 21 October 2005 Years ago, the year 2000, in fact, Steve came to stay with us for a few days and later when some comment had been made by someone about our house smelling like "dog," I asked him about it and he said that yes, it did, but that he was just too polite (bwahahaha) to mention it. I guess when you live in a place, the smell of that place becomes the smell of home, whether it's the garlic wafting up from an Italian restaurant underneath an apartment or the perfume of flowers in a home where fresh flowers are always in evidence, or the smell of a cat box or a bird cage, or a strong disinfectant or cigarette smoke...or dogs. Whatever we live with becomes our comfort smell, like the smell of a security blanket when a toddler goes off to sleep with it under her nose. It is so much who we are that we never really notice it. We open the door and nothing smells amiss. It's just "home." Despite the fact that we've had dogs most of our married life, this house has never smelled "doggie" to me except when we had puppies with nonexistant toileting proclivities . However, the next time that Steve was coming to visit, I tried my best to de-dog the place, scrubbing and spraying and putting in lots of room deodorizers. I couldn't tell if I'd succeeded or not, but he said it was an improvement. Well, I'm sitting here in my office with two dogs at my feet and lemme tell you, that even for ME, the doggie smell is very strong.
I don't know why Slingshot has such a strong eau de doggie about him. He's a very clean dog, but there is just no denying that he fills the air with "dog." It's not an unpleasant odor, if you like dogs, but I can see that I would have to do some preparations to de-dog the place if we were to have guests. Fortunately, we rarely have guests. Slingshot also, on his first night here, had quite an impressive gas emission. I don't know what he'd been eating during the day, and he'd only had a couple of scoops of puppy kibble for dinner, but oh my was that fragrant. It got so bad, in fact, that I actually had to leave my office to let it air out a bit.
Slingshot reminds me of the old joke about someone being so big that when s/he sat around the house, s/he sat around the house. Since he still considers himself a lap dog, he obviously is unaware of his size (he's a Lab/Great Dane mix). He also has not yet realized that I am his temporary goddess and that his whole life should be devoted to leaping up the moment I am in motion to see if there is anything he can do for me, the way Sheila does (Sheila doesn't usually do anything for me, but she does leap to attention when I'm on the move). Thus it is that he settles himself comfortably between my desk and the door to my office, firmly wedged between the desk and the bookcase, completely blocking the entrance. When Sheila does this, she's on her feet the second I think about getting up. Slingshot hears me get up and he looks at me with this rather laconic expression as if to say "oh--is it you?" The dog trainer told me not to let Sheila walk in front of me, to impress my role as the dominant one in the pack by making her stand aside until I passed. Try doing that with an elephant lying in your path. Slingshot did not read the same dog training book. I'll prod him with my foot and tell him to get up while he looks at me with an "are you talking to me?" expression on his face. Finally I climb laboriously over his body and once I'm out the door, then he decides that maybe there is something interesting that is going to happen, or something good to be eaten and he'd better investigate. I've gotta work on that "goddess" thing.
I checked the ranch web site, and it is definitely worth looking at. It will bring tears to your eyes. It's the Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary for disabled animals. Please check it out.
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PHOTO OF THE DAY
He really does think he's a lap dog! |
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Created 8/15/05
There was a possibility of my taking
a 10 week old blind puppy named Haley, in order for Sheila to help teach her "how to
be a dog," but Ashley said that the puppy is being flown to Montana to a ranch for
disabled animals. But before she left own, she stopped by for a quick visit.
She's an adorable, fearless thing who will absolutely blossom at the ranch where
she is going.
