Sixteen and a half pounds of puppy takes a lot of looking after, but the
attention is repaid. Thanks chiefly to E’s diligence, Hamish has learned the
early version of “sit,” “lie down” and, mostly importantly, “stay.” The early
version is when you praise and reward a few seconds of “stay.” E’s ingenious
move was, when making stock, to reward him with carrot tops.
At the well-puppy check I parked the same car in exactly the spot where Mac
left us. Hamish, E. and I sat outside while we waited to be called, thinking
of Parvo and the past. Well some of us reflected on those things; others peed.
He was given vaccines and whatnot and pronounced good to go. When I’m tired
or distracted or in a hurry I catch myself calling Hamish, “Mac.” I think his
full name could be Hamish McTavish. He has passed a lot of time this week
going from spot to spot in the yard putting together Mac’s history from smell
clues. Then he found an old bone. He had a bone to pick with a ghost.
He has walked by the grave several times, but Hamish is a herding dog; he
responds to motion. When the cats or chickens walk by slowly he doesn’t care;
if they run, it’s a different matter. Our best times this week were when I was
clearing detritus and pruning—constant motion. Wherever I moved, he followed,
helping all the way by, say, holding on to one of the branches I was dragging.
He was particularly good at pruning, “Oh, a stick. I can eat that…Another!
What fun!”
Those of you who have looked after a puppy will know that it’s not all fun.
And it’s very tiring paying near-constant attention. But so far, so good.
Over to you, Hamish.
The memoirs of Hamish McTavish, sheep dog of England, volume one, chapter one,
paragraph one: I was playing with my remaining sibling, the others having
disappeared behind a bush or something and…did that stick move? Was that a cat?
A new smell!…this is going to be hard to relate, even with a decent
stenographer. The journey was a blur. I made my feelings about having my life
interrupted plain…within polite limits…and then somehow I landed in a paradise
of chickenshit and tree detritus. You wouldn’t believe the volume of sticks
here, sticks up the wazoo. You could, for example, be gnawing on quite a big
one and immediately spy and even bigger one. I mean to say!
So, stick-wise this is a great place. As for chickenshit, people say don’t pay
attention to it, as if it didn’t matter but I say, when you’re at the bottom of
the dominance pile and you’re an omnivore and there’s plenty to worry about in
life, just gobble the stuff down. Yes the supply of food seems sufficient
right now, but why look gift pooh in the eye?
The top god seems to disapprove of this feasting, so I smile and nod, but when
his back is turned…get it down.
There are chickens here, one of whom, is red. She seems to think my presence
amounts to unwarranted intrusion. Ditto the cats. I’m a pretty wordly guy, I
can get along to go along, but one gets lonely in about five minutes, so why
not introduce a note of play? You duck down, you bounce up…what could be
simpler? Do any of these dim beasts understand this? Do they heck. And the
top god seems to have pretty strict ideas. Note to self, watch out for him.
The whole lot of them seem like kind hosts. My only question is what kind of
work will be required? I’ve tried rounding up the chickens, but that didn’t go
so well. I’ve helped with the pruning and with the big guy’s odd interest in
downed branches—he drags them, I bite them. Seems like a fair division of
labor. We do this odd thing I can’t quite figure out, which involves long
hikes among huge scary machines, but it seems to please him so I go along. And
you get to deposit pooh in new places, so that’s pretty good. The smells are
worrisome though, I can tell you. Apparently the neighborhood is populated by
pretty ferocious big dogs, some of them wild.
They have great stuff to bite, food included. They put a biscuit on your
pillow at night, which I think is a nice touch. But when rough and tumble time
comes around the messages are not entirely clear. What was fine with siblings
seems to bother these guys. And they speak some odd foreign tongue, which is
exhausting to learn.
They say that travel is supposed to broaden one’s appreciation of the world.
So here I am, getting mentally broader by the minute.
The chickens have decided to open a detective agency. They want to know who
introduced a potentially murderous element into their midst. Their first
client has been our two cats. Mimo is acting as Security while the others do
the detecting. She goes right up to Hamish and gives him the beady eye.
David Ritchie,
Puppyland-by-Sleepy,
The Occident------------------------------------------------------------------
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