there are more troubled dogs and dogs who don't get along with other dogs, than i realized. the white poodly thing with the twenty something owner who says She has Issues with Dogs, when I ask if Baxter can say hi. There;s the terrier that get's territorial near her house. There's the dachsund who barks well before baxter approaches promptly the owner only to shrug and smile.
i am hardening my heart against baxter, who seems so happy to see me. He steps away as I appriach and then lurches back forward tail high, ears flapping, bottom doing a dance of it's own. He looks to me when a cat approaches (canicanicani) or at least does so in the house (outside he still chases). He bounds ahead of me as i step into the kitchen and then back again. In the morning when I get him (if i'm not there to spray him to stop him from scratching and barking and whining at 4 pm) he acts as if he's never seen someone as lovely and kind as me. He still suddenly flinches if i move toward him with a towel in my hand, or if i grab him suddenly by the scruff he cries (supposedly they took them to procedures like that - just dragged them down the hallway full grown dog, by their scruff. Wont do it again.)
Today joe the foster guy and his beagle muppet came over. muppet is the fattest dog i have ever seen in my life. a rescue from the spanish medical lab a year ago, i imagined him to be small and bouncy. he was a little taller than baxter but weighed 60 pounds instead of 30. i was so shocked i didn't know what to say but wondered if this was the right home for baxter, even though everyone from the beagle freedom project spoke so highly of joe.
Baxter was ectastic. Muppet was pretty unmoved, and didn't mind baxter sniffing and pushing and running and trying to play. Joe and I talked in the backyard as muppet nosed around and baxter tried to engage him. everything he did baxter suddenly did. the dry food that he disliked? muppet took some bites and so baxter charged right in and ate voraciously. the water he never drinks? lapped it right up after muppet. the cat food he ignores? at the bowl next to the one muppet chomped out of. it was pretty funny actually.
joe is a handsome gay guy who clearly loves muppet. when he first saw him coming toward him he just knew they were meant to be together he said, and got teary (and i did too).
He has Muppets tattoo number tattooed on his own ears.
We walked the neighborhood and talked - i was worried that muppet, who looked like a misshapen dog would keel over from the hills. Joe didn't seem to realize he was so fat. when wendy met him she said hi chubby and joe looked a little taken aback. there are three sizes of beagles he saie, a tad defensive (normal, fat, superfuckingfat?)
Joe said that he had gotten complacent as an adult - he would come home from work and wanted to veg out and didn't believe in anything passionately, until he met muppet. now he has cleaned his house of products that test on animals, he is thinking of going vegan or at least vegetarian, and he fosters beagles and other dogs in need that was really cool, i thought. i like this guy, i thought. baxter will be happy with him, i thought.
even hours later, when they are gone and we are just lying around, baxter has taken the bone he has ignored for the past few days and begun to chew on it happily, because muppet liked it.
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