Fiction author Robin Brande talks about writing, reading, and other vital matters

Ugh. My least favorite change of seasons.

I have a good old dog (good now, because he is old and no longer swift enough to steal food off the counter and race into the living room and hide under the piano which is too wide for me to be able to grab him by the tail). Blue has about one burst of energy per day, and that’s enough to get him through a long morning walk. A little breakfast, then he takes to my bed until dinner time.

Here’s a picture of Blue appreciating the fact that we brought home a new puppy to torture him in his old age.

For thirteen years, today has been the kind of day Blue waits for. Because today was the beginning of baby bird season. You can tell because suddenly they’re everywhere, their bald little bodies sprawled beneath trees–usually those tall palm trees that little flightless babies must not realize are so far up.

Usually the score is pretty predictable. For every bird that I see in time and jerk Blue away from, he beats me to at least four others. It’s been the source of much . . . disagreement over the years. Blue doesn’t seem to understand–or care–that every time he gets a good bellyfull of baby birds, he ends up with some horrible, disgusting, gaseous intestinal disease which requires me to shove pills down his throat twice a day for a week and a half. But apparently it’s worth it. It must be like Girl Scout cookies–the fact that they’re available only a few months a year makes them that more precious.

Anyway. Today for the first time ever, the score was Robin 3, Blue 0. Which makes me both happy and sad.

Sad because the poor old guy is either too blind or too slow or hard of smelling to have noticed the delicacies before I did. And yet so happy because there are few things grosser than having to dig a dead bird out of Blue’s jaws-of-steel. Even if I get the jaws open–which is very rare–there’s still the matter of having to shake his mouth like I’m trying to get the last crumbs out of a potato chip bag. And then the mangled bird might drop out, and the moment of triumph is so brief, because Blue always snatches it right back up again before I can kick it away. And then he looks me in the eye while he chews.

But maybe today is an indication that Blue’s and my relationship can go gently into that good night. I’d rather we spent his waning years/months in this kind of gauzy light, where it’s just a girl and her first dog, and she has loved him all his life. We’ll conveniently forget about the time he broke into the cleaning supplies and took out all the SOS pads and demolished them all over the house. And the way he hits the blinds over the kitchen door to let you know he wants to go out, then as soon as you get up to open the door he sneaks behind you and steals the food off your plate–the whole thing was a trick. Or the time he got into my step-daughter’s Barbie collection and beheaded them (”If he can do this to Stacy!” she wailed, “think what he’ll do to us!”)

No, it’s the theory of recency–what happened last sticks. So if he can just be mellow for a while, maybe I’ll always remember him this way. Ha.

I understand cats are even grosser–bringing into the house little “gifts” that might not quite be dead. The worst Blue ever does is smuggle in lizards with their teeny feet poking out of his lips. He hides them under his tongue in case I pry open his mouth. Like I’d want to.

Which reminds me–it’s just starting to be lizard season now, too. Maybe this year they’ll have a chance. Stay tuned.

Technorati Tags: Dogs, Pets

Posted on Monday, April 17th, 2006 at 8:01 pm under Dogs . Subscribe to responses: RSS 2.0 Comment Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.