Oh dear, oh dear, dear. The Little Black Dog is in the dining room, where she is chuffing. In the meantime a horde of Very Bad, No Good, Invasive roofers are tearing the roof off the backyard neighbor's house. It was bad enough when they were just camping out there. The LBD is forced to pace the house, chuffing. She would bark, but we yell at her and tell her to stop: clearly, we have no awareness of the danger we are in. Left to her own devises she would tear out the dog door, jump the fence and eat those roofers for breakfast, but some fool has closed the dog door.

Grrrr.

(Chuff.) (Chuff.)

We went to our dog class yesterday. Annie, who is a beginning obedience drop-out, shines in this class because her trainer owns three pit bulls, tolerates no canine BS and the class is smaller, allowing all BS to shine. Annie's owners are not doing quite as well: Cheryl got out of the car in the middle of the park lot, pulled up the leash and discovered she had forgotten to attach the dog to it. Fortunately she had fear and the hated Gentle Leader on her side, so when she called, Annie came immediately to her ("PLEASE take this damned thing off me, Cheryl") and no LBDs became parking lot pancakes. Cheryl's life expectancy has shortened another 10 years, but stupidity and mindless distraction will do that to you.

Annie is calmer these days (even with marauding roofers next door.) Her trainer says this is because we are now in charge and this makes her feel safer. This week we will be practicing 'take it' and 'leave it'. We are also signed up for the intermediate class, which begins right after this one. Theoretically (and I would appear to be more of the problem here than Annie) if we really, really master 'leave it' and 'Cheryl is in charge', Annie will eventually learn enough social skills to return to the dog park. I am okay if this never happens: I do want a dog who will follow commands, greet guests politely, avoid the impulse to dash out of the front door and on down the street (she does fairly well at this, actually) and generally behave calmly.

I think I have isolated the problem, although how helpful this is remains to be seen.

The dog is smarter than I am. Or, perhaps not 'smarter': she is more in the immediate moment. I have always been a bit drifty. Riley is just a kind of bubba dog ('yup, yup, yup'.) Annie is There. With It. Observing. Looking all the time. Did she see that? Should I alert her? Maybe I should just take care of that myself...

I forgot to attach the leash to the dog. No kidding. I put on her Gentle Leader. I pushed Riley into the back seat three times. I remembered to put the car keys in my pocket, stash my wallet, poke Riley into the back seat again, grab the treat bag and the leash...but somehow I forgot to attach the leash to the dog. I got out of the car, pulled up the leash, there was nothing on it, and there was no LBD anywhere.

"I'm sorry, we can't finish this class, we just lost the dog."

Not even 'we'. I.

Shake it off. Get on with it.

The roofers are taking a break. Once again, peace is tolerable.

We have come to the conclusion that part of Annie's genetic heritage is the hairless unspellable Mexican dog. Right now, in the height of winter, she has absolutely naked spots on her belly, the insides of her legs, her neck and behind her ears. I have accused her of trying to turn pink. Nancy did research on the Internet and determined she might have dry skin. So last weekend we bathed her in her anti-itch shampoo and then we slathered her with olive oil.

It would appear the dog has connected olive oil with the cooking process: she reacts to the stuff on my hands as if I intended to ram a stake through her body and turn her slowly over an open flame. Omigod, omigod,omigod wails Annie as she flees through the house like a Missionary who's found herself the guest of honor at a cannibals' feast. Last night I downloaded another dog book, this one about desensitizing timid dogs to the things that frighten them. My dog, the scourge of the dog park, is terrified of my hands.

In the meantime the neighbors have allowed thieves and murderers to nest of their roof. They have made their home in a big blue tarp and they hang out up there, apparently roasting neighborhood dogs and plotting mayhem. Worse, every now and then (and I know this is hard to believe) they TALK.

Every time they commence talking, the black dog charges through the dog door, through the back yard, stations herself at the base of the fence and bark bark barks to drown out their evil plot. And then she races back into the house, squats beside my chair and slyly reports, "Riley's barking, Cheryl..."

I am torn. Should I tell the neighbor that thieves and murderers are nesting on their roof? Why don't they already know? I watched an entire TV show last night where plumbers bought a fortune in electronic equipment and stalked around inside a house with unusual--they called it 'paranormal'--activity and perceived energy fields that made them feel dizzy. It seems to me that plumbers might not be required to sense a horde of thieves and murderers camping on the roof.

I personally would prefer the plumbers come encourage my reluctant drain, but it is possible I lack imagination. 

I have to tell about last night's adventure because it continues to amaze me. Nancy decided it was time for her to go to bed, so she dispensed Greenies, changed into her PJ's and went to bed. This is an anxious time for Annie because although we have taken her to bed with us every night she has lived here, which is about four months now, there is always the question: What will happen to ME????  And she begins racing around the house 100 mph, grabbing things in her mouth, dragging them from one room to the next, making crazy swirls under the couch, down the hallway, just running, running, running until I am tired of the whole performance. I say, "Come on, Annie, let's go to bed," and I walk her to the bedroom doorway, open the door and say, "Go to bed."

Nancy baby-calls, "Where's my dog?"

Annie runs into the bedroom, vaults up onto the bed, cuddles up next to Nancy and I close the door.

By the time I get to bed, Annie is sound asleep.

She used to lay awake until I got there, but that's fallen by the wayside.

I might go to bed three minutes later: she's still sound asleep. She runs into the room, jumps on the bed, wiggles her delight at finally finding Nancy after this long, torturous absence, falls over into the blankets and she's out like a light. 

Oh, thank God, they let me sleep with them again tonight. Zonk.

Every night.

Night after night.

And tonight, she'll suffer the same anxious concern all over again. But what about me? Where am I supposed to be? Oh why, oh why can't the two of you stay in the same room?

But for now she is content to chase away the roof thieves/killers. I would recognize the neighbor lady on sight--I know her name--and I know she's married. Her husband, on the other hand, is very much like her invisible dog. He may/may not still be alive, and if I've ever seen him I was not aware that he was my backyard neighbor. Therefore he may/may not be one of the thieving killers stomping around on her roof. On the other hand, I only have one-fortieth of the sense of smell my smaller black companion has, so it stands to reason, at least in my mind, that she should know that--while it is unusual for this man to camp out on his roof--he remains the man who lives next door, only taller. Or not. So far the roof dwellers appear to work fairly normal work hours which, at this time of year, happen to coincide with daylight...

I am about ready to report to the bottom of the fence and call, "Yo. Do you live here, or do you just come and camp out during the day? Inquiring minds want to know."

But I'm afraid he'll answer, "Do you know your dogs bark damned near ALL of the time? And that, 'God-dammit, shut UP' you shout from your computer chair--that's charming to listen to, too."

So for the time being I believe I will let camping murderers and thieves lie.

Life goes on in this boring place...which is a literary allusion, but I cannot remember the exact phrasing or, for that matter, the source. Given my propensity for memorization, we shall assume it is either from The Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam (unlikely) or Macbeth--both of which I was dragged through (kicking and screaming) in high school. Something something something, something in this petty place...  Macbeth. Has to be. Anyway: I was speaking for the dogs.

The dogs have honed to a fine polish the sport of Aggravating Cheryl. They do this by charging through the dog door as if the Hounds of Hell were gathering in the back yard and they bark. And bark. And bark. Riley didn't used to do this until Annie taught him how. Thank you so much, little Annie. There is a point where the responsible human begins to sense a plot afoot: she KNOWS she is not supposed to bark. Annie knows. Whenever Cheryl comes charging through the back door, spray bottle in one hand, noise-shaker in the other, all barking stops and Annie comes trotting.

Hi, Cheryl. What brings you outside today? It's a beautiful day, isn't it, Cheryl? No, I'm not coming right up to you--you have that sprayer-thing in your hand...

Riley, bless his little blond heart, knows something is afoot, he's just not sure what. I'll come up to you, Cheryl, but I'm coming slowly because I think you're up to something.

Our new trainer told us to curb unwanted barking--because never is ALL barking 'unwanted'--by saying 'Thank you' and then spraying any further offenders in the back of the head. ("This won't make them afraid of the shower," she assured us. Doesn't matter: Annie was terrified of the shower a long time before I dug out the spray bottle.) I'm sure this works wonderfully at the door where guests have come and where you yourself have hurried to defend these guests from the rabid enthusiasm of the greeting committee. My dogs rarely have visitors: when they have is a fence at the far end of the back yard that needs constant defending. It's a little more of a challenge for me to find my shoes, my shaker and the sprayer, get out the back door (even the dog door says 'floop' when a dog goes through it: the human door  creaks, groans, grates and whines, the latch sticks and requires repeated pummelling and then there is the fact of a person of enormous size  flinging herself furiously out into the cold, crisp snow...) The dogs are usually half-way back across the lawn to greet me by the time I'm actually outside. Neither one is barking. I stood over Riley and snapped, "NO!" once or twice two years ago and he knows now to bark when I'm visible, and recently I sprayed the little black on in the back of the head. Once. Which is all it takes, once. Oh, no, you're not spraying ME in the back of the had again, oh, no, and off she tears around the back yard, 35 mph because the one thing she knows for a fact about me is that I'm fat and therefore slow. She can't RUN, she whispers to Riley every day, we can do anything we want as long as we can RUN. 

At our last class, our new trainer (who works for a pet store) showed us several new toys we might give our dogs to give them something to DO rather than CHEW. I bought an orange ball with a tunnel inside it. I am to pour some of Annie's food into the tunnel and give the ball to Annie and she is to figure out how to get it out. The ball was on sale. Which is nice, because--while she does chase the ball all over the house, working her food out with each roll--the ball eventually empties. It should come with a buzzer inside that alerts humans to this systems failure, because when the ball stops dispensing food, Annie--who is a very food-driven dog--begins gnawing on the ball. Life expectancy of the orange ball: I  have no hope it will survive the week. It had some serious structural flaws within the first three days.

When we had Noomi I bought a breed-specific dog-training book over the Internet. It featured a set-up in the back yard where I would hang a tractor tire from one of my trees (I have six inches of trees in the six inch forest and they are on the far side of the back fence: all of them together could not support a tractor tire.) I remember being confused. Why would I want my dog hanging by it's teeth from a tractor tire all afternoon?

Perhaps because the **%$^((#(76 tractor tire would last more than three days. And it's cheaper than keeping a bull.

Toy update: not all that long ago I shared with you, my faithful readers, the fact that Nancy went to the dog food store and discovered that while she had amassed enough coin to purchase Riley's food, Riley had amassed enough dog points to qualify for a free bag. So she spent the money on two very expensive dog toys. Flat, faux-furred somethings with an extraordinary number of squeakers sewn within. I know this, because Annie made it her life mission to extract every last squeaker. But the first toy she dragged outside and buried somewhere in the mud. I tried: I couldn't find it. And I figured if she was THAT GOOD at hiding her toy, none of us would ever see it again.

Silly me.

She waited until the ground froze, and then she unearthed the Lost Toy, frozen like a dead thing amid decaying leaves, mud, dirty ice and what looked a lot like second-hand dog food to me and proudly, proudly, front feet prancing, dragged it bodily through the dog door and back into the house.

I grabbed it and threw it outside.

And she dragged it back in.

And I threw it outside.

The next time I saw it, Nancy had broken the cycle and the poor dejected dead thing was hung over the laundry tub when it slowly, steadily dripped dead leaves, clumps of dirt, maple tree whirly-gigs and...used dog food...for several days. Nancy said the smell alone was enough to help her find it.

I don't know where the thing is now, but it doesn't matter because now Annie has found the Treasures of Winter: broken icicles. They fall off the side of the house, where they have gathered dirt and mud and black specks and mouse turds and bat guano and she proudly brings them inside because Annie LOVES ice.

She hides it.

Behind couches and under the living room chair.

Big, impressive blocks of ice.

It would appear that, so far, she really expects she can go back behind the couch hours later and that lovely block of cold, fresh ice will still be there.

Time is not always on my side in these adventures.   

What is that? you might well ask because as a photographic subject, clear plastic is a terrible performer. It is a sheet of plastic stretched and taped over the Conservatory window to keep out the cold: the wandering black line is a dog hole. The plastic is probably 12-15 feet long (I am not a good judge of distance, but it's the length of this room, which is a long room. Or to phrase the same notion another way: it is enough plastic to seal a patio slider and then some. So the hole appeared AFTER the plastic was hung and sealed. Which means the repair was vertical and sticky. I think, actually, I did a good job, considering the Worst Case Scenarios running through my head while I did it.

Today is a whimsical beginning to the new year. Nancy and I kicked around plans to go to dinner with a casual gathering of friends in Kalamazoo when her brother called and said her mother is in the hospital again. Nancy's  mother struggles with the holiday season. It causes anxiety which builds and doubles back on her until it begins to manufacture physical symptoms. Increased heart rate. Constipation. Stomach problems. And sooner or later she calls the ambulance. Nancy's mother is in relatively good health, given her age, but her age is 95, she has congestive heart failure...it would be unconscionable to say, "Oh, you're not sick--take a Xanax and chill." So Nancy went down to the ER to sit with her brother and keep him company while the doctors determine what is/is not wrong with their mother.  

I have been on these trips, but Nancy's mother struggles with the nature our relationship and this makes my showing up...let us say...a source of embarrassment to her.

So I am home alone. I've played with my new macro lens.

(One of my first spare-gourd-parts pieces of jewelry.)

And I've tormented the dogs.

I've even photographed the garden.

And my beads.

(That really could be a little clearer, yet.)

Perhaps I'll read a book. I have downloaded an extraordinary number of books on my Kindle, of which I have actually read embarrassingly few. My Kindle is beginning to look like a micro version of my bookshelves. I blame this on BookBub, which keeps GIVING me books I only half-want. 

I could, of course, re-new my dedication to finishing the novel but...perhaps reading one will inspire me.

We can only hope.