July 24, 2013
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Recovery
Miss Annie went to work today, as did Riley. He is fine, by the way. His leg was a little swollen yesterday, and for a while he would lay on the couch with his bad leg propped out and supported on a pillow, which I assume meant it was tender. Annie struggled with her Bad Thing in the Back Yard anxiety all yesterday morning. Nancy and I went out and removed the tower trellis, Nancy dug up the clematis and moved out to the front yard where it can no longer attack the dogs, and filled the hole with dirt. She came back later and discovered Annie had placed a social commentary on the scene of the crime. Squat, poop, there.
Someone in the neighborhood is running an electric saw, like a table saw (it could be circular, I can hear it but I can’t see it.) Home improvements are being made. I know this because it is remarkably cool this morning, the AC is inactive and I opened my window. Dogs bark. The Ladies cluck softly in the background.
Yesterday the across-the-street neighbor (one of them) parked his motorcycle in front of his house. Oh, the reports that were filed over THAT! Motorcycle in the yard, motorcycle in the yard, Annie shouted, running through the house. Since Riley was so ruthlessly attacked by the garden, she has been on high alert. EVERY anomaly must be reported.
She has made another change recently. For the longest time when she came up to see what I was doing she would just ever-so-lightly touch me, a little fairy touch, with her nose. I tend to be dense and fairly unaware of my surroundings, so she would have given up and wandered away before I realized she was there. Then I started the treat campaign. And while she is not ‘cured’ of barking (nor will she ever be) we have managed to cut down the incessant, hysterical, running-from-window-to-window Devil at the Door mayhem that had previously plagued us (or the AC came on, the windows closed, and right about tonight we will see for sure how effective our program has been.) However. I became a reliable treat source. This is good. Then because the behavior I was trying to curb slowed down, so slowed the treats. And I noticed a change. When Annie comes to check on me now (which she does about 40 times a day more often than Riley does) she nudges me. It’s a regular nose-bam. Cheryl! I’m here! God, you’re dense.
I did something awful the other day, what was it… Oh. I cleaned carpets yesterday. Steam-cleaning the carpets is really not all that, but it takes a couple of hours, it’s hard on some of my whinier joints and it’s work, which I try to do as little of as possible. I was working on my last room and I was hot and I was tired and I was anxious to get it DONE and Annie Bananie banged the back door open and came trotting across my fresh clean–wet–carpet. The thing she had been doing before that involved all four of her feet and some very rich, black dirt. And I screamed at her. “You get the hell out of here…”
So I was suspect all last night. Cheryl can turn on you on a dime, you know. No, no, no, you can’t pet me, you’ll kill me Help, Nancy, she’s crazy again
Until dinner time, of course, when I sat down in my chair, put my food on my plate and a little black head leaned firmly on my knee, soft, loving brown eyes pleading Please Cheryl, they never feed me here…
It’s an extraordinary performance, all the more impressive if you happen to be the person who put a cup of dog food in a dish and set it on the floor all of thirty second before, and the empty dish is now less than a foot and a half from the same pressured knee.
I could die without a bite of your chicken, Cheryl, really, I could…
When she is begging for food is the only time I can pat her on the top of her head. Otherwise she chirps, hate that, have to check windows now…
