April 02, 2007
Convalescing Seti
Seti is drinking freshly prepared chicken broth. He is eating rice and chop biscuits, stewed chicken meat, skillet parsnips and poached eggs. After each meal, he lets me hoist him gently out the back door and rest him next to his favorite boxwood, to pee. When I return him to his bed, he proudly growls like a fiercely independent old man as I lay him atop his heap of blankets. He will sometimes leave his wicker bed in our bedroom and hobble into the living room to endure the loud music the guys are recording, or accompany me to smell the paint fumes in the room I am painting. We have a temporary bed at the ready in each room, and he treats each as his favorite, so long as we are nearby. Rebuilding leg bones, after all, is a family collaboration.
Posted by Steph at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)
March 31, 2007
Oh, Dear Dog
We spend a lot of time in and out of the house. The screen door flaps a lot during the day, the windows are always open, the gates rattle back and forth on their hinges.
Since our lot isn't entirely fenced in, and since we live on a fairly busy road (with the school across the street and with Spring's arrival and the landscaping trucks convoying in and out of the neighborhood's enclave) I spend a ton of energy herding children and dog about the commons, keeping everyone away from the street.
Today, however, I was chatting it up in the backyard with Alis when we both tensed to the sound of screetching brakes and heard that most awful sound which sometimes follows: the loud THUD of a broken something. And as that awful sound echoed in my frozen moment, another sound reoriented me, which was the visceral, unmistakable yelping of our beloved dog, Seti.
It didn't immediately register, the disgust I now feel at the person who accelerated and drove away down our road, leaving his or her immorality on the pavement. Initially, my brain took footnotes: Driver has continued driving down road. Sounds like a truck, possibly a white 4x4. I've seen a hundred of those today. Seti looks allright. His hindquarters, something is wrong with his hind legs, etc. But I'm sitting in my bed now, looking over at our lucky dog who escaped death once more (twice this year he has been hit by a car) and who is sleeping soundly through his trauma. I'm wondering how a person can be so selfish. What did they think I'd do? All I would have liked was an apology, an acknowledgement.
People can be so disappointing.
He is okay tonight, asleep in his cardboard box atop a discarded king-sized comforter. If I crouch beside him, his pupils function, taking in my expression and gestures. He sits motionless, licking his lips occasionally, his way of acknowledging my sympathy. And then he'll lay his head back down. I run my hands along his back, searching for a growl or grimace, but nothing. Just a few cuts on his feet, black tiremarks on his beefy hindquarters, ten intact toes. A short, tucked-under tail. I worry about internal bleeding, embolism. But otherwise, I think he's okay.
Mean, mean hit and run driver. Have fun with your bad karma.
Posted by Steph at 09:18 AM | Comments (1)
February 19, 2007
Our Third Child
I read somewhere, ten years ago when we were puppy-surfing, that a Jack Russell Terrier is like having a perpetual three year-old in the house. Well, that's pretty true. Seti, our dog, is all about the "now" and the "me" and balls and toys. He doesn't always share; in fact, he's always hoarded his own ball at the dog park, fending off dumbfounded pit bulls and retrievers five times his size, just by the obnoxious tang in his snarl. And, just like any preschooler, you can distract him off the nasty scent of a dead rat in the backyard just by saying the magic words "where's your ball?" It's so easy.
Ball. Ball is life. Well, ball is second to frisbee, but we're out of frisbees right now. We have two chronically wet tennis balls (you can see why, above) and one racquetball (a far superior choice to all manufactured dog toys for the medium dog set). Seti will carry the ball around the house, right under your feet, hoping you will throw it. When you sit down to talk on the phone, he will drop it at your feet. When you try disapppearning into the bathroom for ten minutes, he'll unlock the door with his razor sharp Jack Russell perserverence and drop the ball at your feet. And certainly, when you slip into a nice warm bath, ready to erase the day's grime off your body and soul, Seti will come and drop the dirty ball into the bathwater. Then he'll sit and stare at you imploringly, his brown eyes now big obsidian orbs, penetrating their voodoo into your weariness, and there's no way to resist him: you find yourself throwing the ball this way and that, trying to outwit the bastard but damned if he doesn't catch your every curveball! He's a machine. He'll do this all day. And here he is, twisting Chas' arm in the new bath.
Posted by Steph at 11:07 PM | Comments (4)