↓
 

Lobos Locos

lupine lessons on keeping apes

  • Blog
  • The Pack
  • The Sniffing Room
  • Wolf Resources
    • Advice from a Wolf
  • Photos
Home→Tags city

Tag Archives: city

Cherchez la Chienne, Part 2

avatarPosted on October 12 by AmaruqMay 21, 2017  

Not long after I came to our den in Garneau, Pack Leader and Mistress decided to hold a Party. You’ll recognize it, Puppies—it’s like a Howling. Humans need to socialize, just as we do. They collect a lot of food and drink and bring it all to one place, where they stand around in clumps and talk out loud while music is playing, sometimes from sundown until deep into the night. Both the males and females will move from clump to clump, sitting down, then standing up; then sitting down again with the next person. At any Party worthy of the name, the music moves them to dance or at least jump around in pairs, leaving those without a partner at the edges of the group, pretending they don’t care. I used to think this was the human version of puppy play but now I understand that the Party is part of the mating ritual. Humans hope to find a mate at a Party. That’s also where they sort out their dominance issues. For us, it’s so simple: all we need is a place to roll and tussle, with maybe a stick or bone to play with. For humans, it’s complicated: a proper Party means ceremony, a big kill, and a lot of that funny flavored water that makes me sneeze.

Neither Pack Leader nor Mistress had chosen a mate yet and frankly, I hoped, in my puppy days, that Pack leader never would. I was selfish, as puppies are, and wanted my new mom all to myself. Fortunately, she didn’t seem too eager for mating rituals. “Meet my puppy,” she said proudly to several male friends in the first weeks of our relationship. I sniffed them all politely. No worries: all but one grizzled old dog, who smelled rather pleasantly of the forest, were less dominant than Pack Leader—or me. I could curl up at her feet and take a nap when they were around.

Mistress, however, was another kind of kibble. She was seriously into the mating game. “You don’t understand!” she wailed at Pack Leader as Chichi, alarmed at her distress, slunk behind the couch and hid. “I’m the poorest in the class! Those girls spend more money in a week than I have for the whole semester! And their clothes…they don’t come to class looking like hippies! You can do that in literature classes but you can’t pull that off in med school!” She began to sob. “I’ll never make it to the end of the year—I just don’t have the money! And I’ll never make it with the guys, either! You watch—not one of them will date me! Especially not…not Laird….”

Pack Leader made Mistress a cup of tea and sat her down. “Listen,” she said as I snuggled under the table near her and Chichi watched warily from his safe little niche, “we’ll get you some really nice clothes—”

“I can’t afford it! Have you seen my budget? There’s just enough student loan to pay rent and food.”

She began to wail again, all about how there weren’t enough milkbones to go around and nothing good would ever happen to her again. Pack Leader stopped her noise with a single question: “Have you ever seen anyone in our society starve?”

I guess Mistress hadn’t, because she shut up. “Well, then,” Pack Leader continued, “how likely do you think it is that you’ll starve if we spend a little of this money on making you look good?”

This must have been the perfect argument, to judge by Mistress’ lessening sniffles and her suddenly hopeful look.

Continue reading →

Posted in Book Excerpts, Wilderness Management | Tagged animals, city, excerpts, family, food, hunting, pack dynamics, parties, True Woods books, wolf-dog, wolf-dogs, wolves | Leave a reply

Garbage Day

avatarPosted on February 8 by MajorOctober 12, 2012  

The whole neighbourhood, street or forest, knows Garbage Day has switched to the second morning after the Weekend. Every Fur Person, whether in the Woods or in Town, knows when the Weekend is over, because that’s when the little apes toddle off to their school again.

We had just come off a huge Weekend, when the baby apes stayed in their dens and played with their parents and one another for more sunsets than I have paws to count with. If memory serves, they do this after every winter solstice. I’ve noticed that after any longish Weekend, Garbage Day changes—a habit that hasn’t escaped the notice of our Woods neighbors, either.

My den’s Garbage Gift is pitiably small—just one bag. But this particular bag was special. Pack Leader had packed some turkey bits in there, along with only slightly moldy cheese rinds and some sweets she said were Bad for Dogs and People, whatever that means. It seemed a shame, but Pack Leader feeds me so gloriously twice a day that I don’t ever quarrel with the offerings she sets on the curb on Garbage Day.

I guess she was still in a festive, generous mood from the big solstice Weekend, because she set our bag out on the curb just before we went to bed, offering our woodsy neighbors a chance to paw it over, as it were, before the Truck arrived in the morning to end the feast. She set it down; I blessed it with a bit of peemail as we ended the Evening Walk, and we went to bed.

Our snooze didn’t last long. Caterwauling, screeching, and a series of annoyed grunts woke us up in a hurry. Pack Leader hustled herself into some semblance of proper pelts and threw open the bedroom window, as I clambered stiffly onto the window seat. What a sight!

My furry friend Cranberry, who weighs about four of me, was grunting and weaving like a drunk, waving at our Garbage Gift with paws the size of my dinner dish. “I can’t sleep!” he complained. “All this noise! All this light! I need a midnight snack!”

“You think you’ve got problems!” snarled Princess Pusscat. (I tell you, if you haven’t heard a snarl from a cougar, you haven’t lived!) “I’ve got kittens to feed!”

Continue reading →

Posted in Back in my Day... | Tagged animals, bear, city, cougar, food, garbage day, Silva, wolf-dog, wolves | Leave a reply

Los Lobos Locos

  • 1 Amaruq
    • Cherchez la Chienne, part 3
    • Cherchez la Chienne, Part 2
    • Cherchez la Chienne, Part 1
  • 1 Blue
    • Taming the Beast: dealing with apes when they first wake up
  • 1 Major
    • Cotacachi Butch
    • Escape to Doguador
    • Paw Prince of Profissey
  • 1 Tyee
    • A book in a cloud?
    • I Wuz a 56-year-old Virgin
    • Wolves in the Kitchen

Recent Comments

  • Barb on I Am Technowolf — Hear Me Growl!
  • Michelle on Doggisattva of Compassion

Follow Tyee on Twitter

My Tweets

Links

  • Doggy Idol

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1 other subscriber
©2023 - Lobos Locos - Weaver Xtreme Theme
↑