Today’s the day! Pack Leader says my ebook is out!
I sound excited but actually, I can’t find it. I sniffed all around the Den for this ebook thing, which is supposed to have my picture on it–no luck. Maybe my ebook is outside? I went to the door and whined, because it opens inward and I haven’t mastered how to do that by myself…yet.
Pack Leader tells me humans live seven years for every one of ours.
In that case, I told her, I expected seven times as many treats for my eighth birthday this month—however many that is! (I don’t do timeses.)
Little did I know I had an extra-special treat coming my way…on four cute little bitchy paws!
We were visiting my favorite set of neighbors. Deb and Scotty are my personal faves because Deb always has goodies going on in the kitchen and she is one of the most generous humans I know when it comes to feeding wolves. So there I was, being petted and feted by half a dozen humans around a backyard barbecue, when a good-looking, aromatic young miss poked her ears above the garden wall.
I heard myself whine with longing.
Darned if she didn’t come down to our level, followed by her human. Wow! She smelled terrific! It was love at first sniff. I couldn’t stop following my overactive nose.
This was not my first trip to the big hunting house where Pack Leader often did her hunting, leaving me tied to the bike outside because, rather irrationally since as far as I know, wolfy dogs outperform humans on the hunt any day, canines were not allowed inside. This time, however, was different.
We ran smoothly around the parking lot to the back of the building, where Pack leader dismounted and leaned the bike against a high wire fence, the kind you can’t break apart with your teeth, that created a kind of open room next to what she called the loading duck. As far as I could sniff, there was no duck in the enclosure but my nose told me astounding news: that wire-bound room was full of good food. Also some food that had passed the yummy-in-the-tummy stage and was well into the good-for-a-roll stage, a category that I had not thought interested Pack Leader much.
Apparently I still had much to learn, for Pack Leader climbed that fence quicker than a raccoon, our bags slung around her neck. “Stay,” she told me, unnecessarily—I wouldn’t have missed this for the biggest, juiciest marrowbone in the world. I watched her technique with fascination. Her front paws scrabbled through the chest-deep pile of stuff, unearthing already-butchered-and-wrapped cow and chicken and fish from under the mountain of bags of greens and fruits. Vegetables didn’t interest my nose at all but they made her smile. Somehow she had known that all this stuff would simply be waiting for her. “We’re the first ones here today, o mighty fellow hunter!” she crowed happily; then swore as she stepped on something crunchy. A box of eggs dripped yellow goo—that should bring the raccoons running. ‘Oh, wait—there’s more….” She discovered two more egg boxes, intact. “Don’t they know that eggs stay good for months?” She packed them carefully into her backpack and then scrambled up the fence, hanging our packs gently from the fence top before dropping, back paws first, onto the concrete.
I wagged my tail hard to show my admiration and stood patiently while she strapped my load onto my back. Apparently I was carrying all the greens and fruits, so that I wouldn’t be tempted, I supposed. “Silly,” she said. “Your back is too young to carry all this heavy stuff. But just wait till you’re all grown up—you’ll work for your supper then!”
That sounded like good fun to me. The husky in us always appreciates a good workout. This expedition had been just a quickie. Pack Leader had saved a lot of time by using the grocery’s back yard instead of going in the front door and having to kill and catch all that food by herself! I was proud of her. Couldn’t wait to show off our prowess to mistress and Chichi.
We were half a block from home, just passing the house where a certain male human named Randy lived with his dog, Mary Jane, when I was hit full in the face by the most compelling scent in the world. Instantly intoxicated, I bolted towards its source, jerking the leash out of Pack leader’s unsuspecting hands and clearing a fence twice my height in the time it takes to crunch a pork bone. Once inside the fence, my leg rose up of its own accord and I peed on every upright thing in reach. I was a canine possessed, a monster whose paws scrabbled madly at the door, which rapidly failed under my onslaught. There were no thoughts in my brain, no social rules, no dreams of treat-treats or fears of being a B-A-D D-O-G. Somewhere behind that door was the object of my desire, whatever it was, and my entire being was hell-bent on securing it.
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.
