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.
If there’s one thing I learned from my time among apes, it was that some of them can be downright snarly in the morning. Even if they are the sort to be generally more chipper in the morning than the evening, they won’t bound out of bed, ready for action. They need time to fully “wake up”, they say.
I didn’t always understand this. For me, a single sound reaching my furry ears would have me up on my four paws, ready for anything. Not that I’m the aggressive sort — not at all. But I was protective of my pack, and often walked ahead as scout-wolf on our evening constitutionals, in case of danger. Or treats from a stranger, I’ll admit.
Time among apes changed me, and I found as I got on in years I’d prefer to sleep more than do other things. Still, in the morning I was awake right away — usually because my bladder called me to be so.
When I was a young thing, I’d wait for the need to go out to become pressing and urgent before dragging my humans out of bed. This, fellow canines, is a mistake. It will make your human grumpy and your walk short.
Unless you wake up with your bladder already full, you should have some time before it becomes a matter of urgent attention. Wake your human as soon as possible. They will want to have this noxious black liquid to “become alive”, as my Mistress always said. “I’m not alive in the morning without my coffee, Blue,” she’d say, patting my head and scratching behind my ears. To be perfectly honest she wasn’t alive in the morning with coffee; her best hours were always after sunset. But I digress.
