You’d think he was being murdered by Firefly, brutally murdered. This is why I take videos of them playing too, as evidence that he puts her on the ground as often as he likes, and in fact he taunts her into chasing him, and in further fact he loves every moment of it because who’s a good boy.
Got that quote from , which is actually sad if you read the whole thing so don’t read the whole thing because IT’S SPRING! And it’s my first spring in ‘Murrica since 2008, the first spring in five years that I have a yard, and over the last week or so all the things in that yard have started to sprout into new green glory. I go out there earlier every morning just to see what has budded overnight, and every morning it’s more and more, and I’m discovering plants I didn’t even know we had because we moved in in early autumn.
I love it so deeply and so thoroughly that I get the same feeling, when I’m out there poking around the shrubs and inspecting the trees and the crepe myrtles, that some people get with the endorphins of good exercise or good food or whatever makes people feel that rush of joy. Those tiny little bits of bright green growth poking out all over the branches of our smallest Live Oak tree (low enough to the ground for me to be eye-level) are like actually seeing music.
But instead of taking pictures of all of that, I took pictures this morning of Primo and Firefly during their regular after-breakfast Backyard Spaz-Out Romp Time. The only bad thing in all of this is how I feel about making Primo wait this long for a playmate – he must have been so unbearably bored before Firefly, but he never pouted about that. He’s just enjoying the good times now, as dogs do.
It is amazing that dogs play like that and don’t injure each other. I’d love to know what’s in their lime-sized brains, telling them to hold back, don’t chomp down just apply teeth this much and no more. Once in a while one of them will yelp because it gets “too real”, which always makes the offending chomper cool out and even be a little submissive for a minute.
With these two particular dogs, it’s usually Firefly who gets too chompy and Primo has to correct her, and her way of apologizing is sometimes to go get a toy and bring it back to him for taunting purposes. Today she brought the red-bandana ball and he took it from her…
…then she brought the stuffed Christmas bear, dropped it near him, and sprinted away…
….then she brought a stick and dared him to come get it.
He was too tired to care.
Sorry about the snow some of you got in the last several days, by the way. Your spring is coming and you’ll probably love it even more than I’m loving mine even though you might not have delicious nachos with peppers on them. I don’t know where that came from.
We brought Firefly home from the shelter five weeks ago today and the adjustment has been painless for all of us because she and Primo are both such good dogs that there hasn’t ever been any doggie bullshit like fighting over food or attention. About two weeks ago, they started really romping in the back yard for hours every day, which is when I think they truly bonded, but whenever that bond happened, apparently it made Primo decide he was okay with Firefly humping him constantly because for the last week or so, she has been exploring all the possibilities to that fine art. The other morning I looked out the kitchen window and she was doing this for so long and he was tolerating it so patiently that I was able to get my camera from the other room, switch it on, and record the final moments of the crime.
Don’t feel sorry for Primo. This is karmic retribution for all the dogs back in Italy who he did that exact same thing to while playing in Parco Valentino. I’d seen puppies face-hump older dogs but Primo was the first adult dog I’d seen do it, and the dogs he did it to always seemed startled and confused, and apparently even in Europe such things are odd because more than a few of the Italian humans present seemed rather appalled. But also amused because come on, if you don’t think that’s funny, at least a little funny, then I don’t know what you possibly could find funny on this planet. I mean it is a dog humping another dog’s face. It’s obviously not sexual and therefore it’s not creepy or dangerous, it’s just straight-up funny.
Here’s a classic performance of the hump-craft from 2001, Sunny and Digger:
That quote seems lame until you hear it sung while watching dogs sniff each other’s butts. Then it’s fantastic.
There was a recently of strangers kissing for the first time, which was full of hipsters and turned out to be an ad for pants or something. I watched half of it but as free-wheelin’ as I am on social issues, it still grossed me out because who sticks their tongue in a total stranger’s mouth? That is foul. Also it was cloying and I felt like some sort of political message was being peddled (OF COURSE), and seriously, enough with the hipsters, man. Dang.
But the video did a great thing and that thing is it inspired many parody videos, of which I have just discovered this gem thanks to my friend .
The scruffy little terrier is a wonder and a delight, and needs to come live with us right now.
Speaking of scruffy terriers, here’s another one I put on thanks to the lovely Evelyn F., but if you are anti-Facebook then I’d hate for you to miss out on this one, made by the same people who made the most perfect thing that ever happened on the internet (the “talking” dog who really wanted bacon real real bad).
That’s what Firefly does after a bath. It’s cute but also disturbing. I mean, she will wade through mud and foul river water with glee, but you put some warm soapy nonsense on her and it is GAME ON with the psychotic episode. She’s great during the bath/shower itself but after, my god. She could plow a field with the energy she puts into freaking entirely out.
Firefly was rolling around in the grass being adorable for the camera when she spotted that stick at the 8 o’clock position, and then she did a serpentine crawl over to it like she was in Marine training, and then she ate it.
And then she lay like this for an hour, presumably to ensure nobody shut the door before she was finished enjoying the beautiful day. Crafty little bugger.
I must tell my tale in GIFs because that hasn’t been overdone and worn out on the internet yet.
This is how I have felt for the last 2 1/2 weeks, trying to name our new dog:
I thought I’d figured it out last week but alas, a few days ago, I un-named her again. I love the word “zucca” but after several days of making that word with my face, including calling it out at the park, I realized it just isn’t right for this particular dog or my particular face that makes words. It made my teeth feel weird, that Z sound with the K sound after it. Does that make any sense? I told this to Rupert Not His Real Name and he started questioning his wife-choice.
He grimly tolerated my flakiness about the naming of the girl dog, understanding that I’ll literally lose sleep at night if I feel the name is wrong. But even strong men have limits to their patience and after the third or fourth change, he started pointedly calling her Girl Dog Who Deserves a Name and doing this a lot:
Late last night I lay awake in bed in a stark cold sweat hating myself for being so indecisive (that is not a condition with which I usually suffer and I find indecisiveness in others excruciating), and then it came to me. My friends and I had already considered Serenity, Shiny, Kaylee, and Jayne because Best Show Ever, but for some unholy reason none of us had uttered the obvious.
Well finally my brain uttered it in the cold loneliness of the night:
Right? Right?? You’re gorram right I’m right. She even looks like that GIF.
My relief is enormous. I don’t even care who doesn’t like that name, I feel fantastic.
…….
I followed a link to a site yesterday about people’s stories of their adopted shelter dogs, and the headline was something like, “Proving that shelter dogs can be very loving.” Whut? Was that in doubt? Are there real people who have the idea that dogs you adopt from a shelter are not as good in some way as dogs you buy from a breeder or get from a friend? Is this a thing? Almost every dog I’ve ever had came from a shelter and they’ve all been wonderful, trusting, trustworthy, magnificent beasts. These current two, Primo and Firefly, are the only ones I’ve adopted as adults instead of as puppies and I suppose that was risky and maybe I’ve just gotten lucky but damn if they’re not the most delightful dogs I’ve ever had.
Also, is it just me, or does anyone else dislike that it’s now common to refer to all dogs adopted from shelters as “rescues” and every act of shelter-adoption a “rescue”? It seems to me this wasn’t the term we used the last time I adopted a dog from a shelter (Sunny in 2001); the last I remember, “rescue” was used only for groups that fostered dogs of a certain breed, like a Rottweiler Rescue group. I understood that. I don’t understand calling every shelter-adopted dog “rescued”; I think it sounds a little grandiose, a little Look At How Heroic I Am.
I just can’t use that word to describe the transactions that occurred when we took Primo out of his Italian shelter and Firefly out of her Texan one. The truth is that Primo rescued me from what was becoming a rather grim case of depression, and Firefly is a gift of pure light and joy. She makes me smile and laugh more in a single day than I did in weeks about a year ago.
Somehow I managed to be taking video of them playing the back yard the first time I ever saw Firefly freak the eff OUT. She’s been more and more active since all her stitches came out last week but yesterday she achieved new heights of full-on spaz. Good lord:
About an hour later, they’d both calmed down and Primo was the impeccable Italian gentleman that he is, sharing his favorite stick because that is what one does for una piccola signorina:
We took them on a long nature walk this morning that involved both of them covering themselves in glory, by which I mean river mud and dead animal stink. When we got back, I gave them each a bath, by which I mean a shower. Really, who gives dogs “baths”? We have the perfect set-up, a walk-in shower with a detachable shower head, so I take off my shoes and go in there with them and scrub them down and it takes about 3 minutes per dog and God Bless ‘Murrica.
It’s in the 80s here today and sunny, sorry everybody not in Texas, so after their showers and a towel-drying, they ran out to the back yard and flung their bodies around in the grass to get all the horrifying clean water off of them, and then I cracked eggs while Rupert cooked bacon, and then I peeked outside to see what they were up to on the patio and oh my god.
I counted and there are seven other rugs and cushions out there, and our back yard is not small. This was not closeness out of necessity, it was closeness because I don’t even know why but I love that they have been brought together to share their doggy lives.
Also, Zucca’s belly is all healed up, and she wants you to know it. Mostly she wants you to scratch it.
P.S. About that 80s and sunny weather thing…it’s supposed to be 19 degrees and sleeting here by tomorrow night. Blerg.
Yeah, me neither. This is a lot less depressing.
Yesterday I found Primo with his arm draped over Zucca for the first time, and then last night this happened:
Rupert and I had been on the couch with them, watching TV after dinner, and usually when we get up to go to bed, Primo jumps down too. Not this time – they were still like that half an hour later, their adorableness compelling us to break our own rule against letting animals on the couch unless a human is also on the couch. We were also so weakened by the scene that we didn’t even care they weren’t both on the purple blanket meant to protect the leather. Screw it, furniture is replaceable, happy dogs are not.
Both of the dogs had to go to the veterinarian this morning, Primo for his bordetella booster and a refill on heartworm prevention, and Zucca to introduce her and have her belly sutures checked because three of them had disappeared in the last 12 hours even though she never messes with the wound. The vet, whom everyone calls Dr. B and that’s even what her nametag says and I love her, says the wound is healing marvelously and is already all closed up so no worries. And literally within one hour of getting back home, the last two sutures were disappeared, too. I’m amazed that a two-inch belly incision can seal up completely in 8 days but here we are.
She also has a runny nose and does that “backward sneezing” dog thing but Dr. B thinks it’s just allergies, not an infection from the shelter, thank god. She weighs exactly 15 pounds and I’m under instructions to fatten her up a little because she’s extremely bony and probably malnourished. No problem there; one day I’ll video this girl eating and you will agree she’s like Guy Fieri rampaging through a pulled pork food truck.
It appears that Zucca very much enjoys Primo’s butt, because this is how I found them this morning:
I went foraging through Sunny’s old stuff yesterday to find something to put on Zucca to formally begin her training in the ancient craft of Dog Performance Art, but everything is huge on her, obviously. All of Zucca is about the size of Sunny’s head and neck. Not even the antlers will stay on this one’s tiny head, nor will Primo’s Jayne hat. Plus even if I tried, she won’t stay far enough away from me to let me take a decent picture unless she’s in bed or nuzzling Primo’s buttcheeks. This is a dog who really realllly wants to be ON you, and she actually will hug you if you let her. Well she’ll learn to get her picture taken good and proper because though I don’t have any green beans in the house, I do have a fresh-cooked batch of beef liver. Get ready, Zucca.
By the way, three or four people have already asked me on Facebook why I’d name our dog something that rhymes with fucka. We have Rupert Not His Real Name and Sunny Peace Be Upon Her, so this one may have to become Zucca Rhymes With Hookah. Or, obviously, with Lucas. Zucca Lucas, bam.
Last year, my friend crafted a masterpiece of dog headgear for Primo (your dog wants one too, so ) and I was and remain impressed by her talent. Now it turns out her husband, Dan, has his own special skill and that is naming a new dog perfectly without even seeing a picture first. Last week, when we’d adopted the new girl but were waiting for her spaying, I didn’t have a photo because the shelter had taken her online listing down and I’d forgotten to take pics myself, so I described her to my knitting friends (Stacy is one of them) and asked for help in picking out a name, mentioning that I liked the name pumpkin but that Rupert had vetoed it because it was too “cute”.
Dan said, simply, “Zucca”, which is the Italian word for pumpkin. Ah-hah! Perfect! But then I am a spaz and talked myself out of it after saying it loud several times, thinking that it was too sharp or something. Possibly my problem was that I was pronouncing it with the correct Italian accent because that’s how I learned the word. Zook-kuh. Hard Z, both c’s enunciated, all of it in the front of my mouth. So I thought, no, it’s not the name.
Then I spent the last 8 straight days trying every single other name that has ever existed in English or any other language. She has been Gemma, Ginger, Sweetie, Alice, Caramella, and, most recently, Lugnut. That’s right, Lugnut happened for a whole day until I woke up this morning and realized it sounds like we’re cursing her in German.
Anyway, all this time, as my frustration and annoyance at my own self grew and grew, I kept rolling back around to Zucca, first once a day then once an hour. I tried softening it and pronouncing it like an American since I am in fact an American, and even found myself cuddling her and mumbling, oh sweet girl Zuzu and then while eating lunch today I actually called her a zucchini for reasons nobody will ever understand. The point is that I realized her name is Zucca.
Primo continues to be adorable and sweet with her. She gets in his face and is an attention hog in the extreme, but he’s patient and only grunted at her once, when she tried to steal his chew stick. They’re starting to cuddle a little when they sleep; this morning I found them with Primo’s arm draped over her. They moved when I tried to creep out of the room to get the camera because they don’t want to break my blog with their winsome charm.
It turns out that Zucca hates the vacuum as much as Primo does, which is tough for them because now with two shedding dogs, I’m having to bust out that machine every afternoon. The other day they fled together to the staircase landing for safety:
I convinced them the vacuum was gone so they rassled each other for a minute and then Primo decided he’d rather lay down and get his belly scratched, but Zucca wasn’t finished so he got stalked real good. This one is titled “SOON“.
Man, it’s fun having two dogs again.
James Lileks is a marvel of a writer, and could move you to tears about most any subject he set his mind to move you to tears over, and I’ve known for about 10 years that when the sad day came that his beloved dog Jasper would leave the earth that I probably should not read what Lileks had to say about it because it would break my heart. But the sad day came last week, and I did read what Lileks said, and I’m not sorry. for a magnificent friend. The main part of it was written in the days before Jasper died…
Last Thursday: a day and a week before the appointed time, he went out at 12:45 AM as is his wont, miserable wind whipping the temps down to minus 10. Snout to the wind to check the news. He decides to walk into the yard to do what needed to be done – I watched from the door, expecting him to get stuck. Last year there were dog prints in the snow all around the gazebo, but close; the year before, the orbit was further out. This year it’s back and forth by the stairs, like an old man who shuttles between desk and bed.
He headed to the back gate, a new objective in recent weeks. Last week he found an open gate and traversed the long march from back gate to front, alone in the snow. This week he stops and turns back. He heads into the snow, heads north, and I realize this means going downstairs for the boots because he’s going to get hopelessly becalmed in the drifts. Bring him inside. Hug. I know, I know. Think: one week. Too soon. Think: overdue. Guilt. Make the usual excuses as I carried him back in. That must be cold. Let’s get you warm. I listen for a grunt of discomfort when I pick him up, a soft whine if I’ve pressed a tender spot. Nothing. I lay him back on the bed and when I check a while later, he looks up with the same expression of patience and forbearance.
Whatever you have asked him to bear, he bears it.
You’re surprised to realize that’s what you’ve done. You’ve been waiting for a signal. He’s been waiting for permission.
Or not. Or not; don’t anthropomorphize. I read a story, a heartbreaking story about an old dog, how it just stopped during a walk and looked up, as if to say “I’m done, if that’s okay.”
As if to say. There’s the phrase that lends an alibi to your decision. If I’d taken that cue the first time his legs got crossed and he toppled, he would have missed over 700 meals, including 50 servings of his beloved Friday Night Pizza. I put him on painkillers and he spent long lazy days drowsing and snoring. He took walks again, all the way around the block. Last month we took a walk and when we got back to the house he kept going, wanting to go up the hill to the Tower where the view is grand. Not that he could see much. But I imagine that a fine-tuned nose hears a symphony up there.
(Oh, dear. That’s exactly how I remember the last days of old Digger’s life. The guilt and the love and the uncertainty all tied up together.)
“I can’t remember him like that,” Natalie said when she watched the movie above. It’s normal. It’s ordinary. It’s heartbreaking, if you think about it: the moment in time when Mom and Dad are vital, the dog can run up the stairs, the children are happy toddlers – and the only one in the group who’ll make it out alive decades hence is incapable of remembering the simple joys of that day when the dog jumped on the bed and the tot laughed and said JABBER and gave him a hug, and the dog had the usual look: yes, well, this again. As far as she remembers he’s always been the silent presence on the periphery.
But somewhere in her memories there’s the buried fact of the wolf associate, the observer, the ally, the constant companion, the one who endured the dress-up sessions, considered taking her hot dog but thought better of it, went into her room now and then to see what was up, lived a confident life and suffered the hugs of crazy human love. The eyes, while dim, ever bright; the ears, having failed, still up and alert. A beautiful dog. An absolute individual. An indisputable soul in a humble container who gave her the necessary lessons in life: love, compassion, kindness in hard times, and the necessity of remembrance.
As I said, he’s alive as I write this. I’m going to give him more cheese now. He loves that stuff. I hate to wake him, but look at it from his perspective: all of a sudden, this? Cheese? Cheese is good. This. The smell. Taste. Joy.
There’s a lot more, read it all if you can; just wanted to share some of it because a lot of us have “known” Jasper for so many years and will miss him.
Primo, of course, is getting lots of probably-unwanted extra affection today. When I started sobbing while reading Lileks’ post about Jasper, Primo paced circles around the table where I’m sitting and then did this.
He’s still doing it, even though I stopped crying. Maybe it’s because he’s ashamed that I haven’t put that plant in a real pot or trimmed its yellow leaves yet, but probably it’s because he’s never seen me weep before. Sorry Primo, I couldn’t help it. Rest in peace, Jasper Dog.
Our new house is close to the river that runs through the city, and this river is surrounded by parks and running trails, so I take Primo over there almost every day so I can break the law by letting him run around off leash. I’m sure one day I’ll get a citation, or yelled at by a person who hates dogs, but it’s worth it to see Primo’s uncontained joy. Because even though we have a good-sized back yard with squirrels and soft grass, he can never be in ecstasy in the back yard because the back yard only smells like himself and his own pee. He wants to smell All The Things, especially poop piles from other dogs, and every single tree and blade of grass along the entire river because there is the glorious pee of other dogs on those things sometimes. Also he likes to swim, and chase ducks and cranes, and have huge gulps of foul river water because he is an animal.
But most of all he loves sticks. He’ll find one (or I’ll bring one from our vast collection at the house) and run halfway up the river bank with it and then chew it for 10 minutes while smiling.
Sometimes he thinks actual logs are sticks and need to be lifted out of the river for his chewing business. Sorry for the shit quality once again but if you want to see a little dog being ridiculously over-confident and finally settling for a small victory, watch these two videos:
Other times he decides standing in the river while chewing is the best option even though the water is like 50 degrees.
Sometimes he finally tires of his sticks and stands still on the very edge of the flat part of the river banks, staring at the ducks and cranes resentfully because he wants to eat them but knows he has no chance. All I know is that with an early-morning shadow, my sweet terrier looks like a hyena.
I love this dog so much it’s almost embarrassing. He is joy on four legs and I can’t believe we found such a treasure on a freezing rainy Saturday in Italy just over a year ago. He was so traumatized at the shelter that he wouldn’t even really look at us but something about him made Rupert and me both tilt our heads sideways 45 degrees and say “derp?”, and I’m so glad for that.
A longtime friend of this blog is going through some really hard times with his elderly father these days and this post is meant to give him something to smile about for at least a few minutes. Hang in there, Kensington.
Because it’s about having two balls on offer and wanting both of them in your mouth but only one fits so you have to choose one or the other. See what I mean? This, along with lack of talent and ambition, is why I don’t write for Dignified Publications.
I used to think people who’d post videos of their dogs in the pool were wankers because who cares? Now I know that some people are having a really hard time right now and that the Primo stuff gives them a grin for at least a few minutes so that’s who cares. So here’s Primo doing some ball-choosing. Can anyone tell if he actually switches balls there at the end?
As usual, vids are wayyyy better if you increase the resolution to 1080.
Here’s another one and yeah that’s a beer with a Hawaiian T-Shirt Coozie next to my flip flops that I bought for $1 at WalMart, just in case anyone thought I was always kidding about being a hillbilly. Whatever, the beer is German, I’m classy.
He always does that whine when he has one ball in his mouth and the other one is in the pool. Why? What are his weird dog thoughts?
I took him to a big dog park near Dallas yesterday to meet some new friends, and Primo had a lovely time sniffing butts and peeing on all the things, including another dog (not his fault, that Chihuahua walked right up under Primo mid-stream, I’m not kidding). It was so nice to be able to chat with the other dog owners in English, oh my god, I can’t even express how fantastic that felt. Talking about dogs was the first (and really only) subject I became almost fluent in with Italian but it was still always awkward and I was still always aware that I sounded stupid. At least now I can talk about Primo and only feel slightly awkward and stupid. My baseline, I’m comfortable with my baseline.