Done for Now - "No Friend of Mine"

My family hadn’t been gone long. At least it didn’t seem long, though I have to admit, a nap never seems long unless I wake up with my joints stiff. My job is to be awake when they walk in the door, to bark and sniff and bounce about with “eager enthusiasm,” a job I’ve always enjoyed though it seems like a lot of effort these days.

When our minivan reaches the crest of the small hill before our house, it’s as if the noise suddenly turns on, like a doggie alarm-clock. Time to get up and say hello.

They hadn’t been gone long and the whole family went together, even though it wasn’t Sunday morning. Yes, we do know what day it is, not so much the names of the days as the patterns. Monday morning is a kid and parent scramble with backpacks and lunches. Breakfast is scheduled for efficiency rather than fellowship: each person eats breakfast when he is ready for it. On Saturdays, everybody moves about as fast as a pile of sleepy puppies. Sundays are in between, not so much scramble, no backpacks, but I can always tell a Sunday by the shoes, stiff and shiny and without that lovely human smell.

Going outside when they arrive is also normal, outside to do my “business.” Shouldn’t they realize that it is easier for a guy my age to hold it for a few extra hours than it is to stumble down the deck stairs to the lawn? Dad didn’t take me to the back yard, though, and that was weird. Nice weird; the joints are particularly stiff after a good long nap.

Dad took me to the front yard. Mom was there, too, and the boys, Daniel and Thomas. Mom yelled, “Tynie, Come. Come meet your new friend.” Of course I came because when I was a pup Dad (or sometimes mom) spent a half hour every evening walking up and down in the road in front of our house saying “heel” and “stay” and “sit” and “come.”

There was a new smell, near mom. “Come,” she said again, just because I was a little slow getting there.

The new smell, like popcorn, started up the engine in my tail. My tail’s the one part of me that is still a youngster. It wasn’t really a popcorn smell, not that buttery. It was more like fritos. Snack times are great times to nose a hand for pets; stuff always falls to the ground. The smell was making me feel young again, so it was hard to lie down when Dad gave the command. “Down,” Dad commanded a second time and raised his right arm, his voice so deep and gruff, that my legs bent themselves to lower me to the ground.

The frito smell, definitely fritos, drifted down from a bundle in mom’s arms as she knelt beside me. “Tynie,” she said, “meet your new friend. This is Maxie.” I raised my nose to say hello to my new friend, but the little warm thing scrambled higher on mom, whimpering.

“Down,” Dad reminded me. My nose was so hungry for the smell I could hardly stay still. My front paws were glued to the grass, I kept thinking about them because Dad’s grumbly voiced echoed in my ears, but my tail kept swinging so hard that my back half sometimes snuck off the ground. You’d think the stiffness would help keep me still, but somehow it doesn’t work that way.

Next thing I knew, Mom was on the grass beside me and I could just reach Maxie with my nose. Um-umm. Delicious isn’t the right word, because not all smells need to be eaten. But such a lovely smell was that little Maxie – I couldn’t get enough. I was just getting a good sniff when Maxie whimpered again. Dad pushed my head down and held me still. The small thing, the Maxie, was held next to me and I could hear little snuffle noises as mom said, “See, Maxie, this is Tynie. There’s nothing scary about him.”

A dog has his pride. I’m not as strong as I was, but the squirrels and the doves always disappear pretty fast when I’m around. Nothing scary, hmph. Maxie was sniffing me, all over, I might add, while my nose was immobilized. The Maxie was quite the perfumery, though, and little whiffs of fragrant Maxie kept floating my way.

That was it, though. Next thing I knew, we were going back to the house. I followed Thomas into the laundry room, like normal; two seconds later I heard the door click shut and I was alone with the two clothes-eating, rumbling metal monsters that live in the smallest room in the house. The Maxie thing was with MY family in MY dining room. I could hear them.

The worst of it was that after being allowed out of the laundry room for a little while – Maxie and I did our little doggie dance, sniffing each other a little, then backing up, then sniffing again – I discovered that the sleeping arrangements had been changed. Of course, I’m old enough to have learned to cope with changes. Daniel doesn’t sleep on the floor with me anymore. The best, of course, was when Thomas and Daniel both slept on the floor with me; we had some very comfy-cozy sleeps together. My spot is right next to Daniel’s bed, close to the others but in Daniel’s room where the sound of his breathing is like a lullaby. Not tonight, though. Tonight, I was in the laundry room. With Maxie.

“Here’s your new friend, Tynie,” Mom said as she closed us in together. I couldn’t even snuggle with Maxie. It would have been good to sleep with my nose near all that warm puppy smell. Nope, Maxie was in her crate and she got the good smelling things – a pair of socks from Daniel and one of Dad’s undershirts.

I settled myself by the crate, resigned to my new spot. I wondered if Maxie’s breathing would have the same soothing effect as Daniel’s.

Nope. Maxie had only been in her cage a couple of minutes when she started whimpering. That only lasted a couple of minutes, though. Then she began howling with serious intent. I kept waiting for Mom or Dad to come and do something about it. No luck. Maxie would wear herself out from time to time and sleep. But moments later, at least that’s what it felt like when I was awakened from a sound sleep, she would start up again.

Maxie was the most inconsiderate, unmannerly beast I had ever met. At least the squirrels had the decency to run away. And this one, Maxie, was supposed to be my friend?

It is one of the rituals of my morning, the first trip outside to although things this morning were not proceeding in a business-like fashion. Maxie, again.

At my age, it requires a little walking around to get the machinery up and running to do my business. I started toward the far side of the yard to see if Alex was out, checking the ground for the scent of doves and juncos and other ground-feeding birds. Sometimes there is scat from mice or chipmunks or voles. Today it was a pile of rabbit pellets; a guy likes to stop and smell the roses, if you know what I mean.

Of course, Maxie had to rush over and stick her nose in things. She looked pretty ridiculous; her back legs kept overtaking the shorter front legs, so that by the time she got to the good stuff she was running sideways.

Maxie has to sniff everything – she’s all nose. Of course, her nose got too close, so she shook her head and sneezed, then put her nose right back where it was before. Youngsters have no sense.

I was beginning to hear nature’s call, so I meandered over to the wild cherry tree near the back of the yard, and squatted. I never have understood why all the guys have to lift their legs for a relatively simple operation. It looks very awkward: I admit I had some urge to do it when I was younger, but good sense triumphed. I was just musing that the next time one of them called me grandma, I would ask them why they all are auditioning as windmills, when I noticed movement by my rear leg.

Can a man have no privacy? There she was, the scamp, by my rear paws, inhaling as though I was dispensing the fragrant river of life. I started to snap at her, give a guy a little room, I said, when it became clear that she had required a little inspiration herself. She leaned forward, bending her rear legs in the time-honored pose and produced her own little rivulet.

I nodded to her – it doesn’t hurt to encourage the youngsters – and then moved on. I was really hoping to avoid an audience for the more awkward of the two businesses, so I crossed the yard quickly. Moving fast actually encourages the process. I have wondered if a better system couldn’t have been developed; bending my knees, rotating my hips forward and raising my tail requires a significant amount of concentration. None of the hinges moves smoothly any more. But, I had just managed to achieve the precarious position necessary to the process, when Maxie raced across the yard in her funny sidewise fashion and arrived, her nose on full alert. By the time I was comfortably upright, she was walking around, turning in ever smaller circles until finally she, too, achieved that precarious posture. Mom showed up just in time to ooh- and aah. I began to wonder if Maxie has produced something truly special, but trust me, it was peanuts, hardly anything at all. If anyone has a right to brag, I thought looking at my own handiwork, it isn’t that little pup.

By the time she was four months old, Maxie knew what it meant to go for a walk. Any time she heard the leash rattle, she would run around in circles, prancing, and leaping up with her front paws, whimpering and making the odd noises that passed for barking. She loved to walk.

The day of the Rottweiler was like that, Maxie whimpering at the door as mom brought in our leashes. Mom walks us both; I’m on the right side, because I can be trusted to heel without chasing after anything that moves. Maxie still tends to rush forward when a bunny scoots under a bush or a leaf blows. She lags behind when a piece of food or garbage beckons. from the asphalt. A little yank on the leash is all it takes and she is walking by mom’s side, looking up as if to say, “That wasn’t really me wandering off like that.”

As we walked along our normal route, the collie at the corner escorted us past her house walking the inside of the chain link fence as we walked the outside. The chihuahua in the two story house made his usual yapping noises, perched on something that let him see out the picture window. When they make all that racket, Mom calls it leash envy. I think they just want to go for a walk.

Maxie walks well for a kid with legs that are clearly factory seconds. Her Tappety, tappety, tappety matches my slap, slap, slap, three steps for one. That little body with its low center of gravity corners like a sportcar, but I catch her in the straightaway – these days anyway. She made me look pretty slow at first. A dog worth his milk-bones can’t stand for that kind of thing. Not that she was ever a boaster.

“Catch me if you can,” she’d bark and take off across the yard.

The first time I caught her she rolled up like a ball. My legs were too stiff to stop fast, so I just trotted on by.

“Hey,” she barked.

“Got better things to do than chase a pup with legs that look like they were stolen from an undersize weasel!” I hollered back.

“You’ve got great legs,” she said. I looked at her quick, to make sure she wasn’t being sarcastic. She stepped back and eyed my legs, her nose traveling up and down. “I’ll never be able to run like that.” She’s not really a friend, but we get along okay. And, chasing her in the backyard definitely improves my appetite. I think she runs straight just long enough to keep me going, then the next thing you know she’s made a U-turn and I’m chasing nothing but oak leaves and butterflies.

Our walk was later than usual, that day. Most of the kids were home from school. The collie at the corner must have gone inside while her kids were having snacks – she didn’t patrol the fenceline with us. The chihuahua barked like we were storming the house with a troop of German Shepherds. Mom never pays any attention to them.

Mom had yanked my leash a couple of times. Lately, I’ve been feeling kind of peppy. Sometimes when we’re in the yard I take off across the grass and bark for Maxie to catch me if she can. So, when mom yanks on the leash I remind myself that it’s easy to get ahead of a human and a dachshund if you aren’t paying attention.

The leaves hadn’t started turning, but geese were moving back and forth across the sky in their slinky flying vees. The leaves hadn’t turned yet; red and orange and yellow were huddling off-stage, waiting for their cue. September is like that. You could hear the hiss of brakes as school buses stopped to drop off kids. The smell of grain ripening and squash mellowing hovered in the air. Autumn with its bright days and crisply cool evenings was coming soon.

When the Rottweiler came roaring out of the garage, I was thinking of warm naps in the fall sunshine. It is very disorienting to be roused from a pleasant daydream and face an angry snout that is ugly in three directions. That snout was as wide as it was tall as it was deep – and every ounce of it snarling and snapping.

In an instant, my hackles went up. The Rottweiler snapped and missed. Maxie raced round Mom’s legs, her leash tangling with mine. I shifted position to guard mom and Maxie, making sure that my trunk was between them and the beast. He was lunging and growling, but always stopping short of contact. Finally, I wound up and let out a series of barks, which started quite high in my register and ended in a loud, low growl. Then I realized that mom was speaking and as the Rott began to back away, I realized that I had heard someone calling Captain. I looked up and saw a teenage boy come over and grab the dog by the collar. He shook the dog fiercely as he dragged him away.

When I looked for Maxie, who seemed to have disappeared, Mom leaned over and put her back on the ground. “She’s all right, Tynie,” Mom said. “I picked her up.”

Mom reached down and scrubbed my chest up and down. “Good dog, Tynie,” she said, and then, “Heel, Maxie,” and we were walking again.

I guess she’s not all that bad, I thought, as a looked over at Maxie. Who’d have thought I’d try to protect her? Rottweiler offered to take her off my hands and I had to scare him off. Tynie, you are one very mixed-up canine.

Autumn had been replaced by winter and a peaceful snooze in the sun was once again a regular part of my day. In fact, I was wondering where the little pest was, she hadn’t bothered me in at least an hour. I was laying on my side so I lifted my head to look around and see if I could detect where the little pest was. Then I realized that the warm spot near my heart had a long snouted, floppy eared explanation.

“Stop wriggling,” Maxie said in a sleepy voice.

“Ho, there,” I ask. “What are you doing up here?”

“Warmest spot in the house,” she said, “though not the softest.” She started kneading my shoulder as though to soften it up with her front paws, and then lay down again. “But you are a Class 1 furnace.”

I looked at that little runt, and remembered my run-in with the Rottweiler. “Class 1 bodyguard, too, huh?” he replied.

“Biggest wuss I ever saw,” Maxie said. Who me? I wondered. Maxie went on. “I can’t believe that dog was afraid of you.” She panted a little, her doggie laugh.”That Rottweiler must have been wearing a fur coat, cause he’s yellow for sure.” I raised my head and gave her a lip curl; I thought about snapping at her close enough to scare her.

“Don’t try that tough guy act with me, you old marshmallow.”
“Marshmallow,” he yelped, then cleared his throat so he could bark in bass, “Marshmallow!”

“You are big, strong, smart and brave,” she said, then gulped as the memory of that racing Rottweiler came back. “Very brave, thank you. But you are the nicest dog in the world. That Rottweiler had nothing to be afraid of.”

“Unless he was stupid enough to hurt you,” I said. “Or mom.”

“Yup,” she said. “He wasn’t as stupid as he looked.”

I moved my shoulder a bit so she would have a nice place to put her head, and then told her, “You’re a nice friend.”

“Friend,” she yelped. “I’m no friend of yours. I’m family.”

Humph was all he said as he dropped his head to the ground. She sure was a yippy little mutt. The sunshine warmed his face as they lay together. He could hear her even breathing. He lifted his head to look at the little trouble maker, nudged her flopping ear back in place with his nose and dropped his head back to the ground. Hmph.