Sometimes I think the animals in my life wait for me to make assumptions or come to conclusions just so they can refute them. No doubt part of their strategy to keep me humble. Saturday I was in the bedroom for some reason, Fric followed me in, jumped on the bed, grabbed the yellow alien and moved it back into the office again. This occurred after we had company, including one of the pups from her first litter. She dropped the alien near the top of the stairs where it remained until late afternoon. Shortly after she brought it in, I dismantled the maternity suite and replaced it with the playpen and a crate, so I’m not sure if that distracted her from or contributed to her interest in it.
When she took it downstairs later, she would have taken it out but I made her leave it inside because it was snowing like crazy and I no desire for her to drop it out there and a) have to go looking for it in a snowstorm or b) and have it buried by the plow and have to dig it out. When she came in later, BeeBee beat her to it and was tossing it up in the air. Fric froze for an instant, apparently torn between getting the toy back vs. going upstairs to check on the puppies. The puppies quickly won out and the alien remains on the floor downstairs.
Fric and the puppies aren’t sure about their new set-up and, to tell the truth, neither am I. After I moved them into it, they looked so small, I wondered if I should have waited another week. I then started running all kinds of what-if scenarios with the big one being that they crawled out of the crate at night, couldn’t get back in for some reason (which escapes me) and got chilled or lonely. Like as if Fric would allow this to happen, especially since they’ve all discovered that their vocal apparatus has a volume as well as tone control. BUT, if nothing else, I do have a fertile imagination and once those images took hold, I had no choice but to resurrect their original box. Only this time I turned it upside down with one side open over a thick towel so it forms a cave for them. So now they had a Big House and a Little House. (Speaking of people who need to get a life!)
Fric took one look at that upside down box and looked at me in a way that made me wonder if dogs have cultural memories like humans a la Joseph Campbell’s work. I say this because the look she gave me when she saw that box seemed to communicate, “What a whack job! Are you going to start putting Preparation-H on your toothbrush again?” Of course, she had no way of knowing this because this happened before she arrived. Anyhow, the look was sufficiently withering that I turned the box right side up and decided the pups could just play in it.
Below are the three-week portraits which I admit aren’t the best of quality. I had put them on my desk which Fric does not like at all. When I hunkered down in a chair to get at eye level to the pup, she would crawl up my back and whimper. Plus sometimes the flash went off and sometimes it didn’t, plus they’re surprisingly fast. But I think they’re pretty darn cute, although I admit I’m biased. The little black female whom I’m keeping has been christened Coriander after the spice. According to The Joy of Cooking coriander seeds are “the most venerable of spices. Their flavor is an exquisite blend of white pepper, cardamom, and cloves with a hint orange” all of which reminds me of descriptions of wine rather than a dog, but what the hey. I also learned that cilantro is coriander leaves. Who knew?
