Wolf Israel

Shea brings Joe over in such a rush that he & I both forget to discuss the details of his return. Since I don't think his cell phone will work in Hawaii, I am somewhat at a loss. As it will be the day before the day before I leave for New York, I am frantic. Nowadays I need more than a few days' notice for most things, even doing the laundry. A long "To Do" list for me now has one thing on it, maybe two.

This time Joe seems to understand that he has not been sold or abandoned & that his family will return. At any rate he is more settled & less anxious. Last time he was despondent for four or five days, barely eating for the first two. That first morning when he realized that no one had yet come for him he was inconsolable. Roast beef helped, as did walks, but on those walks, for the first week, whenever he saw someone with dogs, he would try to join up with them. He also didn't
trust me to know our way home, was nervous about going too far away, & anxiously kept track of landmarks so that he could navigate on his own if need be.

He has settled right into our usual routines: a late arising, followed by
squirrel eradication patrol, followed by a light breakfast of roast beef, followed by a walk, a nap, a squirrel patrol, another walk, another nap, squirrel patrol, a light dinner of roast beef, followed by another walk, another nap, one last squirrel patrol, & so to bed. He is very tactful about holding both his water
& his enthusiasm until I am ready to stagger downstairs of a morning.

Reading a newspaper story about the death of a family cat, I burst into tears. Joe immediately comes upstairs to comfort me with a nudge of the head, a concerned brown eye, a proffered paw. I am crying over a fictional cat when there is a live dog before me, offering love & support. I am an idiot.

Joe continues his interest in cooking & food preparation, in fact, in all things culinary. Merely opening a refrigerator or a cupboard can summon him from the soundest sleep. His newest food enthusiasm is the dollop of sour cream he gets in his bowl when I've put some on my beans & rice. He has also discovered a passion for eggs, hard-boiled & quartered.

Shadenfreude: Turned around to see why a dog coming up behind me was wheezing louder than Joe, who was left tied up in a yard in China until the rope grew into his neck, impairing his breathing & rendering him unable to bark. It was a very small terrier straining against a "humane" choke chain mostly of fabric. At the other end was an equally small woman, texting. As they came up us she said: My dog is very friendly. It was a real pleasure to say: Mine isn't.

(Note to self: If you'd been nicer to that ninny you could have told her about dog training, & trainers.) (2nd Note: If she ignores obvious distress in her own dog, why would she pay any attention to the likes of you?)(3rd Note: Fuggedaboudit.)

during last year's stay, of encouraging me to hasten toward our pre-breakfast
walk by aiding me to dress. He does this by helpfully inserting his head & shoulders behind my knees as I am trying to put on my pants. He sits unasked, albeit impatiently, to be fitted with his collar & lead when we go out. Indoors we both practice a moderate deshabille; he with no collar, I without shoes. This year he walks almost as slowly as I do, except when he sees a cat or a squirrel. He
might be about 60 in dog years, with a rescue dog one you never be sure. At
the adoption agencies they are invariably described as 2 or 3 years old, but
one never knows, do one? If he is about 60, then we are about the same age.
No wonder we get along.

How do dog owners (sorry, companions & caretakers) stand being watched,
if not balefully, then adoringly, all the time? Really, I prefer to be alone in the bathroom. I don't need an entourage, or to be the Big Bow Wow of a cult. Cats lead their own lives, in parallel with ours, & bully for them. No cat ever lost its life defending hearth & home against burglars. No, a cat will be found long
after the home invaders have gone, curled up peacefully in the back corner
of an upstairs closet. Eventually it will reappear, yawning, streching luxuriously, & licking its whiskers as you are trying to inventory what was taken. Just at the moment you realize that the homeowners' insurance will not pay for the television & computer you have lost without the sales receipts which you have also lost, the cat will appear at the refrigerator door, meowing for tuna.

Joe's culinary interests do not wane. When he is not helping me cook, by winding around my feet as I try to manoeuvre full, heavy, delicate, or hot objects through the minefield of my kitchen, he is making helpful suggestions as to the disposition of scraps & leftovers. Before recycling, there were dogs. I have not had to get out the mop since he has been here. What do people do who have no dogs?

Today a kid over by the elementary school asked if he could pet the dog. (Oh, kudos to your glorious, enlightened, & unusual parents! They must have a dog.) Most parents encourage their precious offspring to go ahead, pet the nice doggy, without asking leave of the handler or at least taking an educated read of the dog's demeanor. Then they sue you if it bites. Most of today's information

about the real world seems to be coming from cartoons & action movies. Karate classes are filled, temporarily, with disappointed kids discovering that they will not be learning the moves from digitally enhanced martial arts blockbusters. Their information concerning the natural world is equally accurate. & the shelters are full of the pure-bred, expensive victims of their hubris. Occassionaly, though, their ignorance is my bliss. When the worst of my musically-impaired, drug-addled, incompetently-burglarizing former neighbors asked me (of an old, gentle, & practically toothless pit bull- Rottweiler mix with the ludicrous name of Spike, the children were young when they named him) "Do he bite?", it was my pleasure to inform him mendaciously that Spike did, & that most grieviously.

Joe so much calmer that he will accept his favorite liver treats from a male stranger on the street, or the nice giddy girl in the not-quite-the-post-office.

Horrible embarassment: Jake, Joe & I are playing gotcha with his toy soccer
ball. Although he will not retrieve, or chase or carry balls & sticks, because he sees no reason for it, he is enamoured of his toy soccer ball with the little squeaker (Note to self: Perform squeakerectomy at earliest opportunity) & likes to dare
you to take it away from him. I was tugging at it when he raised his gums up
on either side of his upper jaw. Immediately I stopped playing & examined him
to make sure he was not suffering from dry mouth, or stuck gums, or some
other rare but potentially fatal, & hitherto unknown, canine disease. Then Jake pointed out that Joe was mock-snarling at me, just taking the game up to the
next level. & I had thought I was getting to be a pretty fluent speaker of dog,
for a cat person, I mean. Show some fang, Joe.

Met the wonderful neighbor who never picks up her dogshit, bagged or otherwise, walking her aged but still quite formidable mouse-colored chow. Joe surprised
me by raising his hackles up all the way along his back from his withers to his hips, a Mohawk of which any punk would be proud. Was he reponding to my opinion of her, or voicing his own about her chow? A moot point, as we gave them plenty of distance, whatever our reasons. When we get home Joe is,

as always, politely anxious to get out to the big pepper tree at the back of
the yard, which is occupied for the moment by al Qaeda squirrels. No matter how brief his absence, Joe lives in perpetual hope & expectation that Something May Have Happened, requiring his full & immediate attention. I have no real objection to him climbing trees provided I am not attached to him by a 3/8 inch braided nylon line.

Despite the observation made by one of yesterday's guests that black dust bunnies were drifting across my livingroom floor like tumbleweeds (Note
to self: Leave off more lights next time, & bring out the brandy sooner) I
will be sorry to return Joe tomorrow to his rightful home. I still harbor hopes that he will catch the rat that is living under my deck, when it is not digging up my garden beds or gorging on the neighbor's dog food. Having a burglar alarm that actually disposes of the burglar is much handier than I had anticipated. My electronic one merely calls the police, who, if they ever show up, are very apt to arrest or shoot the wrong person. Joe's is a much

more efficient & ecologically closed system.

By the time I had finished placing Joe's bed, his food & water bowls, bear
& soccer ball, liver treats, & the ample remains of a 50-lb bag of scientifically calibrated dog food into the trunk of the car, he was sitting in the passenger
seat, with his lead wrapped around the gearshift, wriggling with excitement. & I had thought he enjoyed it here, what with the peace & quiet, no obnoxious French Bulldog puppies, gourmet dinners, massages, baths with Dr. Bronner's Eucalyptus Soap...My feelings are not hurt, however. Even for a dog, there's no place like home.