#54 PUPPY -- PEDIGREE & OTHER STUFF

I said, “Let’s just get it over with, Scooter.”

Scooter listens.

 I see slices of white exposed around his dark round eyes, lunula-like wedges of worry.

“Put down the pillow.  No theatrics, please. You are three now,” I said.

“I am.”

“We’ve said before, this is good; you’ve got some behaviors under control, some commands firmly in your grasp. Twice now, you’ve met children without being totally terrified. You mostly cooperate with grooming. You’re not barking at everything. But . . .”

“It’s best not to discuss brushing my teeth.”

“I agree,” I said.

“Am I about to get a talking to?” the pup asked.

 Now I understood his showing the whites of his eyes. “Whale eyes,” some behavioralist call it. A dog’s sure signal that trouble, fear, or anxiety stirs either in its brain or bowels.

 “Truth is,” I said, “You aren’t in trouble. This talk is mostly about your humans. Youi know, Scooter Sublime, that many Doodles are returned to breeders, even given over to rescue organizations.

“No!”

“Yes.”

“You wouldn’t!”

 “Of course we wouldn’t! It’s just that we understand. Your breed, well you aren’t authentically a breed, you are a hybrid; but you doodles require regular grooming, that can get tiresome, and certainly expensive. Then there’s rigorous daily exercise, challenging mental stimulation, and strong need for socialization. “High maintenance,” is a term frequently assigned to your kind.

 “The problem is my intelligence. Too smart?”

“Not exactly.”

 “Mom,” said he who dropped the pillow. “Did you know that my Golden Retriever forebearers came from Scotland?

“I didn’t.”

“Presbyterians did, too.” Scooter settled in his bed. “You were one once. Everyone loves Scottish Goldens but not everyone loves Presbyterians. Queen Mary of Scots hated them. Did you know that? John Knox started all that protestant stuff there. Does that makes people hate Goldens?

“Scooter, listen. It’s your humans who have a problem. We …”

 “Mom, did you know that Queen Mary of Scots drove Knox out of Scotland? She was Catholic. Did you know she was made queen when she was six days old?  Did you know that John Knox, who had a very long beard, and stern eyes, wrote a tract titled, In The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women”?  Can you believe that!?”

“Scooter, . . .”

“He said,” Scooter now had a forepaw on my arm to hold my attention. “He said that a female ruler was ‘odious in the presence of God.’ It’s good that he wasn’t in Scotland when he published that. He was in France. Mom, did you know the poodle part of me comes from France where Queen Mary was raised, and where John Knox spent a lot of time when that queen ordered him out of Scotland? I’ve got that right, I think. Are we doodles facing the problem of Francophobes? 

“Scooter!”

“In the opinion of Mr. Knox,” said Scooter, about to wrap up his monologue, ‘women should never have authority.’ Queen Mary just lost her head.”

“Angry, was she?”

“No, no. I mean, after nineteen years off and on in protestant prisons, when she was forty-four years old, her head was lopped off. Not easily, by the way. The executioner barely grazed her head on the first stroke. She only had time to say, “Dear Jesus,” before the axman’s second slash landed. Even then he didn’t get her head completely off. He had to finish the job with a saw. And get this. Mom. You listening?

“When the executioner lifted her gown to remover her garters, which was a part of his reward for his work, her dog, Giddon, jumped out. Her dog! Her dog was hidden in her skirts! When that poor dog, Giddon, saw the queen’s corpse, he howled. Now that’s  . . .”

“Scooter! Stop! We have a problem. Enough history. You are stubborn,” I said. “Strong-willed, and needy. Along with that, you share a heightened sense of priority common to your breed. That is, your hybrid.”

 “Priority? Is that like charm?”

 “It’s more like what the dictionary says, “ . . .the condition of being regarded or treated as more important.” In your case, it is the condition of you believing your presence, your jumping up on people, your hostility toward some other dogs, your need for attention takes priority over all other things.

 “Hyperbole?”

“No. Reality. And your humans have decided to work on it.”

 Scooter picked up his pillow and with the whites of his eyes bright, he walked away from the conversation.

Scooter Sublime had finished listening