#64 PUPPY: A SERIES OF FIRSTS AT THE AGE OF NEARLY FOUR

ONE – Saturday, June 3rd

“I’m glad you didn’t have your camera handy.” We are reminiscing, Scooter Sublime and I.

 “Should you say, ‘Scooter Sublime and me’”? asks Scooter. Your computer suggests it.

“My computer must not have read the entire sentence,” I said, brushing his paw off the keyboard. “We are subjects in that sentence, Scooter. Not  . . .”

 “Sorry I brought it up,” says he, interrupting. “Back to the story.”

“It was a first,” I said.

“Where were we?”

“On a winding road, heading home from Ocean Shores.”

 “Ocean Shores is where you read the beach path sign:”

“Recent bear sighting here.”

But you took me through those brambles and brush anyway?”

“We did.”

“That’s where I got to run free on the beach.”

 I justified the freedom. “Before we came to the other sign,”

“Keep dogs leashed.”

“Right.”

“Then I vomited.”

“Not at the beach.”

“On my fuzzy car chair. On the drive home.”

“Right.”

“I was surprised,” said Scooter.

“As were we. That was a first.”

“No picture, right?”

“Right.”

I’m a lucky dog.”

“You are.”

TWO – Monday, June 19th

“Not one?” he asks. Incredulous he was.

“Not one. Sorry,” I said.

“My first time at a dog park, and you didn’t take a single picture?”

“I didn’t.”

 Scooter was with his Jack Russell friend, Lilly. I *blogged about her (#50 Puppy) when as a puppy she chewed up two television remotes (or was it three?), a few books, and expensive shoe insoles. Lilly is as comfortable in a dog park as Carol Burnett was on TV. She’s a natural.

“She digs,” says Scooter.

“But she doesn’t bark at strangers,” I say.

 Into the wooded dog-park we went. I released Scooter’s leash but left it attached to his collar.

 “Well, hello!” Two bounding forty-pound packages of dog rounded a corner of the forested trail.

“Yikes!” said Scooter’s body, reacting to uninvited, unexpected, sniffs of all sorts. He was on his own.

“Alright,” said his tail. “I get this. It isn’t altogether bad.”

 “I didn’t bark,” Scooter said, watching words fall onto this page.

“You didn’t have time.”

“I did quite well, I think.”

“You did.”

 “You got spooked once,” said he.

“I did, yes, when those two beautiful Rhodesian Ridgebacks flew toward you.”

“Piece of cake,” said he.

 “Flaunting, are you? What about when the hollering children and their three rambunctious dogs came . . .”

“I’m afraid of children. When will we go again?” he asks.

“I think we won’t,” I say.

 “You didn’t like it?”

“The park was beautiful. It helped you I think, meeting dogs on dog terms.”

“You worried,” he said quite kindly.

“I did.”

THREE - A NEW BED June 21st

SCOOTER’S OLD, BELOVED BED WITH THE PILLOW ASKEW

THE “NO THANK YOU” NEW BED

“No, thank you,” said Scooter, skirting the bed.

“At least get in it. It’s nearly identical to the one you have, only newer.”

 “I felt it. The pillow is hard.”

“That’s it?”

“No, the pillow is also attached.”

“You can’t pull it out and carry it around? That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

 “Will you at least give it a try?”

“No.”

We sold the bed.

FOUR – June 23rd

“I wanted in the river,” said Scooter.

“We were near it,” I said.

“That works for you?”

 We walked along the Cedar River trail, following an old railroad route that ran through Renton, Maplewood, mountains and valleys, and Rock Creek.

 This was a first for Scooter, joining a group of hikers on a planned trek.

Well, it isn’t fair to say that we joined the group. We trailed well behind. Scooter had work to do. He had a nose and a leg to lift.

 Like most male dogs, Scooter looks for a vertical surface to pee on. His urine scent will carry further if it lands off the ground.

“I WAS HERE! BIG, BEAUTIFUL, SCOOTER SUBLIME PINE!”

 He shoots the stream as high as possible, meaning to make himself appear bigger. The chemical message he leaves for the next sniffer (“peemail,” says one expert), tells his age, his sex, his general health condition, and even his emotional state.

 “Sorry, Scooter, the scent tells the truth. Come on. We’re falling behind.”

 Not only does he leave messages, he reads them. Every. Single. Thing. Along. This. Trail, but Scooter Sublime’s nose gathers information available within about a twelve-mile range of where he stands: people passing, rabbits a mile away, the smell of a crust of bread left by a hiker down on a riverbed rock.

 Because he is dog, not only can he detect distant odors, he can remember them. Smell memory. It can cover hundreds of miles, and last for years.

 “And your point?” he asks as I write about the hike.

“Well, you’re nearly four, and that was your first group hike. We’re talking about some firsts before you are four.”

 “By the way,” he says, “where did that group go? I thought we were on a group hike.”

“They were hiking, Scooter, while you were reading the wind.”

“Right,” he says, remembering.

 “Mom,” he says.

“What?”

“When will I be four?”

“Next month. Do I have to keep reminding you?”

“Can you give that answer a scent? Then I’d remember.”

 ~  ~  ~

*Addendum: It’s a modern verb: blog. It’s not a pretty word, is it. It’s heavy. Its “B” forces its way with a snap through loose lips then falls flat. It doesn’t punch. It doesn’t sing. It sounds tired. No wonder it rhymes with slog.

It’s just a thought that came my way when I wrote that I “blogged about Lilly.”

 By the way, Scooter did upchuck a tiny bit when he was a pup. We forgot about that, but it is recorded in ‘#43 PUPPY, December 16, 2021.

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