This morning I picked up Morgan from the neighbor who's had her since Wednesday; her parents are away for New Year's. She is a nine-year-old black Labrador Retriever with very sore hips whom I thought Blake could tolerate. He can mostly ignore her--she is on her bed at my feet and he is tucked on my shoulder; they're both asleep--unless she is wagging her tail. Unfortunately, this is her default activitiy when awake, and she has a proper Lab otter tail, and Blake has never liked windshield wipers and this is worse.
The vet said last week (in addition to admiring Blake's excellent plumage, assessing his muscle tone as excellent, and observing that he didn't have to inquire about Blake's vigor or opinions) that a dog could hurt the buddy under the paw or in the mouth but not by inflicting a fear-induced cardiac arrest. Well, the tail is certainly a danger too, and so is asphyxiation. I had forgotten how much a dog smells. Her coat is lovely, not as oily as Shadow's was, but she has her share of dog-stank, plus dog-flatulence.
We had a little walk this morning that seems to be as much walk as she could handle. We saw a dachshund and two beagles and Pele the Hawaiian soccer god-terrier, and though I thought she was picking direction I think the duration was too much for her. I don't know her well enough to be certain whether her gait was lamer at the end than at the beginning, but she hasn't stirred from her bed (except for changing positions) in almost three hours.
She seems sad, too, which makes me sad. She must miss her human parents and her two canine and five feline siblings. Her tender hips mean she can't manage kennel life, so I get her, and that's nice, but does she feel abandoned? Is her job at home not as to be a toe-warmer, such that my foot is only an obstruction and not also communication, contact, and affection?
I have missed how a dog stretches her toes in her sleep. For her hips' sake I have resisted tickling the hair between the pads of her hind feet, but her ears are all mine. The three of us have sat here napping and reading for a while now, and Blake smells better, but Morgan snores and and snorts and is bigger and keeps both my insteps warm and she doesn't think that her mission in life is to remove the freckles from my neck. Ow.
Plus she's already a guard dog. She didn't rouse from her sleep at all when the mail rattled into the box but when RDC returned from his errands, she growled as soon as he turned the knob and barked until he opened the dog and she recognized him.
Both bird and dog have really cute eyebrows, and hers are big enough that I can admire them from farther than my shoulder. No crest, though.