The Shit No One Tells You About Poodles
The Intellectual Poodle
They’ll watch you. They listen. He knows the tone of voice even more than I do. A lick to my face reveals the saltiness of tears or sweat, he knows the difference. If his dinner is cooking in the pan he’ll likely stick around until it’s cooled. If I take it out of the freezer he might go and sit and look out the window in the hopes that it doesn’t taste like what came out of the freezer the night before.
He lies on a large rectangular ottoman where I keep CDs and DVDs. it’s really the size of a trunk but prettier. There he has a blanket and a pillow and the window, open a sliver in the winter and more in the shoulder months. From there the news pours across the sill, the latest deer gathering, the coyote crossings and of course the ever-present rabbits. He watches the crows, they are always worth a warning bark, other birds can stay. Squirrels, the red ones used to be personae non grata but now it is only bunnies, likely because I have a reaction to their intrusive nibbling in my garden.
I’ve written about the school bus. I’ve written about agility. I’ve written about him barking at airplanes. But it’s more than that. It’s quiet souls slowing down enough to be in each other’s company.
In the early days, when the wine bottle was uncorked on Friday night, I recall his wariness. He knew it would invariably lead to some dreary stilted conversation about politics or world affairs. But this futile behaviour has given way to sitting and counting our blessings for our pasts and for the present paradise we live in. Now, he lies on his side, content at the tone, the tempo, the pacing.
Books like Dog Sense and Inside of a Dog are helpful in opening up what it must be like to be a dog. There is a vast world that we are unwilling or don’t have time to recognize. How threatening to the human race to acknowledge the animal kingdom has a limitless intelligence that we have cut ourselves off from. And it’s funny how people talk about their intelligence, but they are only comparing it to their own or to what they define as intelligence. I don’t think we get it. Not the vast array of information being processed in so many ways, the intuition, the body language observed, the sounds, the very words being used.
Be that as it may, we struggle with more earthbound concerns. Even though we can’t walk as far as we once used to and our exercise is limited, the smells down the lane or at the lookout are still as important to get caught up on. For this reason we have a very groovy jogger to help us get about. I call it the wagon, the stroller––jogger doesn’t seem to role off the tip of my brain. And he knows if he stands beside it that I will hoist him in and we will be off on another adventure. (Just as he used to jingle the little bell at the doorknob to be taken out for a bathroom break, or how he shakes his head just so, again for the same reason.) Curious dogs come by for a sniff at the bright green apparatus and cars pass wondering at the strange looking human until they take a second glance.
Last night, after his own dinner he lay on the floor, like a sphynx and silently and very still, watched me dance around the kitchen, making a pie, a salad, shuck corn and fry vegan burgers. I’m sure he was taking notes.
Car rides are our specialty. To the beach even if it’s just a short walk. Getting there is a big part of the fun. I am smart enough to know a smile means he likes it, and a chin heavy on my forearm means I love you
.
I love your writing so much. Hugo & you & Bernard are so lucky to have found each other . Xxx