I received an email from a certain dark colored dog last night, and although there were multiple typos (you know, from the whole no thumbs thing), the message was
clear. I paraphrased it below:
“Dear Old Mom, I am
divorcing you. I don’t know what that
word means, but I think I heard it on tv one time. My New Mom showed me your letter thing about
me and you told it all wrong. I am
appalled to hear you say that I fell off the greenway. I did not fall. I gracefully landed in the
water, and I did it by purpose. Not by accident. It’s not my fault that I can air dry and you
can’t! Anyway, if I was still at your house, I would probably poop on the floor
just to show you that I don’t use horrible cuss words like you said. Maybe I’d
even rip a hole in your sock, or work pants … oh wait, I’ve already done both
of those things. Okay, well, I told my New Mom to let me know if the internet
is spreading any more lies about me, and if it does, I won’t be ashamed to lick
myself on your pillow. Be warned Old Mom. Be warned.”
My mouth dropped. Does he think I’m fooled? He’s already licked himself on my pillow! So I guess
when he sees this post, he’ll just have to come visit and follow through with
his lame threat. And then I’ll get to
see his wrinkly face and love him up. Win/win.
So here are a few more Cagney shananigans for your entertainment:
It was a Friday. I took Cagney for our usual training/walk and realized as I
walked out of the house that there was a giant party taking place next door at
the community park. We went over to
check it out and there was a band, people sitting in the grass with beers, kids
playing, just a whole bunch of awesomeness.
So although I had abandoned my phone in the house and only had a bag of
treats and a house key on me, we decided to sit and watch some of the
show. We picked a wonderful spot up on a
small hill above the sidewalk, out of the way of passersby but still close to
the musical event. C sat like a
gentleman next to me for about 9 and a half seconds and then got distracted and
started sniffing around. I was jamming
out to some Bruce Springsteen covers when I realized that C was inhaling. Hard.
Like really hard. Hard enough to
actually be getting moisture out of the ground.
Grossed out, I glanced over and was about to pull him back over to me,
when he started digging and in turn, began throwing dirt and sand all over the
people walking on the sidewalk. Horrified, I said his name and pulled him over
to me, but not before I saw an OUTPOURING of small red insects in the freshly
dug hole. Yes, Cagney had been sniffing
and digging in a red ant hill. As I
stand up to apologize to the people in front of me that have sand and dirt all
over them, (who were simultaneously brushing dirt/sand/red ants off their clothes
and giving me double stink eyes), I see that Cagney is inhaling these red ants
like a WetVac. It took him about three good sucks to realize that live red ants
in your nose aren’t all that pleasant.
As we stood up and began walking home, I managed to have the following
conversation:
“Cagney! I can’t –“ Sneeze. “God
bless you, I can’t take—“ Sneeze.
“Goodness, bless you! Seriously though. Cagney. I—“ Sneeze. Sneeze. Sneeze. Rub with paw. Sneeze. Rub face on ground. Rub
with paw. Sneeze. Pause. Sneeze.
This continued the entire way home, him sneezing about 15 times and having to
stop every few steps to rub his nose with his paw. I felt bad, but lesson learned little buddy …
don’t mess with anything that has a stinger.
Hey, you know what? C has a problem. He
doesn’t really prepare to poop; he’s more of a poop procrastinator. A poopcrastinator, if you will. So when he has to go, he doesn’t sniff, find
a good spot, squat, finish and be done. It’s more like this: “Ohmygosh, I love
grass and I love smelling and I smell people and dogs and cats and squirrels
and I want to find them and oh wait, there’s my human and she doesn’t want me
to dig in the ground. Ok new plan, I love grass and I love smelling and I smell
people and woahhhh, somethin’s happening. Not sure what it is, so I’m gonna
keep walking while this weird thing happens and make a giant poop trail that’s
really humiliating in public to clean up.” I cannot tell you how many times we
would be walking for 10, 20, 30 minutes in grass and the minute we’d walk down
the street, he’d squat right in the middle.
I mean, directly in the middle
of the road. Poopcrastinators. I’m sure everyone knows at least one.
On Cagney’s last morning at my house, I let him get in bed with Trey and
I. He was normally not allowed in the
bed, although for the full month he was at my house, he would try every night,
multiple times. Just in case I changed
my mind, I presume. So I call him up and
he was beside himself. He alternated
sitting on my head to rolling on his back on top of me and lying horizontally
across our necks with his lanky legs splayed out in all directions. I was able to appreciate what our rescue does
at that moment and I looked at his upside-down bully grin and knew that chances
are, without CCB, Cagney would have had a needle stuck into his forearm at 6
weeks old and would not currently be tumbling, frolicking, being a giant dope and
making people laugh each day. He
deserved to be saved and so do the rest of the babies that are waiting in the
world. Go check out https://www.facebook.com/petpardons
if you want to make an immediate difference. Google and donate to any rescue - no, not
the Humane Society or ASPCA - no, I mean a real, non-profit rescue run by people
that are probably poor and will stretch your dollars as far as possible because
every dollar is gold to them.
Without our rescue, Cagney wouldn’t be here. Don’t you want to be a part of
something bigger than yourself?
