Oh, goodness, it’s early for a Saturday at our house.
Before we go any further, let me remind animal people, and people who may be animal people but don't know it yet, that lots of rescue groups will have animals available at area pet stores this weekend.
Keep your eyes open. And if you don't "need" another dog or cat, maybe you can volunteer to help or, in the spirit of the season, drop some cash or supplies on the groups to help them get through the holidays.
Speaking of keeping your eyes open, my insomniaspouse Martha has developed a bit of a sleeping problem in the past few days. And she was up about 4:30 this morning -- that’s up even earlier than the feral cats on the front porch.
When Martha rises early, the dogs rise early and are convinced that it’s breakfast time already. So Martha has fed them. No matter how much we try to explain to Inky and the Chihuahua mixes that they won’t be forgotten, they insist on barking out a reminder that they are due breakfast, too.
The little dogs are sporadic barkers, but Inky, the cocker spaniel, barks in monotonous stretches -- same tone, same timing, same insistence for minutes at a time. Arf. Arf. Arf. Arf. Arf. Arf. Arf. Arf. Arf. You get the drift. No variation -- just an early morning annoying sameness. It may be his only flaw.
So, after Martha finished the feeding ritual and had issued her famous call at the door, “It’s Potty Time in Puppy Town!”, she returned with her entourage and they all settled down in the living room.
In fact, I am the only mammal awake right now. Before Martha drifted off in the recliner, she tuned the TV to Animal Planet because it’s showing the 2003 Crufts Dog Show from England. Yes, last year's show. We’ve seen it before. But, it’s kind of pleasantly enjoyable to watch the different breeds and their jaunty show bounces across the ring.
Dog shows always tick Inky off something fierce. He’s an ebony English-style cocker spaniel -- a long sporting dog’s noggin, not one of those roundish skulls that you get in the American cocker. So, Inky’s really “old school.” What bugs him is that the show cockers have more of a tail than he has. The lout who docked Inky’s tail nipped it a little too short and he has a simple stub rather than the “back handle” a judge could use to lift him onto the show stand. Inky will even drop into a slight depression if he overhears someone saying, "Get a grip.” He has no "gripper."
Still, he is quite the handsome fellow. Of course, Martha and I may never have seen a dog that wasn’t blessed with spectacularly divine beauty.
For example, as we shopped on Friday, we drove through Oak Lawn in Dallas, and at the intersection of Oak Lawn and Cedar Springs we were brought to a halt by a pesky traffic light. On the corner, waiting to cross, was a young woman and a shorthaired, pointy-eared, multi-hued dog. Unable to resist, we rolled down a window and yelled, “That’s a beautiful dog!”. Bless her heart, the young woman was polite to the nutty strangers yelling at her from two lanes away.
The dog’s name is Sally. And she’s a “medium-sized” dog, a Catahoula mix, with a lively disposition, obviously devoted to the human she had at the other end of the leash. (It was a long light. We had time to talk.)
As we drove away, I said to Martha, “That dog has every shade of…” and I was going to say “brown” but Martha finished the sentence with “Starbucks.” And, indeed, Sally the perky dog, with her multiple patterns and highlights, is “every shade of Starbucks.”
