The food fight continues

-->

Pepper is still adjusting to having only dry food and it makes our daily walks a little fraught at times. Take this morning's walk for example.
`Why is it one rule for you and a different one for me?'
`Because you're a dog and I'm not and by the way what are you talking about ?'
`You eat stuff you shouldn't like potatoes and bread but I can't have
meat. Not crap-just a few scraps of meat! And may I remind you I am carnivore -carne as in means meat. And stop it with the carrots. I'm not bugs fucking bunny'
`If the language I'm imagining you addrerssing me with is a reflection of the tension here then 

I think you need to chill out.'
`So you can get fat and break your toilet seat but I have to starve?'
( she is referring to a real incident but I deny it was my fat ass that did it. I blame poor construction of the said seat). 

I said nothing.We just stared at each other.

I was determined not to be dragged down to her level so I simply gave a deep tut tut and continued  our walk in silence.

Where is he?

It's been a busy week and a fr-fr-fr-fr-freezing cold one too.Our walks have been as brisk as the weather.No wandering off into the woods and stopping to sniff the tree stumps.And Pepper's been quite focused too.Pee,poop,let's go home.So our imaginary conversations have been very twitter-esque.Most troublesome for Madame P is that I've been getting home very late,often past midnight.Hence the photo here which reflects her buddha-like patience waiting for me.
Waiting,waiting waiting to do our midnight rambler act.Maybe its because she's been roused from a warm bed early in the morning that she wants to get back to it ASAP but at night she wants to spend a long time in the great outdoors.Only thing is it's not great when its so so so cold.I'm the impatient one
hustling her to get back to the mothership. I feel guilty though.Maybe this weekend we'll do a longer walk and chat like we used to do.I think it will do us both good.

The dog days of January

Today was a chilly chilly morning and according to some paid expert today is blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year. 

I wasn’t feeling it until I read that fact but I think poor Pepper knew because she is a hound with a bad case of the blahs. Over the Christmas holidays she got very spoiled with snacks and table scraps. It had started way before the holidays actually. And I think it was me who was to blame for it all. A taste of this here. Some gravy there. Seeing that she was not that thrilled to be eating dry food I began spicing it up by adding wet dog food to it.

But then she became jaded with that. So I decided arbitrarily that she should go cold turkey except not real cold turkey –cold dry food. Of course she does not like that. Not one little bit.  She now looks at me like Gordon Ramsey reviewing a bowl of slop that’s just been served to him. I think she’s trying to be on hunger strike in protest. She sniffs the bowl theatrically and walks away in disgust.

She has started making pitiable pleas for snacks until its time for bed. Then when the lights go out and her dignity can be preserved she grudgingly eats what’s in her bowl. And next morning very publicly turns her nose up at what I give her  all over again. Oh Pepper! You’ve got a bad bad case of those `why don’t you give me none of that really meaty yummy tasty food no more instead of this shit' hound dog blues.

A dog's life

What does that mean exactly -a dog's life. Hardship? Inhumane suffering? A worthless existence.
Or 18 hours of sleep on the most comfortable of surfaces,2 poops a day,5 pees and guaranteed food and fresh water.The life of `She-who-barks-bravely-through-the-window-at distant-squirrel' is
hard to feel sorry for.I always wonder what happened to her sister.When we rescued Pepper she was a little runty pup called Louise and she had an equally runty sister called Thelma.Their Mom didn't have enough nipples to accommodate them and her other pups and so Thelma and Louise  had been taken in by a kindly couple and that's where she was adopted from and in the move changed her name from Louise to Pepper. And Thelma? Who knows? The fate of so many dogs on rescue row is not a happy one. I hope she found a dog's life like her sister and I often look at Pepper muttering in her sleep and making little yippy noises and wonder is she dreaming of those barrel- belly pupster days? Or is she just bemoaning the relative discomfort of sleeping on the couch versus the armchair.

Talking the dog

`So' said Pepper raising her nose out of the soggy clump of snow that smelled so deliciously
of raccoon piss, `what does it mean to be let go? Is it like you letting go of that harness you strap me into for our every day walks?'
`Yes' I said `kind of,well not really'
I could see she was already getting bored with the subject.The smell of rabbit was wafting from somewhere to the right.
`If I let go of the leash you'll go on a merry gallop...'
`I'm a dog.I don't gallop.Horses gallop.'
`ok you'll go on a merry run and then a half hour later you'll come back.Provided you haven't been run over by a car or shot by a hunter. For me,being let go means feeling powerless about falling into
nothingness and not being able to support my family which by the way includes buying food for you.'
She stopped and thought about that last point.
`Right then. Time to stop messing about out here.Let's go home.Sooner we're back sooner you go off to work and if you do it well enough maybe you won't be let go."
`Maybe' I said sounding not too convinced as we headed back  home.

Beware the Jabberwock

Walking this morning with Pepper,like Calvin and Hobbes,discussing the merits of the universe
and calculating the chances of being struck by meteorites when all of a sudden she came to a complete halt and started growling at a a patch of bushes.Now this is just after 6 this morning and pretty dark in the New Jersey suburbs.I, of course,freeze wondering what in heck it is that my trusty
guardian has discovered to threaten her beloved companion (me). The growl grumbles and increases in volume and then rather like an old car I used to have it comes to slow rumbling stop. And with that her tail wags and she sets off as though nothing has happened.What Jabberwock did she see there in the primeval darkness?What frumious bandersnatch?
She wouldn't tell.But whatever it was my fearless pal had seen it off.

Chilly Dog

A brown dog on a brown chair in a brown study. That's my early morning and late night walking muse Pepper.As I took her walking today,the second day of the new year we pondered the notion of time,the passage of time,the meaning of time.Well not strictly true. Pepper wasn't thinking about that at all.The fact that this is 2013 is completely irrelevant to her. She lives in the now,in the second.
The smell of a squirrels breath in the distance wipes clear any thought she held 2 seconds ago.
What a blessing to be so alive to the moment and its possibilities and never be hampered by the burden of memories,regret or success.Everything just is.And at that point I began to feel frostbite setting into my fingers and walked quickly back home.My companion even with her tailor made fur coat feel the brisk morning air and if she was a little surprised by the urgency of my steps she just took it her stride.