Jan 20

The Dog and I are Having a Fight

This is what I’ve been reduced to: sitting on the couch half-watching the Butcher play video games while I nap and fighting with the dog.

Yes, I feel bad for her that she hasn’t had a meaningful walk in two days, but Christ. I’m still kind of disoriented (though the real dizziness has passed). I’m running a fever. The dog has been cooped up for two days.

She shits and then sees a cat and fuck me if it’s not Mrs. Wigglebottom “off”/mighty hunter of the Serengeti “on” except that you rarely see lionesses with me flailing along behind her while she chases her prey.

The dog, though, takes off after the cat with me shouting “no, no, no. Stop.” first one way and then back past me at full speed the other way. She is so singlemindedly focused on that cat that nothing, not the impending end of the leash, not me screaming, can stop her and then, BAM, she hits the end of the leash. I’m stupidly holding on for dear life. The dog’s rear end keeps going after the cat long after the front end has stopped due to the leash and then, all of a sudden, I’ve got sixty pounds of dog swinging through the air about two feet off the ground, by nothing but her collar. She lands with an audible thud.

“No!” I yell again, just for the sake of having something to yell. Due to her nonsense, I’ve been spun around to head home, and so that’s the way I’m headed. But not her, no. She’s digging all four feet and her ass firmly into the ground so that the collar is pulling all the loose skin from her neck up around her head and I’m effectively dragging her down the street.

I stop. She starts pulling the other way.

“Come on!”

I pull my way.

She digs in again.

I pull.

She digs in.

Finally, I lower my sunglasses and I shoot her the meanest look I can. Now, she’s cowering and cringing and whimpering like I’m taking her home to beat her*, but at least we’re moving back towards the house, small puppy steps of terror, but back towards the house. And I’m crying. Why?

Who the fuck knows? Why am I crying? I didn’t deliberately swing her around by her neck. I’m not actually going to beat her. I’m just a girl running a fever who thought it might feel nice to get out in the cool air and walk my dog, slowly, around the neighborhood.

We finally get home after much tugging and dragging and she flinches when I go to take her collar off. Which set off the waterworks again.

Anyway, we’re going to go back out here in a little bit. I’d really, really like for us to just successfully make it around the neighborhood, for both of our sakes.

Until then, though, I’m not speaking to her and I gather from the snores on the couch, she’s done with me for a little bit, too.

*Total actual number of times Mrs. Wigglebottom’s ever been struck in anger by me? Once. Six years ago. One smack on the bottom, actually after an instance much like this, but where I let go of the leash.

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