WordPlay

The Friday Post

Yes! Finally! After three weeks on crate rest, ConneryBeagle is FREE!

Three weeks of subsuming bounciness into expressive eyebrows and wrinkles of woe.

Three weeks of quiet yodeling, sobbing, and the perfection of the mournful howl.

Three weeks of, “Mymom, are we THERE YET?”

The first week he was so heavily drugged it wasn’t a big deal.  Thank goodness, because we were moving with a vengeance that week, and Connery spent his time in whatever crate I could push from place to place.  Lots of yodeling and singing, but…kinda stoned.

The second week, he mourned…in a new place, unable to smell all the KEEN NEW SMELLS, baffled that Corgi packmates Belle and Jean-Luc had free run while he didn’t.  I took him around on a heel so he could smell things and see things, but…mostly he stuck his face up against the crate door and experimented with amazing new Calvin faces against the wire.

The third week, he said he was READY TO GO!  He’d come bouncing out of the crate and grab the nearest toy, flip it fiercely around, and then say, “Oh.  OW.”   I began to give him controlled down-stays in the office so he could be with me sometimes.

And now here we are!  The end of the third week!  He doesn’t get to rush out to instant unfettered glee; this’ll be a slow reintroduction of activity, complicated by the intense series of storms sweeping through the area.  Think slush, mud, slush, and ugh…

But still, ConneryBeagle is FREE!

Well.

To be serious for a moment.

Not free in an emancipation kind of way.  I’m not one of those who will turn a pet into traffic or out to the coyotes because any horrible death is better than slavery–although at shows, I’ve guarded his travel crate against those who would.

And I’m not his “guardian”…I own him.

I also adore him, train him, show him how to find glee in learning and pride in doing well.  I keep him alive against all odds and a tricky autoimmune system that baffles veterinary science, and every year his hot house flower medical expenses are my savings for a new car, broken ribs aside.  But although I call myself a dogmom, that’s about the emotions.  Legally, responsibly, and by all means with every right to decide his fate, I own him.  It is a privilege, and it is a right–and HSUS and PETA would have it differently, but for now, he is mine.

And I, it must be said, am his.

Tags: adventures, ConneryBeagle, dogs, ouch!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 04:00 and is filed under Finishing Up with Friday, Of the Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.