walking with fluffernutter

My friend P has suggested that I write about her on my blog. She reads this and would like to see herself mentioned more. We should probably get drunk together, that has more possibility for blog fodder than our weekend dog walks which tend to be pretty straight forward. I have known P for a while, but we really got to know each other well when we got puppies within weeks of each other. We would visit each other with the puppies, hoping that the two pups would play long enough to burn off a chunk of that adorable puppy enthusiasm. And yes, I just typed that through clenched teeth.

What P and both had in common from the start was an inability to bond with our respective dogs. We both wanted to. We both had high expectations of the dog becoming an esteemed family member to gather around for holiday photos. We both imagined a strong brave canine steadfastly guarding our beloved children, barking at danger and becoming so indispensable that we would no longer be able to function with out them.

You know about me and the devil dog, no love lost there. P has a standard poodle. She was under the impression they were one of the smarter breeds. When her breeder told her about her dogs unbridled enthusiasm P thought "How cute!" She foolishly thought "How cute!" when the breeder mentioned the dags uncanny ability to poo all over the entire the yard in tiny little droplets. Hahahaha. Then Fluff came home.

P and I and our dogs attended a LAME-O dog training class together in hopes of developing that human canine relationship, but really afterwards the only thing I got out of it was a really funny imitation of the -you really need to hang with people more- dog trainer. No bonding occurred during the obedience class.

P's dog is a hilarious sight to see leaping like a gazelle down the street, (OK, I think he is funny. P doesn't) especially when he is freshly shaved and all flailing legs. On our walks, the devil dog normally forges ahead with a steely shoulder dislocating iron will. P's dog, Fluff only wants to frolic and leap and play. When P uses the extendable leash we can all end up hog tied before the end of the block. We curse a lot on those walks. Walking with the two dogs is difficult to say the least, but we have discovered a new trick. We take the dogs to a big field and unleash them. As we humans walk in circles around the field the frolicking dogs orbit around us. We get a walk, and the dogs end up purely exhausted. The reality is that P and I want to walk and the dogs are a convenient excuse to dump the kids with the husbands on a weekend morning. There is no canine bonding on the walk.

Last weekend, P and I were on our new and improved field circling walk and we were discussing Fluff. For a year he suffered with devasting ear infections. P tried everything, medicines, special diets (as in kangaroo meat- you know a leaping dog on a kangaroo meat diet is just too good for me to let slide) and then finally in desperation agreed to allow the vet to remove Fluff's infected ear canal. Now Fluff is deaf on that one side, and as if he isn't a big enough dork already he can no longer tell what direction sounds are coming from. When he hears something he freezes with his legs spread apart, and then starts looking right-left-right-left to try to figure out where the sound came from. I think it is pee in your pants funny. P wishes she had gotten a more macho dog.

I think Fluff still needs a diet change due to the excessive poopage that he did not outgrow, and was on the verge of becoming a pest with the reccommendation for a new food when P suggested that maybe Fluff was just plain old brain damaged. It happens all the time, P said. She had heard that dogs with ear infections could shake SO vigorously that .......