Do you want to go out?
Will you give me a smooch?
Do you want some food?
Do you want to fly?
My dogs answer the first three questions by tail/butt wagging, twiggling (combo of twisting and wiggling), excited little jumps and/or licks.
There is this exception: Shecky will not smooch me when I am about to leave for work. He knows my routine in the morning which takes about two hours from waking to leaving. There is first the dog walk. Wait, I do pee first, and sometimes spray my face with refrigerated toner. In the 1400+ days I�ve lived with my dogs, there are probably less than 30 mornings that I have not walked them. Rain, snow, sleet, sometimes they are short walks � or quickie-quickie-out-outs, as I call them, but still I am dependable. There is that, then their food. Then a little cleaning up, exercise, shower, I steam my clothes for the day, make my smoothie and take my vitamins, do things to my face and hair and then get my keys. Shecky usually sits in the bathroom while I shower, sits behind me on the couch when I do the rest, nuzzly and sweet, but the jingly keys turn him into a little stone. He turns his head when I say my goodbyes. Turns his little boxy head.
Of course, there is this exception: the question about flying seems to stump them. I ask it when we are walking by the river, when we get to the first river fall and see the heron. I call him Billy, because of my friend whose last name is similar. �Do you see Billy?� I ask and they twiggle, but this may be because they know Billy, the friend, and he is friendly with them. We stop and then they do see the great bird. It can take a bit because its colors are like the rushing water. That�s when I ask, or sometimes sing, �Wouldn�t you like to fly?�
I sing frequently to the pups. All of the above questions and more. The food question is sung or hummed to the sounds from �Close Encounters of the Third Kind� when they are communicating to the aliens. Fitting, eh? There is also the harness ditty, as in �Harnesses on, it�s time to put harnesses on� (or off, as the case may be). This has a chorus from Mitch of �boom-boom-boom�, a lovely add on. �When Shecky Was a Baby� is a bittersweet tale of our melancholy little Sheck � �He was a little sad� whose life we changed when we brought him home. �Now he�s happy all day long, now he�s happy big and strong�, yes, it�s all true. Shecky�s love of rolling onto his back inspired a remake of �Strawberry Buffet� to �Strawbelly Buffet� as he has a pink belly and we like to kiss it.
Reuben, he of the baseball head, is also know as Marzy, short for Marzipan Mouf. I sing to him, but usually just the stock songs. Inspiration has not struck yet with a particular Ruby specific melody. If Reuben were a film star, he might be one of the little rascals or a W.C. Fields knock-off. He walks around with a ball in his mouth, hanging a bit out of the side, like a cigar. He would rather not take it out to pee or poop or eat.
He might let it fall out when he sees one of the hedgehogs. At first I thought there was just one but I realized when we saw one behind the Tsongas Arena, then by Wannalancit, then by the National Parks facility building, I realized there was a few. They don�t move that fast. I call them all �Hedwig�. Both my dogs apparently are fans but what would actually happen if there was a true meeting? I don�t think it would be pretty, it would be a mad paparazzi scene.
�If you had five minutes to talk to your dog... and he or she could completely understand you... what would you say?� A dog lover, teacher, professional author and soon to be author is asking this question for a book he is writing. Wait, they don�t completely understand?
When the heron takes wing, all five feet of wingspan, it is a thing of beauty. I imagine my two Boston Terriers with wings, flying like little monkeys with sweet bellies over the river. �Do you want to fly?� They don�t seem interested, like I said.