Negotiating with Cookies #37 – Fleegle Negotiates

Fleegle spots me getting the spray bottle of Flea Flicker out of the dog cabinet and hightails it through the dog door flaps into the backyard. I step outside through the patio doors, look about the yard, but he’s nowhere to be seen now that he’s made it to his hiding spot somewhere in the tall bamboo that lines the back fence, but I can hear him just fine.

“No way are you spraying that stuff on me. It stinks.”

“I know,” I say. “Like cloves.”

“I don’t want to smell like some bohemian college chick with her hippy cigarette.”

“I guess fleas don’t like the smell of cloves.”

“Are you questioning my hygiene? Point to any spot on me and I’ll show you I can lick it clean.”

“You’re scratching like you have fleas.”

The bamboo rustles. “That’s just food allergies. Too much kibble, not enough pizza.”

“You’re not fooling me.”

“Okay, so what if I have fleas. I love fleas. Fleas are my friends.”

Just hearing him scratch somewhere in the bamboo makes me itch. “They’re no friends of mine.”

“You need to be more accepting of others, Raud. They give me something to do when I’m in-between thoughts.”

I step inside the kitchen and return a moment later with Fleegle’s cookie jar. I shake the jar, biscuits of different sizes rattle around inside. “Okay, Fleegle, what’s it going to take?”

His face emerges from a thick cluster of bamboo. “Two,” he says. “Two big cookies. Not the Chihuahua cookies.”

“It’s a deal,” I say, reach into the jar, and take out two biscuits. “One now, and the other after.”

Fleegle crosses the lawn to me, drooling. “Shake on it,” he says.

We do and I give him the first biscuit. As he crunches away on it, I commence spraying along his back with the little pump bottle. Pump, pump, pump… He suddenly darts away. “Hey, I thought we had a deal,” I say.

“We do. It’s two cookies per pump, not the whole spray bath.” He cocks his head to the side, thinking. “Now let’s see, I counted nine pumps from my neck to my tail. Looks like you owe me for eight of them.” He scratches his flank with his back leg while remaining standing. “Boy, Raud, I can feel these fleas breeding, their numbers are increasing exponentially. I think I’ll go take a nap on your bed.”

I look in the cookie jar, hoping if I have enough.

 

Next: Negotiating with Cookies #38 – Purpose

Previous: Negotiating with Cookies #36 – Fleas

Start at the beginning: Negotiating with Cookies #1 – Stinky Butt

Negotiating with Cookies #36 – Fleas

Fleegle drinks from the bird fountain as I doodle on my notepad in the sun, thinking up another post for Fleegle’s ongoing adventures and imagining what he would say if he really could talk. I stop doodling and write down: Fleegle rolls onto his back in the grass and slurs around the gooey tennis ball in his mouth, “I wuv my ball.”

As I write, Fleegle sidles up to me, eyeballs what I’m writing, then rubs his wet snout on the page. “What kind of sappy stuff is that?” he asks as he sits back on his haunches and starts scratching at the side of his head with his back paw.

My mouth drops open at what I’m hearing. He really can talk.

He continues, “I should be saying something like: Get off me, fleas, before I crush you like this ball.”

I continue staring and wonder if that mushroom soup I had for lunch was made of “special” mushrooms picked by Grateful Dead fans in the woods.

“What’s wrong, Raud? You didn’t think I could read, huh? That chicken scratch of yours is pretty much undecipherable, could be ancient cuneiform if I didn’t know better, but I’ve had plenty of practice cracking that code. I like to read what I shred. Unless it’s TV Guide, that I just shred.”

 

Next: Negotiating with Cookies #37 – Fleegle Negotiates

Previous: Negotiating with Cookies #35 – Cheating

Start at the beginning: Negotiating with Cookies #1 – Stinky Butt

Negotiating with Cookies #35 – Cheating

“That dog has the fastest legs of any dog I’ve met,” Fleegle says about Ozzy, the dog he’s playing fetch with.

Ozzy returns with the ball. I trade him a treat for it and place it in the Chuck-It. “That’s why I taught you to cheat,” I say.

“I don’t cheat, I’m observant. Ozzy just doesn’t spot when you fake a throw in one direction and pull a switch at the last second.”

“But you do.”

“Raud, let me tell you about the Labrador and the hare.”

 

Next: Negotiating with Cookies #36 – Fleas

Previous: Negotiating with Cookies #34 – Monkey’s

Start at the beginning: Negotiating with Cookies #1 – Stinky Butt

Negotiating with Cookies #33 – Fleegle Squeaks Out

While sweeping the kitchen floor, I hear a squeaky ball squeak outside in the backyard. It squeaks and squeaks and grows progressively louder until Fleegle walks through the open patio door and stops to watch me sweep. Squeak, squeak goes the ball in his mouth as he clamps down on it.

“Good ball?” I ask.

He nods. Squeak.

“I didn’t know you had any left that still had the squeaker in them.”

He sets the ball down on the floor. “So it is you that’s been steeling my squeakers.”

“Fleegle, as you always say, it’s not steeling if you leave it out for the taking.”

“But why take my squeakers?” he asks.

“I just happen to really like squeakers.”

“Like you just happen to really like vanilla and strawberry ice cream,” he says, reminding me of my penchant for only getting chocolate, something he doesn’t get to eat.

“Boy, you catch on quick for dog bred to run through muck and brambles.”

He gives me an annoyed look and picks up his ball–squeak–then turns to go back outside.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“To hide the last of my squeakers.”

*   *   *

I’m startled out of a deep sleep. The clock on the nightstand reads 3:37am. I lay in the darkness wondering what woke me, listening to the silence of a neighborhood asleep. I feel Fleegle jump up on the bed, then his hot breath near my face.

“I found another ball you missed under the bed,” he says. “Now I have two squeakers.”

Squeak, squeak. And squeak.

 

Next: Negotiating with Cookies #34 – Monkey’s

Previous: Negotiating with Cookies #32 – Cats

Start at the beginning: Negotiating with Cookies #1 – Stinky Butt

Negotiating with Cookies #32 – Cats

Fleegle stands on the couch in the living room looking out the window at the house across the street. “We have new neighbors,” he announces. “They have four cats. Can you imagine living with four cats?”

“Four cats and you? No.”

“Why not?” He jumps off the couch and nose bumps me in the thigh. “Don’t you like cats? I love cats.”

“No you don’t.”

“Why would you say that? They’re like mini-Santas that go around hiding biscuits in all the sandy patches in the neighborhood, and they act like speeding tennis balls when you chase them.” He cocks his head at me. “That is, when I chase them. You don’t chase much, except me when I run outside with your remote.”

“Hmm…”

“We should get a cat, or two. Yeah, two cats, at least for starters. Maybe we can get more later, and cover the backyard with sand.”

Next: Negotiating with Cookies #33 – Fleegle Squeak Out

Previous: Negotiating with Cookies #31 – Green Fleegle

Start at the beginning: Negotiating with Cookies #1 – Stinky Butt

Negotiating with Cookies #31 – Green Fleegle

Through the open den window, comes the sound of the neighbors dragging their wheelie bin down their driveway to the curb for tomorrow morning’s garbage pickup. Napping on the couch, Fleegle’s ears snap to attention at the sound of tinkling glass as they carry out their recyclables. “Oh, boy, Raud. It’s garbage day. Let’s go for a walk.”

“You want to clean other people’s jam jars, huh?”

“Yeah, don’t you?”

“Um, no, but I’ll tag along for the walk.”

 

Next: Negotiating with Cookies #31 – Cats

Previous: Negotiating with Cookies #30 – Unemployed

Start at the beginning: Negotiating with Cookies #1 – Stinky Butt