Fleegle and Sadie Have a Guest – Booker
Tag: labrador retriever
Negotiating with Cookies #11 – John Wayne
While in the car waiting for a red light to change, Fleegle, riding shotgun, lets out a very loud bark that makes me cover my ears.
“Ouch. What are you barking at?”
He stares ahead intently. “That man.”
I look where he’s looking, but see no one. “What man?”
“That man in the big hat.”
I look again. There’s a man in a cowboy hat far away in the next block. “He’s like a zillion miles away.”
“He’ll be close soon enough. You watch.”
“Why bark, why not wag? What’s so scary about him?”
“He leans to the left when he walks. No one walks like that. He’s up to something. I’m sure of it.”
The light turns green, we pass the man and we’ll never know what he was up to.
Next: Negotiating with Cookies #12 – Meal Time
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Negotiating with Cookies #10 – Breakfast
I’m in the kitchen cooking my breakfast when Fleegle trots in from the yard. “Feeling better, I see.”
“Absolutely.”
“I bet that’s the last time you’ll be eating duck treats.”
“I’m not so sure that’s what made me sick. They were pretty tasty. It might’ve been something else,” he says, hopefully.
“What else did you eat?”
“Kibble.”
“That’s never made your stomach upset before.”
He sniffs the air by the stove where I’m cooking. “Bacon and eggs have never upset your stomach before, maybe I should have some of them.”
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Negotiaitng with Cookies #9 – Feeling Green
Fleegle is curled up on the den couch. “I don’t feel so good.”
“For a chocolate dog, you look mighty green. Is that grass stuck in your front teeth?” I pull it out for him. “So much for your duck treats, eh? Did you throw up?”
He nods. “By the back gate near the garbage cans.”
“Poor dog.”
“And in the flower beds.”
“Poor flowers.”
“And in your shoes by the bed.”
“Poor Raud.”
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Negotiating with Cookies #8 – Ducks and Geese
“Look, Raud, a stork with a baby,” Fleegle shouts from his seat on the couch overlooking the backyard through the den window.
A seagull with a Subway sandwich wrapper in its beak flies by.
“Not big enough,” I say.
A little while later, he asks, “What about them? They’re huge.”
Ducks and geese land in the yard, well fed and plump from a mild winter.
“Nope, they’re not storks. Go chase them away before they poop all over the patio.”
He remains seated on the couch. “Are you sure they’re not storks? Maybe they’re in disguise.”
“Storks won’t land if ducks are in the yard.”
“Oh,” he says, then bolts through the double flaps of the dog door into the yard. “Woof, woof.”
A little later Fleegle comes inside through his dog door, a green smear on his snout.
I ask, “What’s that on your nose?”
His tongue darts out and swipes both sides of his mouth, slicking back his whiskers and getting rid of the evidence. “Nothing.”
“What’s that sheepish expression on your face for then?”
“You told me to chase the ducks and geese away, but you didn’t tell me they made such yummy treats.”
“You didn’t?”
He licks his lips again. “I did.”
Next: Negotiating with Cookies #9 – Feeling Green
Previous: Negotiating with Cookies #7 – Om
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Negotiating with Cookies #7 – Om
In the backyard, I sit down cross-legged on the grass, close my eyes and begin to meditate. I count my breaths and try to clear my mind, and just when mental silence dawns, a wet nose bumps me in the back of my neck.
“Whatcha doin?” Fleegle asks, circling around to my front.
“Meditating.”
“What’s that?”
“A way to make contact with my higher self.” The words are no sooner out of my mouth before my curiosity prods me to open my eyes to see if he’s staring up at the sky. He is.
“How high up did you say he was?” he asks.
I look into the sky where he’s looking. “At this rate, very high up, maybe even beyond the stratosphere.”
“Stratosphere?” he ponders the word. “Does he look like you?”
“My higher self? In a sense, yes.”
Not seeing anything, he raises his nose high and sniffs the breeze, his snout twitching back and forth. “Well, I don’t think he’s anywhere nearby unless he smells like what the cat next door just left in little Jimmy’s sandbox. Maybe your meditation remote needs new batteries.”
“Meditation doesn’t require a remote.”
“Are you sure? Everything else you do does.”
Next: Negotiating with Cookies #8 – Ducks and Geese
Previous: Negotiating with Cookies #6 – Flies and Opossums
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Gnawing the Bone 