1. The Egg Event
In the riot that is the moments of morning as the hounds are released and race across the living room thru the doorway and jump onto the bed, Izzy comes up and pushes her Fabergé egg in my face.
Her Fabergé egg, it sounds so much better the Kibble Nibble Dog Toy.
It’s a dog puzzle shaped like a very large egg trimmed with purple rubbery plastic. Every morning, the fair and industrious Trudy puts Izzy’s kibble in it, where it rattles and rolls around inside the egg, every once in a while a piece popping out the end. Terriers love a challenge, and this puzzle keeps her busy for at least an hour as she nudges and shoves and throws it around, trying to coax the kibble out.
So this morning, Izzy pushes the egg into my face and then, getting no reaction, tunnels deep under the covers as she always does on cold mornings. Not long afterwards, Trudy, envious of my day off, kisses me goodbye and leaves for work.
Two hours later, I roll out of bed to make breakfast and have some coffee. Izzy is sitting in her crate looking for all the world like she is inseparable from the egg just as a little boy might be inseparable from his little toy trains.
“That’s odd,” I think to myself. I know she loves the thing, but she doesn’t normally carry it around like a security blanket. So I take a closer look. And sure enough, she is literally inseparable from it. Somehow she has wedged her lower jaw into the hole on one end, and her canines are like fish hooks: there is no getting her out. After two failed attempts, I call the vet.
“Bring her right in.”
2. Egg Off Her Face
When I took Izzy to the vet, they took her into the back room. She pranced alongside Kelly with the egg still firmly attached to her jaw. When Kelly came back out, she said they’d have to sedate her. I was thinking that it was good I brought a book, when they said they’d call me when they were done.
“Oh you mean really sedate her,” I said.
So I went home dogless, greeted of course by Mr. Guinness who was quite happy to have some peace and quite without that pesky little Terrier around.
The phone rang not too long after that. The doctor told me that Izzy was fine and that they were able to get the egg off her face just fine. (Actually, that’s not really what she said, but admit it, she should have.)
“Come by in an hour,” she said.
3. Driving Miss Izzy
“Here’s your little one,” the receptionist said as she brought Izzy up from the back.
She wasn’t prancing, now. She was groggy still, and the receptionist was cuddling her in her arms.
“Our little one,” I said.
With the swipe of a card, the transaction was complete, and we went out to the car where we sat for a few moments in the sun, just letting all the confusion and bluff settle.
She sat in my lap at first, and I whispered in her ear that everything was ok. But she likes looking out the window when we’re in the car, and she looked up at it several times and tried to stand up with her paws on the edge. But she couldn’t muster the energy and eventually settled for the seat beside me where she curled up in a ball and fell asleep as I pulled out of the parking lot.
I had the day off. My dog was feeling down. And so I decided we’d drive downtown to the lake and find a sunny spot on the grass and just sit and let the sedative wear off.
4. Sitting in the Noonday Sun
“Hop down,” I said as I opened the car door. She stared at the pavement from my lap. So I picked her up and set her down.
We walked on the grass toward the gravel trail. She staggered a little as we went. The doctor had warned that she was still a little drunk. So we found a place on the hill overlooking the lake and sat down on the grass. And we both fell asleep. She, lying on my sweater on the ground. Me with my arm over her dozing in and out of sleep as joggers ran by and little kids said to their parents, “Look at that man sleeping with his little puppy.”
White clouds floated by against a blue sky. A gentle breeze shook the leaves in the trees. The sun warmed us. I think we were there almost two hours. After that, we sat on a bench on the bridge over the river.
More joggers jogged by. And kids in strollers. And bikers riding their bikes. And kids taking pictures of each other with the railroad trestle in the background with big, bright Pac Man graffiti characters painted on the side. Never give up, the graffiti proclaims, an obvious reference to the fact that the old graffiti has recently been painted over, making the trestle a neat, clean, uniform brown from north to south, except for the span where bright new Pac Men have been dutifully repainted in what must have been days after the cleanup.
5. Same As It Ever Was
Never give up.
It’s evening, now. And there she sits, in front of the kitchen cabinet expecting some celery or carrot from my preparations for tomorrow’s lunch. It’s as if nothing happened today. No egg stuck to face. No vet. No adventure at the lake. We’re back into the, “Oh certainly you can spare a small piece of that.” She’ll never give up.
I think the sedation has finally worn off.
