Doggin Around

She's laying on her stomach, on her cushion, as I enter the room. She hardly responds. 

I say to her "Maggy". "Wake up" "Get up, Lets go". She hardly budges from where she's laying. She needs more motivation. 

I go up to her and poke at her side - "come on!" I say, this time in a more assertive voice. 

She jumps up from her mat in a whiffy. I see her, so simple. So easily pleased with the vicissitudes of life. 

Pee, Poo, Play, the 3 words which get her jumping. I say "Maggy, wanna take a poo?". I'm waiting for that reaction. That loveable, though predictable, raising of the eyebrows and focusing of the eyes, half way looking at me, half way looking straight ahead. Always on alert, like a wolf. 

As I amble to the door I take a book with me. I'm planning on reading but I realize a second earlier I had decided to take her for a poo. I turn around, look down, and before me are those insanely adorable searching eyes, saying "Aren't you going to take me out"? I see such trust and expectation. Her need of me. And this dang recognition - this human capacity for existential meaning. 

As we get out onto the porch i lay my book on the table and I walk to the curb with her. She sits. I look for cars, none, and I tell her to come. She races across as she always does, and before squatting to take a pee, she spends a few seconds smelling out the right location. 

Now it's time for poo. The indeterminable part. The part that can take a few seconds or 15 minutes - if I'm even willing to wait that long. We walk. She wobbles this way and that way as she bends from right to left, sniffing out some Atlantean t**d. Something waiting to be whiffed by another dog. She's making that movement. That widening of the a*****e, the lifting of the tail, and finally, the erect squat, allowing the poo to fall down into a spiralled crown of s**t. 

When were done - this time, 10 minutes - we head back to the driveway, hoping to get back to my book. But instead of going right towards the door, she takes a detour to the left, to the side of the house, with the intention of going to the backyard.....to play ball. 

As she walks there I already know what she wants, so take a moment just to watch. She goes, as soon as she passes the brick, she turns back at me, no doubt wondering "can we go?".. Again. I can't resist it. She hasn't played yet today and a dog has got to play, I know this. So I relent and follow her down to the back.

As soon as she realizes that I've acceded to her suggestion, her tag flaps bag and forth and she skips to the backyard fence, eagerly awaiting my arrival to open it. 

"Ok, you wanna go in, you little b***h?" I speak to her as I always do, in motherese.I open the gate and she flies into the backyard, fading by the corner and then turning back to me, "where's the ball?" She's saying. She instantly searches in the place its always kept: the face. But It's not there. In fact, she was right beside before she deciding to check the vase. I say "hey...Look" Pointing my finger at the ball ahead of her. "see, go get it!" She jots from the spot, and tries to get her teeth into it. When she finally gets it, she brings it to me and I bring the ball over into the sun, to relax on the grass, and play fetch with her.