The World of Dragonfly

Spring is a beautiful time where I live.  The grass is green.  The flowers are out.  The temperatures are moderate.  And the geese are plentiful.  If you’re a Canadian goose, why spend all of your life and energy flapping your wings in a desperate attempt to get from place to place when you can winter over in a place such as North Carolina?  Raleigh is filled with them, and they leave plenty of evidence behind such as goose poo.

Now, nesting time is upon us.  There’s a nest across the major road from where we live.  And where there’s nests, there’s geese.  Now, I’m not sure if the goose I encountered tonight was the dad/mom belonging to said nest.  All I know is that the pups and I were coming back from a long, long walk.  We were tired, hungry, and simply wanting to get back before it was too dark.

Until we met The Goose.

Now, The Goose was sitting in the utility strip between the road and the sidewalk as if he didn’t have a care in the world.  Problem was, The Goose was essentially blocking our way.  There wasn’t a good way around him.  It was either go out into the street where we’d get hit or way into the grass, which was wet from a recent storm.

The Goose saw us.  Stood up.  Started sticking his tongue out, hissing at us, and bobbing his head up and down in typical goose aggression style.  It would have been comical had I not known from experience that if a goose bites you, it hurts!

Then Wallace goes bananas.  Keep in mind that The Goose is as big as he was, meaning that he was bigger (and nastier) than Wallace.  Then he started acting like he was going to charge use.  All I could see in my mind is the goose charging, nipping Wallace, and Wallace, gentle boy that he is, biting back.  It would have been an all-out bloodbath that Wallace would probably win.

I didn’t want anyone to get hurt, even The Goose.  So I did what I thought I needed to.  I jumped.  Landed loudly on both of my feet.  Sounded like splat!  The Goose jumped, so I did it again.  Then I started trying to edge past.

We repeated the whole thing.  Finally, we managed to worm by him.  But as we were vacating the area (and quickly, I might add), he came after us again!  So I used the jump/splat technique once more.  Finally, success!  The Goose left us alone, and we were on our merry way home to dine, thankful that-at least today, we were safely out of goosing range.

Tonight is Basenji Beauty Night at our house.  We bathe them, brush their teeth, clip their nails, and trim any longish paw-pad hair.  Honestly, it’s like a spa night for dogs.  However, Wallace and Aspen usually don’t view it that way, Wallace more so than Aspen.

First, the bath.  Understand that basenjis hate water.  It usually goes like this.  Steve gets into his swim trunks because on occasion, there’s lots of splashing water.  Then he snags one of the dogs, usually Aspen since her curiosity overrides her caution.  While he’s scrubbing her, I go in search of Wallace.  He usually lurks underneath the dining room table.  What ensues is my chasing him around the table.  He threads his way through the chair legs like a champion agility dog and then takes off into the other room.  Finally, though, he sees that the end is near and runs up the stairs into our bedroom, essentially trapping himself.  Once they’re finished, an all-out slam session to rival the WWE happens.  Wallace chases Aspen.  She chases him.  They bite each other on the neck.  He slams her onto the carpet and holds her for the count.  I’m wondering if he’s expecting us to give him three points like in a typical wrestling match.  Then they tear around the downstairs some more, finally dashing outside.  Knowing that there’s exposed dirt out there, I cringe.  But somehow, they avoid rolling in it.

At last, they calm down.  It’s like throwing a switch.  One moment it’s Slam!  Crash!  Pow! as they play.  Then it’s ZZZZZZZ!  That’s the perfect time for our next phase, the nail trimming.  Aspen’s great about it.  She allows us to trim all sixteen digits without a problem.  Wallace, on the other hand . . . You see, he’s our firstborn doggy son.  When he was a puppy, we clipped his nails and cut one too short, quicking him.  Since then, it’s been a trial.  Once more, it’s like WWE, except this time, it winds up with me practically lying on top of him.  Steve shines a bright light on him to see his quick (We ‘av vays of making vou talk!), and we fight to clip each nail.  Finally, we finish.  Everyone’s chest is heaving from pent up stress, and Wallace skulks away to sulk in private.  One time, he literally stole the nail clippers and hid them in the living room.

However, all of that is changing tonight.  We actually bought something from the television called Peticure, which is like a Dremel tool to grind down their nails.  We did a test run a couple of nights ago, and it worked!  So a new era is starting.  Gone are the struggles, the thievery, the skulking (at least for nail clipping).  It’s a new dawn out there, and I’m looking forward to it.

Last is the teeth brushing.  Well, it’s more like gnashing on a toothbrush with doggy toothpaste on it, but the dogs enjoy it.  It’s also necessary since basenjis, who in their native Congo usually don’t live past the age of six, could feasibly lose their teeth at age six.

All in all, it’s a great night.  The dogs smell good.  Their nails are shorter.  Their breath smells better. And we sleep well that night.  Such it is for Basenji Beauty Night.

We passed a milestone at our house last week. Aspen, one of our basenji dogs, became an ace. Let me introduce you to Aspen. Like I just said, she’s a basenji, which is an African dog native to the Congo. The breed has roots going all the way back to ancient Egypt. Basenjis are sight and scent hounds, meaning that they hunt both with their eyes and noses. And since they’re hounds, they tend to pursue small game out in front of their human masters, thus requiring planning and thinking by them to catch their prey.

So back to Aspen. She loves to hunt like her cousins in the Congo. She already had four kills on her list, two squirrels and two bunnies. Believe me when I say that the wildlife in our backyard usually grazes or plays with one eye on the dog door leading to the house.

Last Wednesday morning, I’d gotten up early to water the flowers since it was so hot outside. I noticed that she was delicately nibbling on something in the back corner of the yard. I frowned and turned back to the watering. Something didn’t seem right. I’d better go check on her, I thought. So I headed to the back corner. That’s when I saw it. She’d caught something and with the appetizer finished, she was getting ready to settle down for the main course. “Aspen!” I screeched, most likely loud enough to awaken any neighbors who were still sleeping.

I snatched her up and carried her inside. “Steve!” I shouted. “You wouldn’t believe what she did!” I slammed down the plastic door over the dog door.

He only groaned. “What?”

“She got a squirrel!”

Being the mortician of the family, he went to the garage, got a glove, and headed outside. It turned out to be another baby bunny. He dutifully disposed of it. Later, as Steve was crating them for the day, she yodeled twice.

Some of you may wonder if we scolded her. I have to admit, we didn’t. Hunting is deep, deep in her nature. I was actually proud of her for having the smarts to bide her time and wait patiently for prey. So now Aspen is an Ace in the basenji world.