Apr 05, 2008 22:04
I probably shouldn’t even be telling this one, but it’s so striking, to me at least,* about . . . well, dogs, and human frailty. Also that Chaos is nuts, even as sighthounds go.
I have not been keeping you up to date about the hellhounds’ latest cycle of digestive mayhem. I think I told you about taking them to the (standard) vet a few weeks ago, who gave them vitamin B12 jabs (appetite promoter) and probiotics (to quiet the mayhem). These sort of worked briefly and then it was a return to our previously scheduled programme. Furthermore we’re now more or less officially into spring, and lots of otherwise sane, steady animals go mental and, er, physical, in various ways when the season turns, including going off their feed and other more egregiously manifested internal irregularities. So there may be several things currently contributing to the distressing picture, and I admit to being hopelessly confused. As well as rather overwrought. I have another appointment with the (homeopathic) vet (who is a lot farther away and a lot more expensive) next Tuesday, but meanwhile we have to get through all these days first.
They ate, slept, walked and defecated more or less normally-that is, normal by some other standard than theirs-yesterday so I had myself braced for something else today. They obliged. Darkness had the Yellow Geyser on the morning walk and Chaos refused lunch. Sigh.
Darkness, however, is by far the less convoluted and impenetrable hellhound. He eats more often than he doesn’t and he mostly has his yellow-geyser moments and then gets over them. I would like to sort out the tendency to diarrhea** but in Darkness’ case he may be mostly just a sighthound, which is to say strange, with some sensitivities/allergies.***
Chaos, now . . . when they were puppies they both used to do this thing of as if getting stuck not eating, as if having stopped they couldn’t start again. And puppies can’t go without food, they’re busy growing. So having puppies that would stop eating-sometimes for days-and get weaker before my eyes-has traumatised me. Darkness has more or less grown out of this. Chaos has not. I cannot afford to let Chaos miss a meal completely because he won’t be really hungry and ready for his food next meal or next day, he’ll be even less likely to eat† . . . while at the same time he starts going downhill really quickly, getting ribby and hollow-eyed and stary-coated, and with all this he goes all manic-depressive, either crazed or collapsed.
So when he refuses a meal, I chase him around with it. Which usually works at least somewhat and is infinitely to be preferred to his skipping a meal entirely. They may be rotten eaters, and strange, but my hellhounds have lovely personalities, and I don’t think it would occur to either of them to turn into, you know, a madam. I’ve dogsat for a lot of madams and I’d recognise the signs.†† When my hellhounds are in Eating Mode, they just eat. So when they aren’t, I chase them.
And-this is the ‘please cut me some slack’ part-I’m not having a really great week. The stomach flu isn’t quite gone and while I’ve had much worse visitations from the ME, it’s still making me stupid, dizzy, clumsy and tired. That with a slight internal sense of unrightness which ebbs and swells to a pattern of its own devising is producing a me who is less than her best self.
There’s a bit more room for chasing hellhounds in the mews kitchen. The cottage kitchen is tiny, and it’s got a table, an island, and a large hellhound crate in it. Pursuit is much more exasperating. Usually we’re at the mews for lunch, but I had a wedding to ring at an inconvenient hour, so we were at the cottage. And I goofed. I’m not at my best, and I was aware of being in a hurry. I still don’t exactly know what happened-I daresay a forensic specialist would be able to read the food-spatter, but I can’t-but Chaos managed to put a foot in his dish, flipped it over, recoiled into me, I tripped over him, slipped in the squishy dog food, and fell down-one knee in the dog food, and my head snapping forward to crack off the corner of the low wooden barrier around the back of the refrigerator which has been there since puppies were small enough to get in under the refrigerator with the wires and so on, and which I’ve never removed because they still like to chew on it occasionally. And as it happens I hit myself squarely on the exact spot that only a few days ago-in another aggravated spasm of being stupid, dizzy, clumsy and tired-I had stabbed on the corner of the wooden spice rack, which has a somewhat sinister relationship with the geometry of opening the refrigerator door and bending over to get something out or in.
And I lost it. I spent a good ten seconds still on my knees, pressing the palm of my hand against the rapidly swelling knot on my damaged head††† and screaming that I hated dogs, my life, this malignly miniature house, England, and the universe. And then I scooped as much of the dog food as was in the immediate vicinity back in the bowl just to transport it to the trash . . . and at this point I turned around and discovered two hellhounds jammed into a corner of the kitchen staring at me with platter sized eyes and trembling.
Oh shit.
In my semi-defence, they’re used to me screaming at my computer and may occasionally open one eye to view the festivities briefly but then it drops shut again. And I wasn’t screaming at them, I was screaming, if at anything, at the back of the refrigerator. But of course Chaos had caused the whole incident-and while ‘caused’ isn’t a dog thing ‘having been a part of’ is-and they also aren’t used to me falling down. Well. Not in the kitchen anyway.
So, still holding the bowl of food merely because I hadn’t put it down, I went over to their corner and sat down and put my arms around them and-needing at this point to put the bowl down-petted and petted and petted and petted and crooned and hummed until they stopped trembling. After a few minutes of this Darkness walked away under the table and I thought he’d merely had enough but no, he was merely swapping ends so that he could lick my face. I guess he figured I needed it. I had most of Chaos in my lap-he’s the one who likes being squeezed and growled at anyway-and while I was bearing with Darkness’ ministrations I managed to get one eye open long enough to notice that Chaos had stretched out his long elegant hellhound neck and . . . was eating his lunch. Dust and prior crumbs no problem.
Nuts, nuts, nuts, nuts, nuts.
As a result of all the drama I didn’t have time to change my trousers, and went to ring the wedding with dog lunch on one knee.‡ And the kitchen floor still needs mopping. And I’ll probably be finding small round bits of escaped kibble in the corners for weeks. But then I do anyway.
Both hellhounds ate supper.
And I’m going to have to be careful how I sleep tonight. If the twice-clobbered spot on my skull touches any pillows there will be more screaming.
* Puns weren’t intended, but they might as well be. Whack. Ouch. As follows.
** Especially the kind that gets me up in the middle of the night. Well, the middle of my night.
*** Although it might be nice if he’d have it in some kind of apparent response to something rather than any old time when he’s been eating exactly the same thing(s) as he always eats.
† Some kind of digestive enzyme thing maybe?
†† The sunniness of their basic personalities still amazes me. Sure goes to show that people and their animals don’t necessarily become like each other. Well, I’ve only had them nineteen months. There’s still time.^
^ I think I’d look really silly believing everyone was my friend, so I’d better turn them into misanthropic cranks.
††† Stupid cow! Go take some Arnica!
‡ The wedding, of course, ran late. I’d’ve had plenty of time to change my trousers.
hellhounds