"Stop!"

I start, apish, at the puppy.

"You're a repetitive little jerk," I tell her. I don't blink. She doesn't blink back. I hate dogs.

I hate having to train a seven-month-old anything.  This is the last one, goddamnit.

"You're the last one," I say straight into those yellow Chihuahuan eyes. Her gaze lemurs out of a bulbous skull. Everything else is out-sized Cairne Terrier. As in Toto, too. She rolls, touches her teeth to my hand. Jumps, at my arm; arches, lunges, and again her teeth graze my hand; my hand flicks to flip her away but she is way ahead of me, then back at my wrist: littlebite. It's a game.

Tailtailtailtail.

I give her a few seconds of "good..." and a few strokes and a few seconds of "no" and withhold, over and over; this, then that, then this. This pupply-dupply shit is either better when the power's off, or it's worse. I can't decide.

She rotates her eyes to me wherever she goes, a permanent look of "You! Me!" and a question: "Can I do...this?"

She lurches away, turns sideways; fangs arc near my hand; touch. I push: "No." A twitch, JUMP– mouth open, dark claws first. Teeth touch, so faint. I push her, push, "sit!" push, release. I try to stroke her head; lunge, catch, push.


She had three mile-long walks today, around the shattered trees and limpid, useless power lines. "You should be tired, you little jerk."

There's one sure way to calm her down: let her lick you, your face, neck, scalp, and hands, for twenty or more minutes. If not, at least once a day? she'll get "behavior problems". As I scribble this I am drenched with a half-dozen of these baths. I have beach ears, clogged with spit. How is this not already a behavior problem?

She's Cairne hair everywhere but right around her eyes, forehead, and ears. Her hair is stiff, thick, spiky, and streaky. With her dense, fine undercoat she's almost waterproof. Her ears alone are soft, and they are buttery velvet, a cream of lamb's neck soup.  

As if the Buddha wooed a tumbleweed, and this mutt, this toothy baby, was the result. She is a shrimpy  Chimera. I fear I am no Bellerephon.

Cairnes were bred to relieve foxes and badgers of their rocky Scottish homes. Emme is thus primitive. She digs and buries every chewable in the pillows of the chairs and sofa. I mean, she shovels them in with her nose, then carefully pokes at them, her fat black nose a stiff thumb, until the rawhide is deep in a cushion crack. Then she snuffles imaginary dirt over it with hard, precise jerks, for about two minutes.



Then she struts around for, oh, twelve seconds, and promptly forgets where she put it, so she scratches everywhere trying to dig it up. If she could moan, she would.

Her back molars form just one tooth, one freakishly large, triangular, and very sharp tooth. She scissors, and eats whole: rubber, canvas, rawhide toys, plush innards, and also dog food. At least three times a day she must be held tight while she sleeps for an hour. If you don't hold her tight or wedge her between your feet and pillows, she develops "behavior problems." At night she spoons.

Resist spooning, and be driven to the last three inches of the bed. I resist not.

I want to eat my dessert. Enough already with this prehistoric damn dog. "Sit!"

She's up. She's down, on her back, chasing my hand with her nose. Her teeth graze. I show mine, I snarl: "Enough!"

"Sit!" She sits. She's up. "Sit!" She sits.

She knows sit. But I can't force it. I have to reward her. So it's another half-sincere "goood pupppeee! yehhsss...", etc., while she licks my hand, laplaplaplap, planning her next nip.

Disgusting. Stroke, sctratch, pet, pet, pet. Goodgodjesus, my ice cream, soft already from the dead fridge, is now a pool in the  bowl. Scratch, pet petpetpet. Pet. Pet.

"Go away."

Cairnes are wicked smart. If you let them get bored, though, they develop "behavior problems." For pity's sake.

 My best garden ever is under ten feet of water, as are all the community gardens. I am alone for four days in the dark, in the old house we just moved in-to. Everything is damp and dusk and dim. And I must train this eight-month-old vilde chaya.

Why oh why couldn't we get a dog who requires Aruba? a dog of amazing persuasive skills and independent means, who whines at the door, to good effect: "ooh oh oh oh master go get the spf50 let's go and the beach towels gogo and ohoh get the frisbee i gotta go dig sand lets go PLEEEZZZZZE!"

Instead it is this wirebrushy, velvet-eary, sniffs-in-endless-circles, if-you-EVER-leave-me-alone-I-will-pee-and-poop-in-your-bed-and-chew-your-precious, licklicklick, moon-eyed, caramel-drizzled, pre-grizzled cactus-glow of a pup, who makes me walk for miles every day, sit still for hours, hold my temper, and hold her ever closer.

Well, OK, but this is the last one, the last invest-utterly-in-the-young deal. After this, I hitchhike to Aruba.

Yeah. I will, I surely will. I will walk until shoes are forgotten and my feet are wet and then lie, alone, in the sand and foam. I will dream inside the salty breeze and under the cobalt moon. In my dream I will sleep and dream, and in that dream I will have two good eyes again. I will be unreconstructed, and I will be my own damn dog. I will Rousseau horizontal in the warm, dark, murmuring surf, and Venus will rise, reflected on the sea. And in my dream inside a dream I will rise, too, up and far away, into and through the sun's bronze gate, and I will be the best thing before I go, a gleam in a moment's passage between day and death – and I will hear a breathy whimper, and someone will lick my face.

Damn.