Wimsey's Blog: Diary of a Manhattan Bloodhound #349

Entry #349

May 16, 2014

Hello Everyone, Wimsey here, with a quick and dirty post from a quick and (usually) dirty Hound.  And as usual I am sending this from the Wimsey Broadcast Booth high atop the floor on Manhattan’s fabulous West Side where I live with my long suffering human and am taken care of daily by her shorter, but more acutely suffering friend, Elizabeth. 

I have (very) temporarily joined the Land of the Undirty as Elizabeth, who has had her snout buried in the work that she brought home from Switzerland somehow found the time to bathe me yesterday.  On the plus side I will soon be stinky again but she won’t have any of the turkey that she had to feed me back again (at least not in its original form).  And for yesterday’s bath bribe-a-thon I instituted my version of the garbage in, garbage out rule and not only refused to get in the tub without quantities of turkey but also refused to get out without the same being offered. Normally as soon as I am untied from the ceramic soap dispenser that keeps me from fleeing, I exit the tub with great celerity. But yesterday it occurred to me that Elizabeth actually wanted me to exit the tub and Wimsey’s Rules clearly state that any action that is desired by humans, no matter how much it is also desired by Hound, must be bought and paid for accordingly. So Elizabeth stood aside and waited for The Great Exit and was stunned instead when faced with an immobile, cement block Hound staring fixedly at the package of turkey in her hand. This makes a fine addition to my other obnoxious bath time habit of refusing to shake whist in the tub surrounded by tile and electing to shake when out of the tub surrounded by fur- absorbing walls, ceilings and humans. I do make one exception—I shake as soon as I am fully lathered up, preferably when Elizabeth is bending over me so she can experience firsthand the taste and smell of the fancy shampoo she buys me.

But as I always say, I have never been a Hound prone to the Grand Gesture-- like eating the couch—but prefer instead that life with me be aggravation by a thousand cuts. Like on our early evening walks together when Maria will say to Elizabeth “I don’t want to go down to the river tonight,” and twenty minutes later we are down by the river.  Or when Maria has to sleep on the couch because I have not left any place for her on the bed and have turned into 130lbs of impossible to move dead weight. Or when I see one of my humans preparing to walk me and immediately ascend the couch (at home) or the futon (at Elizabeth’s place) and must be bribed off with turkey or a desirable snack so that my harness can be put on. And if one of my humans turns their back for a second, I ascend again and have to be bribed off again. Elizabeth thinks this is hilarious and proof that I actually possess a few neurons. But Maria just glares at her and asks, “Who taught him that, I wonder?” Or when I have to be scratched into slumber otherwise I will lick my toe—the scratching somehow miraculously removing the desire to lick it. And then there is the fact that not only do I not permit Maria to put ointment on my toe, clean my ears or put drops in them, brush my teeth or apply my eye ointment, I don’t even permit her to be in the same room while Elizabeth does it. She has to hide in the bedroom.

And of course life with me is very educational.  My humans have to learn how to talk about me in many different languages. Elizabeth speaks no Spanish except to tell people thing like  “be careful of the drool” and Maria, whose parents are Hungarian is taking private lessons to improve her skills and all her essays are about me as are her forays into conversational Hungarian. My humans also have to make lightening fast calculations to tell people how much I weigh or how much I eat in kilos or stone and they have to rigorously apply the scientific method to form a hypothesis about where I would like to be scratched and then conduct the experiment. If they do not scratch me in the place in which I desire to be scratched, I thwack them with my giant, bear claw. They must then reformulate the hypothesis and try again until they find the right spot. 

And of course, their knowledge of history must focus on how Frankish knights brought these loud, smelly insubordinate dogs from the Middle East to the poor monks at the monastery of St. Hubert who “perfected” them. I love that phrase. Presumably the monks made us louder and smellier and more insubordinate since the genes for these traits clearly must be linked (like the genes for blond hair and blue eyes) to the olfactory prowess that they so desired. Hence I am also a teaching tool for genetics. And my humans must know enough geography to know that the monastery of St. Hubert is in the Ardennes, which although now part of Belgium was, at the time of my ancestors’ arrival, not actually a country but territory controlled by the Comte d’Artois.  I have spoken often about how my humans have an all too extensive knowledge of physics, particularly the equations dealing with momentum, acceleration and dislocated shoulders. They also have learned that the three states of matter are not “liquid, solid and gas” but “liquid, solid, gas and drool.”  Today Elizabeth found out that drool can clog a kitchen sink. Who knew? A useful lesson in home economics. 

OK, enough about me. Just kidding. There can never be enough about me. But this week Elizabeth has been getting up on Swiss time, which is 6 hours ahead, but going to bed on New York time because she doesn’t get home from my after work walk until 8.  Do I care? No. But this has meant that she is very groggy when she walks me in the afternoon and a groggy human is a compliant human. Consequently I have visited the Apple Store for scratching and baying (twice), The Boat Basin Café for scratching and large Milkbone feeding (twice), Chase Manhattan Bank for cookies and baying (once), Unleashed for merchandise sniffing, scratching and gourmet cookie bar feeding (twice), Furry Paws for merchandise sniffing (once) and Petland for merchandise sniffing and cookies (once).  I love shopping!

Elizabeth justifies this on the grounds that she is looking for toys for her Swiss client’s cat --the huge New York catnip rat that she bought was a big success.  I also enjoy shopping for cat toys (although I would prefer shopping for the actual cats) but I notice that the people who design cat toys have very little imagination—it’s all mouse, mouse, mouse, fish, mouse, mouse, mouse, etc. But perhaps it is the cats that lack the imagination—another reason why we canines are infinitely superior.  My extensive toy piles in both my humans’ apartments contain an amazing variety of creatures in all sizes, shapes and colors, not to mention an abattoir’s worth of bones. I mean I love a hedgehog as much as the next Hound, but if all my toys were hedgehogs I am sure that I would feel an urgent need to add some variety--like the sofa cushions.

Anyway, all of this is by way of saying that nothing completely ridiculous happened this week. Elizabeth pretty much has had her butt parked in front of the computer and Maria is working late this month. Last night she didn’t get out of work until after 10 which meant that I got to hang out with Elizabeth and watch her drink gin to try to stay awake because she had to walk me again. I love it when she looks at me and asks existential questions, like ‘Why are you so awful?” just because I took all the towels she draped over the furniture to keep it dry after my bath, bunched them up and used them as a head pillow. Hey, but at least all my toys don’t look like mice!

I think I will leave it there for this week. And all of you out there whose Hounds do eat the couch and moonscape the lawn-- it could be worse. Ask my humans.

Until next time,

Wimsey, the Wonderful (actual results may vary)