Wimsey's Blog: Diary of a Manhattan Bloodhound #265

                                                                           

Entry #265

                                                                        

 June 15, 2012

Hello Everyone, it’s me, Wimsey—or perhaps his evil twin, it’s so hard to tell these days—coming to you from Manhattan’s Upper West Side where I have been busy entertaining visitors and locals alike with my summery antics.  But before I go any further, a big shout out to the Magna Carta whose birthday it is today! It was signed June 15, 1215 in Runnymede, England (starting to ring a bell here?) and for those of you who slept through history class dreaming of the bad bloodhounds you were going to acquire, it formally placed a brake on the royal power the English king. Personally, I think that King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta because the English barons didn’t like him very much.  Barons have a habit of doing that when you lose France.  So if ever there was a monarch who needed a bloodhound to increase his popularly it was King John. 

My bloodhounded human Maria and her friend Elizabeth can readily attest to the difference a conspicuous canine with “personality” can make to one’s personal popularity.  But as an absolute monarch myself I do sympathize with King John-- although I would be more apt to steal France than to lose it (not to mention that possession is ten tenths of bloodhound law) and if anyone presented me with a document to sign it would most likely join the contents of the cookie pouch in my gullet. (In NYC hip hop circles I am known as Snack Monster Wimsey).

But I digress.  The week got off to an exciting start on Sunday with New York’s Puerto Rican Day parade. This meant that the bridle path in Central Park was chock- a- block with mounted police and their horses which was extremely interesting.  We spent considerable time chatting with an officer who was quite taken with me and tried induce me to visit the horses in their van. However, I have an inherent distrust of doing anything that humans want me to do as somehow this always ends up in fingers up my bum or soapy water on my head.

 

And unlike some canines I could name (like my 25 pound Frenchie friend Pluto who came over for a visit this week and tried to steal my lunch!) I have a healthy respect for animals who are bigger than I am (except of course humans who are mostly not bigger than I am and in any case have limited potential to nip me in the tush or kick me with their hooves).  I also felt strongly that the interesting end of the equine is not the front.  It turns out that one of the horses has a habit of tossing over his basket of hay so his human has to reassemble it for him. My humans nodded sagely—another example of convergent evolution.

Then of course I spent some time meeting and greeting parade attendees and listening to my humans expound on the virtues (or not) of The Bloodhound.   Someone asked Elizabeth this week what she liked about bloodhounds. This was apparently a real brainteaser. She finally said that we are entertaining. What she really meant was that we are “entertaining.”  (In much the same way as a two year old on a sugar high).  In any case we Hounds are much better in the telling than in the experiencing, time being a great healer.  Except of course when the humiliating things happen to other people.

And on the subject of popularity, our friend Virve and her husband (who opined that bloodhounds were like a conspiracy to take over the world), who are owned by a Finnish bloodhound, came to New York to meet me.  We all went for a lovely walk Monday evening in Central Park where I put on a masterful display of plastic water bottle hunting and not going in the direction that anyone  to go in.  And as usual what starts out as a photo op with me ends up as a photo op of my belly.  And like all good visitors our friends came bearing suitable tribute—in this case a moose rawhide. (Funny how no one ever brings my humans anything. But then they don’t sell Valium in Duty Free). 

Now this moose chew is an excellent thing, not the least because I have incorporated it into my early evening walking ritual (for those of you who read this blog, you know that I have a firmly established policy of not doing anything that humans want me to do unless they pay me to do it):

Elizabeth: Look who’s here Wimsey! It’s your human Maria! We are all going for a walk!

Wimsey: Excuse me did you say something? I’m busy here with my moose chew.

Elizabeth and Maria: Yes, let’s go for a walk!

Wimsey: Not right now. I’m at a crucial stage with my moose chew. I’ve got it properly salivated.

Elizabeth and Maria: But it’s a beautiful evening and it’s time for your walk.

Wimsey: You go then.  You can tell me all about it. But don’t pee in the tree pits—the people in the building get mad if you do.

Elizabeth and Maria: Let’s put on your collar and harness!

Wimsey: Let’s not. I prefer to work on my moose chew.

Elizabeth and Maria:  Here, have a cookie!

Wimsey: Which cookie?  If it’s the usual Old Mother Hubbard ones then I think I’ll stay here with my moose chew.

Elizabeth and Maria: How about the Fromm salmon and sweet potato ones?

Wimsey:  Throw in a few of those peanut butter-nanna things from Bil Jac and you have a deal.

Elizabeth and Maria: OK, you’ve been leashed and cookied. Now drop the moose chew.

Wimsey: It needs some air. But it would be hard to hold the moose chew and eat a large piece of turkey at the same time…

So the moose chew has proven an excellent addition to my repertoire of annoying behaviors. And speaking of which (and when are we not) as the days get warmer my addiction to the Central Park Lake gets stronger and so now not only do I tow over to The Lake but also once I get in I refuse to get out.  This causes all manner of pleading from my humans and photo ops for lakeside visitors. And I have been going in so deep that I am beginning to resemble a black and tan crocodile with just my top line and snout visible. 

But in honor of my summer exploits I would like to share with you Thursday’s photo diary.  It was a beautiful day here and so I decided that Elizabeth and I should spend the entire afternoon in Central Park.  The fact that Elizabeth actually had work to do that I was preventing her from doing made the day all the more satisfying:

A Walk in the Park with Wimsey is Not a Walk in the Park

First some lakeside activities:

Here I am having a fortifying pre-dip snack before going in.  It turns out that the Lake is ringed with all manner of succulent, delicious plants, the remains of which my humans enjoy extracting from my bottom in subsequent days.  It provides a kind of a Proustian Remembrance of Plants Past:  “Ah yes I remember that plant—Wimsey had it on Sunday. Such a beautiful day it was.”

And here I am splashing about—so far there are no photos of Crocodile Wimsey since Elizabeth needs both hands to keep from taking a refreshing dip herself.

Then I noticed these two people on the rock photographing me.

They had a small stuffed dog in the foreground with which I decided to become better acquainted.

Next, I decided to migrate over to this side of the Lake where there was a very tasty looking duck.  Sadly I was not permitted to get better acquainted with it either.

Then it was time for a quick lie down in the shady dirt next to the Ladies Pavilion (soon to be renamed the Hound’s Pavilion).  I like to lie down in the dirt when I am wet as this helps me form a nice cooling crust for the rest of the walk.

Here I am in a favorite field by the Puppet Theater. I scored the poop of a miscellaneous animal (at least Elizabeth hopes it was from a miscellaneous animal). Fortunately these snack sized deposits are difficult for her to see in the grass but not difficult for me to smell.

Then as I was in the process of towing over to the snack bar at the Delacorte Theater we ran into this nice lady in whose bag I smelled dog treats. Sadly she said there were none left. I hate when that happens.

She took many photographs of me and said that you could see that I had a lot of “personality.” Fortunately this surfeit of “personality” is as useful for driving my humans to drink as it is for creating appealing photos.

Here I am posing with the snack bar in the background.  It took considerable patience and a lot of turkey to get me to face in this direction. The snack bar has excellent baked goods of which I am inordinately fond.

I am also inordinately fond of waffles so after saying goodbye to the nice woman with the camera I headed over to the Belgian waffle truck to create a baying for waffles ruckus.  Fortunately the people who run the truck have a sense of humor.  I’m not so sure about the people trying to buy and eat the waffles.

After a considerable amount of time by the waffle truck I immediately high tailed it into the adjacent field by the Turtle Pond; it’s a popular spot for picnics and for picnic invaders such as myself.

And of course, even the merest suggestion that we should be headed home causes me to park my tush on a bench and refuse to move.  This behavior draws lots of admirers (and snickers) and inevitably leads to lengthy conversations with passersby about me which inevitably leads to lengthy delays in heading home.  I will of course obediently get off the bench for a fistful of turkey.  Until I get on the next bench.

Well I think that is about all for now.  I was up for a commercial this week but I just heard that they chose other breeds of dog.  I wonder why?

Until next time,

(Crocodile) Wimsey