Thursday, May 28, 2009

Please, note The Look. This is The Dog's...
I know that you are sending me far away and with only that Short-person as My Guide & Protector!
And, My Look back said...
Why, yes, Darling Dog, I am... off to Sardinia you will go. And, by the way, that Short-person's name is Roberto. Please, do try to get this straight because, he will be at the command of your leash for a good many hours on your imminent voyage across the Mediterranean Sea.
But, don't you remember Sardinia? It is where, two years ago, you gorge yourself on washed-up-on-the-icky-shore-gunk-mixed-with-tuna-fish oil, cleverly deposited by a friend at our picnic, and you had to have several violent intestinal purges the day after which, cost me a pretty Euro at the local vet's. Thank God, the office is on the same block at The Short-person's family's apartment. Don't you recall that? And, after I stayed up all night long watching & hoping you'd shit some of that flotsam you so enthusiastically ingested when my back was turned and all I could do was make horribly expensive cell-phone calls to the US to KILL time. You don't remember?
Or, how about last year, if I am not mistaken, it is the same place where you tried out some Weimaraner calistenics on a retaining wall purposely built to keep characters like you from falling to an untimely & gruesome DEATH on the shoals below and what happened? You sprained your right back leg which, again, cost me a pretty Euro with the bright & efficient vet from the year previous. You can't recall this at all?
Well, I can and so let me give you a word of advice until I arrive on Sunday Noon... don't screw up, Dog!!! Thank you.
Gads.
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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Looking for his treats...

My Dog is regularly fed. He hates what I give him. "Tough luck, kiddo kanine! The Vet says..."
Thee driyeh-stufe hahs lowts ovv vwery eenteressteeng veetamins awnd meeneralz!
And Moses replies behind a grumpy Weimaraner harrumph...
Oh, really?
In between what The Dog hates, he gets pieces of dried bread for a treat after every w-a-l-k, etc. He loves them. In fact, I think he lives for them... dammit.
Once-upon-a-time, the dried bread was the only way I could get these Bach Flower Drops down his ever lasting Weimaraner gullet. You see, Our Italian Spiritual Adviser, Tiziana, during a visit to our parts for Our Spiritual Maintainence, was seriously concerned that Moses was... how did she put it? Oh, yes. Well, in her Italian translated into English, she might have said...
Yeurrr dowg eez verwy deepres-sed, tooo teemid awnd heee eez vwerry unhahppee dowg.
An Italian of any description cannot hear the "s" at the end of a word. Moses is often called Moser, a horrible & yucky sounding name. Moses is so....? So biblical!
Anyway, shortly thereafter, I was entrusted with the very unpleasant task of corralling The Dog for his Spiritual Drops. Idiotically, I tried to directly open said Weimaraner gullet and drip the damn drops down it. I consistently risked a Weimaraner Revolution... not to mention his Total & Complete Censure. The Dog would run-off to his bed where, by a previously signed Articles of Convention between Man & Beast, I am prohibited from administering any medicines, what so ever!!! There he thumbed his Weimaraner nose at me... dammit.
Later, I attempted to use the guise of a hotdog. Have you ever tried to drown a hotdog bit with enough of a restorative oily liquid to pull your pootch from a spiralling depression? Don't.
Then, in the calm of a bright sunny winter's morning, munching on a piece of toast with cheese, I got a Beeg Idea. Bread!!! Naturally, without the toasted cheese. No sense in conditioning The Dog to expect more than what is practical or reasonable, no? So, putting the spiritually sustaining droplets on a piece of pane integrale, I tricked The Dog with a treat... with perhaps a too stunning rate of Success... the prescribed Spiritual Salvation Treatment.
Fine. The Dog ain't drepressed no more. But, if I do not forthwith hand-over a piece of bread... even without the drops... to The Dog after any outdoor excursion, I am summarily reprimanded by a loud bark. He should be grateful he doesn't have to roam the streets for treats! Gads.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Pretty benign looking creature, isn't he, My Weimaraner? Well, certainly! It's exhausting work to be car-pooled to the Dog Park on a hot Saturday afternoon.









I don't want to know The Truth but, I have this nagging suspicion that Moses is the only Weimaraner... on the face of Poor Down-trodden Mother Earth... who is chauffered in a late model Italian sports-car... with the top down, thanks to our first Heat Wave of the season... across town just for him to Pee & Poop with his canine friends. I would gladly walk him there on foot... it takes about 30 minutes to get there from our house and the route is through the palazzo-strewn historic district of Genoa, a cultural method for me to burn-off too much Ligurian white wine from the previous evening... but, You-know-who flatly refuses. He waits in the elevator until I come to my senses, return inside, press -2 for the car garage and get on with My Contractural Duties as an unpaid conducente del Automobile!
Oh! The days when I was brutally dragged by The Dog 3 times daily on foot to the Dog Park are now only faint strains of Weimaraner Times Past. Now, I am the one who has to nearly throttle The Dog to DEATH with his choke-chain collar, so I can get him off the front stoop of our apartment building. This adventure in yanking is so The Dog will go out & leave a solid waste donation in the minimum green strip of sad grass & plants across the street. Once the deed is done, it is biologically scooped up into a plastic emergency sack and put into a near-by waste container as per The Laws here.
May I say? I am against this policy. People should be encouraged to pick the poop up and carry it over to some quasi-dead plant as nutritious fertilizer. THAT'S BEING ECOLOGICAL!!! And, not this garbage of plastic bags filled with "stinky", which just needs our valueable energy resources to be dealt with, and so on and so forth. The next time you see & say... "Ooooo, ca-ca!"... remember to change course & action by beginning to think... "Ooooo, fertilizer for my azaleas!"
The Dog could care less about any of this. It is his confort which concerns him. Mother Earth can take a number... Bitte Schoen. And, me too! The Dog is oblivious to the fact that it is against The Other Laws here to transport A Dog in the same part of the car as for the Human Cargo and/or Conducente del Automobile!!! Naturally, some super-intelligent Italian parlimentarian did not take into consideration that anyone would think...much less dare... to put a dog in a sports-car. Well, I did AND do. Thank God! I have a Swiss car-tag. No. Don't ask! Anyway, Moses is only allowed to curl-up on the only other seat available and try to look like car upholstery. So far, so good, with much thanks to The Dog's mimetic taupe color.
How does one say... esasperating... in German? Or, in Swiss?