Me & My Doggy Friends

Y’all know I’m not a Dog Person. I am a Cat Person:  in my hierarchy, cats come first. Then dogs, then people. Then almost any other animal you can think of. Then children and—way down at the very end, below turtles and beetles and mosquitoes, you’ll find infant humans.

But here it is, 11 pm, and I just got out of the shower for the second time today because:  I was covered in Dog Slobber. My hands, my arms, my feet. Between my toes. For someone who is not A Dog Person, I have a lot of doggy friends, and today I saw most of them. I did not see Bella or Freddie, but I did see Treeba (border collie) and Finn (French mastiff), plus another border mix whose name I don’t know, plus a terrier whose breed is escaping me at the moment (I, who used to teach Breed Identification to animal control officers). I sat at the summer lawn concert at the museum (without a doubt the worst “band” I’ve ever heard in my life, and that was BEFORE they did the little speech about god and country and “be sure to vote in 2010” so we can “take our country back,” at which point I got up from my lawn chair and went over to the tent and asked to talk to the representative from the museum and gave the poor woman a little speech about how we came to hear music, not a religious and/or political diatribe and how I am a member of the museum and how these people do not need to be invited back ever again.  Ever. Needless to say, I was the teensiest bit grouchy for the rest of the evening, once the crowd cheered these sentiments and I once again had to acknowledge that I’m just the littlest bit out of place here in my home city.)

But never mind. Because Finn, who’s six months old, was at our friend’s house, where we sometimes stop on our way home from these concerts—she’s right across the street and always has friends out drinking on her patio, and she makes a mean Cape Cod, and so we stopped to visit. And Finn was there, and she slimed me so wonderfully. She does toes:  she licks your foot, and then she licks between your toes, and then she picks a toe and gums it. Meaning that, periodically, I’d burst out laughing. The humans were talking about a funeral they’d been to together, and it’s all serious and stuff, and then right in the middle of the conversation, I just hollered.  I mean, you can’t help it when a huge puppy is sucking on your toes.

And then you have to try to explain what’s so funny and apologize and try to act like a grown-up.

Today, I, a non-dog person, got slimed by Annie (before 8 am) and Gus, also a huge puppy, and then The Dog Whose Name I Don’t Remember, and then Treeba and Finn.

Hence the second shower; the cats were all offended by the odor.

Just imagine if I actually LIKED dogs.