After about 2 hours of lounging, my dog started getting ants in his pants, fidgety and grumpy...it was time to take him to the park for some good old tennis ball throwing.
For the past week and a half or so, my dog has had spring fever. The symptoms he's displaying are the following: not walking properly on the leash and being distracted by every flower, blade of grass, squirrel, bee...everything. He has cut me off twice now, sending me into a tizzy as I half trip/jump over him to avoid falling flat on my face. Also included in spring fever symptoms: excessive peeing on stuff outside. Because everything smells so yummy, Swagger wants to claim it for himself so he pees on it. He owns half the neighborhood...even the large concrete fountain in the community square at the end of my street. It's his. He also has heightened selective hearing, which is actually an ongoing occurrence throughout the year but spring time is extra special for him and he pays more attention to pebbles on the sidewalk than he does to me. Sometimes when I'm telling him something, like sit or heal, he does a fake yawn and pretends like he's tired and can't hear me. The last thing that Swagger's spring fever syndrome bring on is his high level of male dog displays. As in...his lipstick. Ew. He's just so damn happy with the weather that whenever he sits down, pop goes the weasel and there's the lipstick. In public too, like on street corners and in the subway. It's embarrassing and there's nothing I can do about it but walk on.
Yesterday was the first time his spring fever was truly at it's peak. We had been in the dog park for about half an hour when Peanuts came along and stole Swagger's heart. She's about half the size of Swagger and a real firecracker. They were running at full speed and all the humans were delighted at the exercise they were getting. Then they just kept on running...in a straight line towards the top of the park. I called out his name in a nonchalant way, usually he does a wide U-turn and comes back...but no. This time, he came to a screeching halt (as did Peanuts), turned and looked at me for about 5 seconds as I called his name, and then he bolted in the opposite direction alongside Peanuts. He ran for his life that little bugger did, across Logan Avenue and into the maze of streets they call Riverdale. I could hear car horns honking and people yelling. Peanuts' owner jumped up and started running as did I, in pursuit of our rogue dogs. I'm a jogger and not a runner but yesterday was different. I took off like the speed of light, left my flip flops in the dust and ran Terminator 2 style.
I walked the streets of Riverdale for about 20 minutes when I heard the jingle of a dog collar. I looked up the street and there he was, my big sorry ass black dog walking at a slow pace towards me, his head hanging low and is tail down. He knew how much shit he was in, but I knew that this was no time for getting angry. It was too late though, he could sense my anxiety and anger and he turned around and started heading up the street again. Normally I wouldn't actually run after my dog in the hopes of catching him, but I broke into my T-1000 run again and I caught up to him (albeit he was a bit overheated and tired, a little slower than usual). I clipped on his leash and didn't say a word to him. We still had Peanuts to find. The humans split up to comb the streets, one with a dog the other still without.
I find human behavior to be ridiculous. I'm running around with Swagger like a headless chicken, asking people if they've seen a dog running through the streets off-leash. Do you know what every single response was? "What does it look like"? Does it matter what the hell the dog looks like!? It's running loose in your damn neighborhood...HAVE YOU SEEN AN OFF-LEASH DOG RUNNING AROUND OR NOT!? I have no time to waste, I need to know which way the dog went! It's a yes or no question, and then point me in the right direction you fools. One lady asked me what Peanuts looked like and when I took the time to give a brief description: "small and brown", she said "well, I did see a light creamy colored dog with no leash, but he was in the dog park when I was walking by". Thanks for the help lady.
Anyway, I never found Peanuts and I never reconnected with his owner. I went back to the dog park thinking that Peanuts may have gone back there, but she was nowhere to be seen, nor was her owner. I can only hope that he found her and that Swagger never meets Peanuts in the dog park again. I'm giving my dog the silent treatment, but he remembers yesterday like a fart in the wind. Dogs only really know right now, and at the moment he's snuggled up to me on this rainy Sunday, fast asleep, dreaming about God knows what.
