I open my eyes and she knows it. How she knows it, I don’t know—I haven’t stirred or even yawned. But still she’s waiting. Rita Ciccarelli is waiting for me to wake up. Not the singer with the mini-non-hit that rocked Toronto AM radio sometime in the early 80s, but my dog, Rita Ciccarelli. I’ve just called her my dog on public internets, so I guess it’s official now: this bitter little bird-faced, Border Collie dwarf cross (who was originally known as Chiquita, a name that I deemed very early on as too boring for such an extraordinarily agile and skiddish ankle nipper) has finally gotten her way. Rita Ciccarelli and I are now an official item.
“Hallo!” I call out to her through the window in a funny accent. Today it’s Swiss. Yesterday was Chinese. Tomorrow may be Coronation Street or Lionel Richie. Sometimes I use the Conky voice, but not usually this early in the morning.
I talk to all the dogs in English. There are 23 others where Rita Ciccarelli came from, just next door, on the other side of the fence. And they can all understand me perfectly. But only four of them, besides my girl, are small and/or agile enough to pass back and forth, from that side to this: Pepina, also known as Peanut (to celebrate her rancid peanut butter breath that you can smell from ten feet away), Dante La Roux, the long-legged teenybopper with fish eyes and a tendency to lovingly eat poop all afternoon (very lovingly, like he was enjoying a full-on dégustation of foie gras and chocolate truffles), Hilacha (literally, Loose Thread), the off-white arrogant skank ball who I never pet, and the newest addition, a nine-week old black puppy, the fugliest little fucker I’ve ever seen, with crossed eyes and a skin disease, who I call Little Scabie Bear.
These are just the crossovers. The other nineteen have to be invited in and let out. As a rule, I only do this for one of them, Poom, my champion, lean and brindled and wolfy with a missing back leg and an affinity for pancetta. He also has half an ear chopped off and six toes on one foot. I like to scratch his one side and watch his ghost leg twitch joyously. The rest of his pack stays pretty much to their side, though I do reach through the fence every now and again with a cookie for old Luba or crazy little Ting Tong or maybe a careful pat on the head for Koochi, the hyena off-shoot.
Now that Rita Ciccarelli is sure I’m awake, she sits in the flower bed under my window, tail all aflutter, and starts to sing-moan-howl-whine, and she won’t stop until I open the front door and take her into my arms. Is it me she loves? Or the crackers that I will give her in a few minutes? Or just the bits of exclusive and trusty affection I make a point of giving her, even when the cuter puppies are around? She’d obviously been abused, majorly kicked around, before she was rescued by Moni and taken into the big pack next door. With me, it took months of pointed work and a variety of pork products before she’d even let me pet her belly with my foot. And in the end, for better or worse, she adopted me. Of my 24 neighbours and the hundred other local strays, I frankly never would have picked her. She’s a little too small, a little too skiddish and yippy, not exactly easy to love. (A canine mirror, perhaps?)
But there’s no fighting fate. It’s a done doggie deal. Four months I spent twenty feet away from Moni and her twenty-four dogs (I’m probably the only person in town who could have held out for so long in this place, thanks to a preference for mutts over people and a nine-peso set of earplugs.) And Rita Ciccarelli courted me the whole time. So when I leave here in a couple weeks for my new (amazing, truly amazing) house, I’m going to have to break up the pack and take the little ankle nipper with me.
Dear Cesar Millan, Dog Whisperer, Hot Little Alpha Mexican Dude,
I am writing you from San Marcos Sierras, Argentina, to tell you about a very special dog person. Her name is Moni and she is the local “protectora de perros,” a lone woman who personally and thanklessly provides all the services of a Humane Society in a town that lacks any such group.
Between the local criollos, who really don’t give a shit about their dogs, and the hippies, who come and go as they please, leaving a whole slew of sweet but maladjusted dogs in their wake, Moni has her work cut out for her. She cures street dogs who’ve gotten roughed up in fights, she provides food and adoption services for pregnant, unwed doggie mothers, and she encourages, and often pays for, the spaying and neutering of dogs of all kinds. [“Castration” as it is called here, is very looked down upon in all of Argentina. Even the local vet has to be pressured and coaxed into snipping the balls of a healthy boy dog—he seems to take the whole thing very personally, like his own cojones were the ones being taken out of commission.]
But on top of all this outreach, Moni provides a permanent home for 24 rescued dogs (and counting), many of whom are too ugly or sick or plain all-fucked-up to have a healthy place anywhere else in this world. Here, just on the other side of the fence, all these critters get a bed, a big yard to play in, and two plates of homemade food daily. She goes through each of their coats every night, removing fleas and ticks, and she tours the yard twice a day, playing with the mutts and cleaning up their shit (though Dante La Roux, Poop Gourmet, helps her out a lot.)
Cesar, I think this woman, this pack leader and benefactor, this neighbour and friend, is amazing and I nominate her to receive your coveted brass-plated pooper scooper prize for outstanding effort in the field of international canine affection and rescue. If not, maybe you could at least send her a bit of money to help pay for the new puppy’s stage-four mange treatments.
Sincerely,
E. the Pack-Wrecker
No comments:
Post a Comment