Tallulah is naked. I am sorry to show such pornographic photos. Dogs gone wild. But it is her own fault. Tallulah had QUITE the evening last night. And she almost killed her stupid self, being all bad.
We go for an evening constitutional around the neighborhood usually without fail, unless it's raining or she's been at dog day care. Last night Marvin went with us, as he often does. Marvin likes to put Tallulah on her harness, as he feels it's safer, but here is the thing about Marvin. He is obsessed with safety.
Marvin is a Nervous Nellie. We have a carbon monoxide monitor, 250 smoke alarms, a storm warning system, 80 locks on all the doors and windows, special lights outside to warn us of all those Greensboro burglars, huge heavy flashlights near the beds so we can beat said burglars to death, earthquake kits even though we no longer live in earthquake country, Marvin knows how to perform a tracheotomy on me because he looked it up and searched my throat, and sometimes at night I wake up and he is holding a mirror over my nose to see if I am breathing.
Marvin expects the worst. To say the least.
He thinks walking Tallulah with just her collar is dangerous, because she has that big thick pit bull neck and she strains against it constantly, because she is bad all the time and does not remotely see him as the pack leader. However, if I am walking her, I slip the collar up high on her head and walk her next to me and she will, in fact, heel and be good. If I use the harness I spend the entire time having my shoulder dislocated.
So I was walking her with her collar up high and she was heeling and it was a hot windy night and we were all having a big time. I was telling Marvin about my tragic experience at Target, where I was unable to find my Shabby Chic cup, FAITHFUL READER TARGET STEVE, and Marvin was pretending to care, and we were just finishing our walk. We were almost done. And I said, "Let's go see Snowflake before we go home."
It was my fault. I HAD to see Snowflake.
Snowflake is a puppy who I would guess is part Samoyed or something fluffy, and then maybe part German shepherd. She has a pink bone collar with rhinestones and she is a cream color and she is so cute. Three little girls live there, too, and they are always in the yard playing and constantly falling on top of Snowflake or rolling on her and Snowflake is fine with this, and I enjoy visiting them all.
"HELLO LALULA!" they always scream as we approach. One time one of them was leaning over the fence to pet Lalula and Tallulah totally reached up and took the little girl's bear right from her. Tallulah is rude.
And you know what else Tallulah is? Totally mean to Snowflake. I do not know when Tallulah got so jerky. When she was a pup there was this tiny dog with an underbite back in TinyTown, where we used to live, and we would walk to the fence and the two dogs would play through the fence. Now Tallulah barks and snarls at poor teensy Snowflake and I have no idea why. I hate it.
And the thing is, every day Snowflake is getting bigger, so pretty soon Snowflake is gonna be bigger than Talu, and I look forward to the day Talu acts like a jerk and Snowflake barks back and scares the crap out of my size-ist dog.
So now when I walk past there, I only go up to the fence if I am with Marvin. Then one of us holds "Lalula" while the other gets to pet Snowflake. Talu is pretty good about letting the kids pet her, but my fear is she will be so obsessed with barking at Snowflake that she'll snap at a kid and I do not want that drama.
Anyway, last night Marvin was at the fence petting Snowflake, and you know what happened?
Do you know?
I will tell you.
Tallulah strained at the leash with her big pit bull neck, and just as Marvin always fretted would happen, just as I poo-poo'd all these years,
the leash broke.
It just broke!
Right off!
And there was naked Talu with her naked neck all naked! And free! To do what she wants, any old time!
Crap.
Surprisingly, she did not lunge for Snowflake, nor, thank God, those three little girls. She was not remotely interested in any aggressive activity at all. She was kind of a lot like Snoopy when he dances around.
"Woooooooo!" she said, dashing through the neighborhood, barely visible.
The three blonde girls were all silent, for once.
"I'll see you three later," I called to them, leaving them in their fenced yard.
"CRAP!" yelled Marvin.
Tallulah did this before, when she was a puppy, and I had the feeling it wouldn't be so bad now that she was grown up.
I was wrong.
You know why I was wrong?
It's bunny season. And Tallulah spotted a bunny in about eight seconds. Oh, they hit every yard. Back yards, front yards, front porches, side yards, bushes, up hills, down hills, all over Tallulah and that bunny went. It was like we were at a greyhound race. And since she had no collar, there was no hope of trying to grab her.
"It's really, really hot out," I told Marvin. "She's gotta get hot soon." My only hope was no neighbor would come out and yell at us for being irresponsible.
Then you know what Tallulah did? She ran to the perfect lawn. Oh dear God, no.
There is one neighbor whom I so admire. His lawn looks like a miniature golf course. You don't even know. I have wanted to take pictures of it and show it to you on this blog, so enamored of it am I. Every blade of grass is identically sized. Each tree has perfect circles of mulch surrounding it. Teensy perfect Johnny Jump-Ups line the walls. Oh! His yard is perfection. When people come over I make them walk down there. And you should SEE how his edges are edged. Usually people ask, "What do you think is wrong with this guy?" But see, I wonder just the opposite. I wonder what is wrong with the rest of us that we can't be him.
And there is old nutbar Talu, with her mixed-breed, at this point foaming-at-the-mouth-from-exertion self, tearing through his yard. And oh, no. He was OUT THERE. Hosing his perfect lawn.
Marvin and I made haste to the guy's corner. Right when we got there, Talu turned around, saw us, ran over, and threw herself on the street in front of us, panting.
The guy with the perfect lawn was laughing. "I guess she was gittin' while the gittin' was good."
Marvin picked Tallulah up like she was a sack of very naughty potatoes. "I'm sorry she ran across your lawn," I told my hero. "Oh, she didn't mean no harm, she was having herself a time!"
I had no idea Perfect Lawn Guy would be nice.
In the meantime, that idiot came home and drank 72 bowls of water and panted manically over the air conditioner vent for half an hour. We finally took her in the back and hosed her off. And now I have to get her a new collar and Marvin has made me promise to always walk her on the harness.
Also, I have to get new water for the earthquake kit.
