It's another torrid day in Oregon, but I manage to get my butt and Maggie and Geordie to the shaded path to the Canemah Cemetery. Only rarely do they open the actual graveyard to the public. Apparently some people think vandalizing headstones is a load of laughs.
Maggie and Geordie's "swamp coolers" are efficient, their bubblegum-colored tongues draping absurdly long over their lower front teeth. The cup of icy water from which they drank before starting down the path is now lukewarm but provides a sufficient recharge for their ventilation systems.
It's a brief drive home. We get out, I find the key, and Maggie pushes the unlatched front door open. Geordie pees on a bush and follows her inside. I hope to make some progress on one of my unfinished projects while Maggie and Geordie occupy themselves with organic raw bones.
So that the house doesn't assume the appearance of a crime scene, I lure them into their crates. After the bones are well masticated and white as-- well-- white as bones, I liberate them.
When Geordie grabs Maggie's bone, she discretely pads into a different room with his former one. She has managed to stave off Geordie's usual hoarding of both.
This "tradition" started more than ten years ago. As a puppy, Geordie discovered that if he emitted the most irritating and cacophonous shrieks imaginable, Maggie would relinquish just about anything just to make it stop.
Geordie got the spoils while Maggie got the sympathy. This brings me to the intended subject for this post:
Maggie's Love Slave.
Larry walks in this evening-- a little earlier than usual-- and greets me. He greets both dogs but is especially lavish with his adulation for "the best Cairn." He is referring to Maggie. This leaves Geordie to wonder, "What am I? Chopped liver?"
Maggie and Love Slave
"We're both chopped liver," I reassure Geordie.
"At least you're my bitch." I can read his mind.
Only once do I remember Larry losing his temper with Maggie, and that was years ago and pre-Geordie. We had gone to Hawaii and obviously couldn't take her with us, so we boarded her at her breeder's, where she would be just one dog in a rather large pack whose members had more status than she.
Back in Portland, we drove straight from the airport to retrieve Maggie, who was acting rather bizarre and a little miffed. No, we thought. We're just imagining it. A couple of days passed. Larry was changing the sheets on our bed. Up she jumped and while staring him down with defiant eyes, she squatted and peed copiously all over the fresh sheets!
Larry's reaction was one of sheer outrage. I'd never seen him act that way toward this assertive little bitch before and haven't since. Grabbing her off the bed, out of the bedroom into the family room, he practically flung her out the dog door.
"My humans went to Hawaii and all
I got was this lousy faux lei."
She re-entered the house a different dog. The snottiness disappeared and her former sweetness returned. Clearly pissed off because we had left her for so long, and finally having expressed it--literally as well as figuratively-- she lost her 'tude.
The dogs share our bed. Geordie likes to alternate between sleeping at the foot of the bed and sleeping under it. Maggie prefers the head of the bed. She curls up for a while before relaxing and shoving her back legs hard against Larry's back thereby limiting his choice of sleeping positions.
"She loves me," he sighs.
"She does. But she is also dominating you."
Nevertheless, I'll admit I'm a skosh jealous. I'm the one who has to do all the stuff the dogs dread, such as grinding nails and stripping coat.
It's true that I have fewer obstacles to slumber than Larry, but it is Geordie-- despite his frequent changes of location-- who sleeps best of all.
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