Strugr

I know Odin well as he attends the church and lives before us and works beside us and is building the house on the lawn; and I have never faulted in my responsibility on all these occasions of chancing upon him to stand at a distance of twenty or thirty feet and bark raucously.

He entered the yard on Saturday, and I was standing at a distance of twenty or thirty feet and barking raucously when the female came out. “Be quiet, Zack” she ordered. “Hola, Odin!” she called. She went in. I waited till she was out of sight. I then took up a stance not less than twenty or thirty feet from Odin and began barking raucously. The female came out and swatted me.

No doubt this is the chain reaction of the violence she suffers at the hands of the intemperate male. See my last post.

Last night the male came out with a stick and gave me a little speech. “Now Zack,” he said, “you can whine and you can yawn. You can run around and you can wag your tail and you can smell things. But you cannot bark.” He then left the stick lying on the top step. [I forgot to mention that while he was making this speech I exercised my liberty to whine and yawn. - edited by Zack at 11:43 AM]

As I was trying to sleep I heard them talking. “It would be great if he were the kind of dog who would fasten himself to the inside of an attacker's thigh and hang on for life,” the male was saying.

“But if he were that kind of dog Odin would be dead.” the female replied.

“Wouldn't that be something to report to Mike,” the male answered. The female giggled. “Hey Mike, good news! Odin's situation has been completely resolved!” The female laughed. “Moreover he has made great strides in his sanctification!” The female pealed into her pillow.

“On a less cheerful note, we had to put Zack down.” The female erupted into something like what you would hear out of a sick horse.

It was extremely disturbing. I almost went in there with the stick.

It is also my responsibility to alert the owners of other dogs alerting their owners of bugs in the yard.

It is my responsibility to announce when the bell of the gate next door is rung, and to do it in such a way that the owners think it is their own bell. Their own bell does not work.

It is my responsibility to ward off the trashtruck from its inevitable rise to power as it roars up the mountain, setting off car alarms. This is a desperate endeavor, and one in which I am joined by my peers.

It is my responsibility to crawl under the house in the early dawn and alert the owners to my whereabouts beneath their bedroom.

And now I have the added responsibility of keeping up this blog and of monitering the comments of the female, who is singularly trivial.

It is a heavy burden. And it makes me sleepy.

I do not slack in my efforts. And I am not unrewarded. The female is getting skittish, and developing dark circles under her eyes. If it were not for me, she might be full of health, unaware of the complex of dangers besetting her.

For instance, the other day two men began poking around at our gate door. I have stated that our bell does not work. This makes it unnecessary for me to alert the owners when someone is ringing it. I did not recognize these men, but they obviously knew what they were doing. They proceeded to insert a tangible device and to pick the lock and come in. Once they were in I saw no need to alert the owners of their presence. I did not recognize them, and they did not ring the bell. There are far too many insects in the yard to bother the female with strange men. These men motivated themselves over the yard in a straight line toward the dwelling and the first thing the owners knew about them was an eruption of loud knocking on their door. I almost barked then. But the male appeared, and I wagged my tail instead.

That night I was patrolling the neighboring wall and reporting the results to the owners, when the male came out and smacked me. I tried to lick his hand, but he was implacable. I concluded that he must have been drinking, and sulked the rest of the night. The female arose the next morning without dark circles. She smiled at me. I concluded that she must have been drinking.

This is the kind of devastation that happens when people drink. It tears homes apart, and leads men to smack innocent animals. Moreover it leads women to smile foolishly at them. The violence of the male is disgusting, but the ignorance of the female is tragic. Little did she know how many bugs had passed that way in the darkness, or where I was at 3 AM.

This is ridiculous. We were not drinking. Zack, remember who invited you to be on this blog. [edited by HZ at 1:09 pm]

You have my pity. Remember the comment feature. [edited by Zack at 1:12 pm]

When I awoke the door was open. The female was standing in a state of shock, brandishing pepper spray. The male was hovering just over my head. “Didn’t he bark?” the female asked. I am not sure who she meant. I barked all evening.

“I was just shaking him awake” the male replied. “I thought he was dead.”

I think he meant me. In spite of this scare over my life, they did not seem very friendly when I alerted them of my whereabouts beneath their bedroom at 3 AM.