Now in his thirteenth year he’s just growing into the role. We went on the usual easy walky around the horseshoe turn in the wash to the north of the Lair. Toward the end Ghost saw a cottontail and gave ‘chase.’
Ghost was always by far the fastest of the dogs and loved to flaunt it. He could launch like a bullet from a gun and keep it up in a roostertail of sand and dust until he was out of sight. Those days are done. Now he thudded along in an old-man ‘run’ for maybe twenty yards and gradually gave it up as a bad idea. He was slowing down before the past year of easy living and much rich food; now he’s ready for his retirement on the lounge chair on the beach, and please bring him another mimosa while you’re up.
His first evening at the Lair nothing was right. The kneehole of the desk was too cold, I was sitting in the only decent chair, LB wasn’t exactly rupturing himself rolling out the welcome mat, and it was too cold and wet to go outside. He laid on the rug in the middle of the Lair and basically whined himself to sleep.
The second night we came down to cases. Ghost has never really given me a hard time about staying at the Lair a week at a time, but now he was feeling distinctly out of place. He sat giving me the big brown eyes, and I didn’t know exactly what he wanted – unless it was my reading chair, which he couldn’t have. Finally I got down on the floor with him and started nerfing his head, and (very unusual for him) that’s what he wanted.
At which point Little Bear, tolerant of everything except another dog taking what’s his, decided he had something to say. “Heeey hey hey. I’m the only blond-haired, blue-eyed baby in this family. What’s he even doing here? Didn’t he move out? You didn’t kick him out, you didn’t sell him for medical experiments, he just moved the hell down the road because he wanted to be the ‘only dog.’ Well, here’s a news flash: He’s not the only one who enjoys being the only dog. Let’s go back to that. Right now.”
Yeah, that’s a lot of syllables to distill from a few grunts and a howl, but LB’s an eloquent guy. Also, he physically inserted himself between me and Ghost and gave a shove.
Ghost began to retreat, but I reached across LB’s bulk and grabbed his scruff, then roughhoused with both of them until they lightened up and relaxed. And it turns out that really was what they both needed, because since they’ve both gotten along a little better.
Ghost and LB never really were big friends – and that was more Ghost’s doing than LB’s – but they got along because for better or worse they were packmates. They were used to each other. But that ended a year ago. Now Ghost is an occasional visitor, which as far as LB is concerned means he’s an interloper. He tolerates Ghost but not much more. Ghost is reaping what he sowed, and in that regard it’s hard to have a lot of sympathy. But here we all are, in a small space and it’s raining out, so let’s all just try to get along.
