A Dog's Life (x 4)

I'm working in my office at home. It's a cubbyhole really, an anthropological study of a small interior room that's been everything from a dining room (its original state where once hung a Munster-family-like chandelier), to my son's bedroom, to an office, then to my mother's bedroom, and back to an office, and then to the youngest daughter's room, then to the eldest daughter's room, and now back to an office, where, amidst the clutter of storage boxes full of papers from our recently sold business and bookshelves housing the college books and papers of the recently graduated eldest daughter and my desk (a salvaged 1955 oak schoolteacher's desk), lie a scattering of four pillows on the floor, four pillows in various shapes and levels of plumpness.

They are dog pillows and each pillow boasts a dog. Small dogs, all. None weigh more than 12 pounds and combined they couldn't form an adult-sized German Shepherd. They could bark it to death, or give it and its owner a good run about our neighborhood, but the Shepherd would still twice outweigh the collective. The four are snoozing on their pillows. A favorite pastime. I recently heard on a radio show that dogs spend about 18 hours a day sleeping and I was so certain that this couldn't be right I began to keep track of their sleep vs awake time, and I'll be...by my calculations our dogs each sleep approximately 21 hours a day, well above average, waking up only long enough to eat, go for walks, and play a game of keep-away or T-Rex or dismember a stuffed toy.

Oh, and bark. When they aren't sleeping they can bark, each with a sound as distinctive as crying babies are to their mothers. And they especially, and most notably, like to bark in their extreme disharmonies, whenever anyone comes to the front door (or I should be so honest as to add, when someone walks or drives by within 2000 feet, when a wind blows, when a leaf falls). They form what looks basically like a trapeze group pyramid, some standing with front legs atop the shoulders of others, and commence upon a communal yowling that my husband John describes as "the sound of a pack of Yetis."

But for now, they sleep. It is unusually cold and they are unusually Floridian and so they are huddled about the small space heater John has set up specifically for them ("it's colder down where they are, low to the ground" he tells me) on their individual little dog pillows.

In brief, the four: Pepper, the oldest and most revered of the pack. He is 14, a long-haired Chihuahua, black with a bit of white, and increasingly gray tufts about his slightly grumpy old muzzle. Scruffy, a pleasant gray and white Shih Tzu and best described as Gumby in canine-mode. His age is a bit of guess, as my youngest daughter, Katie, rescued him prior to his being shipped to the pound by a family who thought he was only two at the time. If they were correct, he'd be over six years now. Marisol, the only girl in the pack, three-years-old and another long-haired Chihuahua who looks like a slightly smaller version of Pepper; she is built low to the ground, all body and short legs and whose nature is as sweet as Pepper's is grumpy. These three comprise the "marshmallows"; dubbed so by my husband, John. And then there's Pete. Texas Pete to be more specific, the most recent addition to this pack, rescued nearly 18 months ago by--who else--Katie. It's best to imagine Texas Pete as ten pounds of unmitigated fury housed in the body of a well-muscled short-haired Chihuahua/Jack Russell mix. John and I have frequent discussions (arguments) on his exact lineage, but for now know that he is a rescued black and white problem-solver with extremely sharp teeth, and a sharper temper, a dog that can become surprisingly docile and loving (but I'd not allow him around children). This is the pack. Joined occasionally by their "cousin", Rasti, Katie's dog, another of her rescues that is best described as a living spring, brindle in color and extremely intelligent (he can talk, I'm not kidding). When Katie brings Rasti over from her house I get to feel somewhat like a grandmother must feel, watching a house full of dogs racing around the house at break-neck speed. Unfortunately, I can only send one of them home at the end of the day.

A final note on this very first day of my very first blogging experience. Yesterday, the mailman came to the door with a certified letter and as he watched the circus-act chaos behind the glass lite beside the wooden front door, he said "How do you stand the noise?"

"They sleep a lot," I told him. "More than most dogs even."

"I don't like dogs. Actually I don't like any animals" he said. "Sign here."

I nodded. I mean, what is there to say? I could make the usual postal jokes, but it's not really funny anymore. I thought about asking what he did like, and could I bring him some of whatever that is, play the postman myself and bring him a book about gardening, or a nice bit of chocolate cake, a seashell, something? Anything? But I didn't. I just took my certified letter and said "well, they are great to watch. They teach me a lot. And they need me."

Of course, part of that is a lie. Because when I get a certified letter, or a not-so-nice email from a student who feels I've shown favoritism, or listen to the international news, or am just feeling rather out-of-sorts, I reach to the nearest pillow where something warm and living shares a bit of space with me in my tiny makeshift office. I know I need them more than they need me.

But, for now they sleep.

Although it is just about time for the mail.