Puppy Pile

No sooner had I gotten back to the States than friend Maggie left town. She took off to Alaska, and I got the beagles for a dozen days.

They have the run of the whole back wing of the house, up and down stairs, but if I'm at my desk, which is most of the time that I'm awake, they're in a puppy pile at my feet. Well, on my feet. I extricated myself long enough to take this picture. Can you say "albatross"?

Civilized Dogs

Here are a couple of civilized Yorkies in an Antwerp square, properly dressed for their outing and sharing a little sunshine and a dessert with their human companions.

Helping Dog

This year I begged off helping with the Mattoon Street Art Festival, opting instead to donate my time to the Springfield Library, on whose Advisory Committee I sit. The library had a booth at the festival advertising its services. I explained how to get a library card, shamed people into filling out library surveys, and hyped the Open Mic Poetry series, the free movies, and the new wireless network to all who made eye contact with me or got close enough to help themselves to some of the candy Anna had scattered on our table.

But mostly I snapped pictures of people's dogs. Now that I'm working on a book about Taz, I'm hyper-interested in dogs...all kinds of dogs.

I shot a sharpei, an English bulldog, a long-haired chihuahua, a cocker spaniel, a German shepherd, a French poodle named Babette, a pair of corgis, a three-legged flat-haired retriever, a toy poodle, a bichon frisée, a Maltese, a pug, a pekinese, a miniature pinscher, and an assortment of adorable mixed-breeds. But my favorite was this one, MeToo, whose human companion identified her as a "helping dog."

The woman suffers from panic attacks, and the dog is trained to lick her face whenever an attack comes on, which calms her down. Since getting MeToo, she no longer needs medication.

I'm thinking a dog like this deserves a book all to herself.

The Dogs of Mumbai

Mumbai--or Bombay, as most expatriates still call it--is unimaginably crowded and filthy. 18 million people stuck on what's basically an island off the mainland of India, in the Arabian Sea. Add hot weather (80s in February, and it goes up from there) and monsoons and you have, to a Western mind at least, the recipe for disaster.

So it's odd to spend even a few days in Mumbai and realize you haven't heard one angry shout, one crying baby, one annoyed huff. That when you placed your empty teacup in its saucer, three waiters rushed from different parts of the room to refill or replace it, without a single rolled eye or sarcastic murmur. How can this many people coexist in such circumstances without getting on each others' nerves? Where's the surliness, the road rage, the profanity?

All among these mild people are equally mild dogs. Well, animals that look very like dogs, but have no other doglike attributes that I could discern. Thin, limp, doe-eyed creatures. Mostly just standing or lying in one spot. Of various sizes, shades, and conformations, but all peculiarly similar in the face. Long, delicate faces, with sad expressions.

On Juhu Beach, at intervals, barrels have been placed for trash. In the shade of every barrel is a dog, curled up in a hole, lying very still. That's the pricey real estate, I guess. In between are many more dogs similarly situated, minus the spot of shade. What do they eat, I wonder? The millions of people are all so thin, it's hard to imagine they leave any edible bit for the dogs. Yet no animal barks, growls, or appears capable of the least aggression.

Conservation of energy, in the face of blistering heat and little nourriture? Or inscrutable Eastern wisdom, which extends to even the lowliest creatures?