Please, sir, I want s'more

This morning, Eska and I had oatmeal for breakfast, and things got weird.

By "weird," I mean, of course, that I had a sudden trans-mammal revelation that will surely change my life.

I don't much like oatmeal and never have. I recently bought some to have handy on those mornings when I am out of either cereal or milk, thinking I'd give it another chance and let it "grow on me" (as has been known to happen). But halfway through my bowl, I remembered why I never liked it in the first place, and handed it over to Eska in what I thought would turn out to be a dismal, and ultimately failed experiment.

She LOVED it. Lapped it all up. Couldn't get enough.

Now, it's true that on the whole issue of nature vs. nurture, I have never known where to hang my hat. I used to be all "nature" before I got Eska, but having her, and watching her transformation from the cold, shrewd, aggressive, half-crazed pup she was to the "sweet and kind and gentle" (and soft and prutty and musha-musha (rhymes with kush)) pup-a-lup during her years with me has sort of changed my mind. Or in any event, I've reconsidered my position.

But this morning, watching her go at it, my first thought was that she must be part British. How else could I explain her particular fancy for porridge, and her overall general belief that she is, in fact, the queen of England?

And THAT's when I remembered that she totes, legitimately is: the border collie half of her, anyway.

(Let's momentarily forget that Eska eats just about everything with gusto, and let's also skip the part where we consider whether dietary habits particular to ethnicities (or breeds, in this case) are the product of genetic predetermination or adaptation to their immediate environment and just agree that Brits don't eat like Italians, and Italians don't eat like Moroccans, and Moroccans don't eat like Ugandans, and so on and so forth, and blah blah blah...)

It was one small step for nature, and one huge step for my brain in remembering the whole root of the debate to begin with. My undergrad self is completely unimpressed with me right now. But my grad-school, underground-solitary-existence-hermit-mode current self sings with joy. She dances, too.

For her next birthday, I am making Eska shortbread and serving it with a shot of vodka and some pickles.

Bed, Bath, and Beyond

I never thought this day would come, but today, for the first time in 2.5 years, I managed to give Eska a full bath (and brush) without having her howl for mercy. In fact, she didn't make a peep. Though tentative at first, she even sat quietly when I took out the blowdryer - a new twist on the traditional towel-dry option I usually exclusively select.

All pampered and primped, she is now sitting on a pile of my clothes staring at me (I'd like to think fondly).



I think she's in it for the long haul, folks.

That don't impress her much

She won't settle for just anyone, and why should she? She's got it all: brains, brawn, beauty, AND a sense of humour.

Still, I thought she might swoon just a little at the sign of true genius.

Meh. Who the FUCK is Johann Sebastian Bach, and why should I care?

Today was another study-at-home day to compensate for being mostly away during the last two. Usually, Eska is thankful when I make such compromises, and demonstrates her appreciation by spending most of the day with me in bed, or on the sofa (wherever Fiona and I happen to be). Today, however, though she popped in every now and then, she only came to stay for a sustained amount of time twice -- both times, when I paused my Bach Preludes and Fugues youtube playlist.

I am not sure if her distaste for my man John extends to classical music as a genre; she always seemed to share at least a little in my love affair with Chopin. Or maybe it's just Germans she takes issue with, given her French (Canadian) stock. I will have to experiment a little bit to find out.

I wonder where he places on the scale from Fiona Apple to Decio.

I have to say, though, reading to Fatboy Slim isn't quite the same -- or at all possible.

On the bright side, I have now identified my favourite Preludes and Fugues from the set of 24: they are 2, 6, 10, 12, and 18 (in case you were wondering).

Surely, this investment of time was just as essential as, say, the development of my dissertation.

Photoshoot (me in the face)

Well, doesn't Eska just look like a basket of sunshine?

Steppin' out with the Killer

HoMa feline lovers: if you are the owner of a black cat with a bitten and bleeding behind, please make contact. It's my fault.

Remember that doubt I once had about whether or not Eska's anxiety around cats could be attributed to playfulness rather than aggression? Well, that doubt was definitively laid to rest today.

My landlord invited me in to have a look at the work he's been doing on his apartment just beneath me. We took the opportunity to let Eska make use of his huge backyard in the meantime. The first few minutes were nice. There was snow, and frolicking, and life was grand.

It wasn't long, however, before we heard a series of loud, aggressive barks resonate from somewhere outside, not too far from that. Surely, that's not my dog, I thought. My dog never barks. My dog has only ever barked in moments of extreme frustration with me, and those have only occurred twice in our over two year history. Surely, this was someone else's dog.

Only, it wasn't. This was my dog, and the target of her barking: a fat, juicy black cat perched just out of her reach.

I saw the whole thing happen. It was over before I knew it, even though I was somehow powerless to stop it. The cat swiped at Eska a few times with its paw, which only antagonised her more. Eventually, and hoping to escape, it jumped down into the snow -- a move that only provoked the savage inside my husky mix: she lunged after it and caught it easily by the neck. My landlord stepped in, and the cat managed to escape. Only half a second later, though, Eska again had it lodged in her chops, this time by the rump, and was not letting go.

It took both of us - one yanking by the collar, the other (me) gripping her midsection and raising her front half in the air - to get her to release her prey.

The cat made quick work of fleeing the premises. A quick inspection of Eska's face confirmed my dreaded suspicion: the blood I saw there was absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, NOT hers.

I mean, now I know, right? I guess cat-ownership is not in the cards for me for a while, this means.

Four (and six)-letter words

In recent months, I have been putting a concerted effort into Eska's education. More specifically, we have been working on her vocabulary. Anyone who knows me will know that I don't much belong to the school of thought that sustains that "if you've nothing nice to say, say nothing at all." Still, when thinking about which words I wanted my beloved girl to learn, only the kind ones crossed my mind.

I have been telling her since our partnership that she is a "sweet, and a kind, and a gentle baby," so she's got all those covered. More recently, I taught her "love" by repeating the word after (or following it up with) a kiss (usually on the face, because, let's be honest, she has a pretty face). A month or so of efforts on my end yielded a very tangible (and slobbery) result: when asked "what's love," Eska will plant a long wet one right where it counts.

She's such a smart girl.

I have been trying, for almost just as long, to teach her "friends," but she has been having a harder time with that one. I started with the age-old adage, "cats are friends," but, not surprisingly, she didn't buy it. I tried to pair the repetition of "friends" with hugs and pets, but it was inconclusive whether or not she was actually getting it: "do you know what it is, 'friends,'" consistently got me only a blank stare from my girl. I thought all was lost, and concentrated my efforts on other battles, like getting her to understand the difference between "ball," "bone," and "chicken."

This is why I will never finish my dissertation.

Today, however, as she so frequently does, my beloved little baby pulled a fast one on me. As we sat entwined in what she has come to know as kishnahugs (a kiss and a hug at the same time), I told her that we were best friends. Weren't we the best of friends? Yes, we were the best of friends, I said. Did she know what it was, "friends?" Could she say it to me? What's "friends," girl?

At first, all I was met with was the customary glaze over her eyes. Just as I started to pull away and out of our embrace, though, I saw her face come close to mine and, just like that, she gave me a big ole kiss -- on the cheek.

I dare say, I think she got it.

It's so nice to see her word-count grow in such a healthy direction. Still, I can't wait for the lesson on "motherfucker." Something tells me she won't need much help understanding.

Coureur des bois

She's crafty, my girl. In the nine months or so that she has been off-leash, Eska has never once run off on her own. Never, that is, until this weekend.

That's not to say she's been perfect; she hasn't. I made the mistake of letting one bright-orange hatted, long white bearded man feed her stale granola once, and she followed him into the woods every time she saw him for at least one whole season. And it never takes her much, besides, to decide that if the Wyman Park stream is good enough for Odie or Hero, it's certainly no match for her.

This weekend was different.

"We're going to see your boy B today, girl," I told her as we headed to the park where Brian would be meeting us. She played it cool, despite the 80 degree temperature. By the time we got there, the park was empty: traffic had come and gone, it seemed, and taken with it the tennis ball I left there last week for dry spells like these. No matter, Eska has always been able to entertain herself; she walked over to the marshy area by the stream, sniffed around, looked back at me coyly - twice - before deciding to beeline it into the woods through a hole in the fence and drift far into the muddy construction site on the other side of it, impervious to my calling ...

... precisely three minutes before Brian arrived.

Well, he hadn't signed up for search and rescue duty, but he complied happily and within less than ten minutes, Eska heard (or smelled or sensed) us and came running back.

And of course, because it wasn't enough for her to have Brian- with whom I am trying hard to reestablish a functional friendship - swoop in for the save at a moment of pure panic, she had then to spend the rest of the day walking between us, or weaving around us so that we were constantly invading each others' personal space or otherwise forced to look "cute" to anyone else walking past us.

And she did it so well that it didn't even feel like invasion. It might as well have been 101 fucking Dalmations.

Sneaky little shit. I always thought she preferred the chef.

Hrm.