Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - The weekend definitely went to the dogs

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Brooks Peterson

Monday, June 25, 2001
The weekend definitely went to the dogs

It's (groan) officially summer now. Having endured many, many South Texas summers, I try to put the matter out of my mind: the prospect of endless eons of searing heat and stifling humidity stretching out ahead of us before we can even dream of feeling a cooling breeze from anything other than an A/C vent . . .
   But we won't go down that road; I'm too familiar with the scenery. Let us instead meditate on how best we can deal with the, ah, challenges we face as we gird for the Big Heat.
   Now, we all know the basic stuff: plenty of sun block; cooling beverages; nice sensible siestas when the Old Sol is at his apogee.
   There are, however, other issues with which we must cope beyond the gritty survival stuff. Such as? Well, such as the interpersonal dynamics of transitory population movement.
   In other words: Company's coming!
   We got a jump on the season with a Father's Day get-together: The crew from San Antonio - Grandpa and Auntie Al - popped in, and a good time was had by all.
   We bipeds all know one another pretty well by now, of course, so there wasn't any awkwardness there.
   But the dogs . . . ah, that was another matter.
   The weekend was, in fact, a bit of an experiment. It was Zoe's first visit, and no one really knew how she would take to the kind of rough canine company we keep.
   Zoe is Aunty Al's miniature Schnauzer, and hers has been a fairly sheltered existence. She's bathed and groomed with some regularity, and almost always smells good. She's an indoor-outdoor dog, and she's accustomed to genteel company.
   Now consider our crew: Conan the beagle, who is to hounds what William Howard Taft was to American presidents - a little on the stocky side - and Whitley, the little white terrier mix whose approach to life is basic full-tilt euphoria, occasionally interrupted by bouts of hysteria when a possum, meter-reader, or other menacing life form is in the area.
   Our pups aren't thugs, understand, but they're a bit more rough-and-ready than what Zoe's used to.
   They're strictly outdoor dogs - which is not to say they turn up their noses at the chance to check out the house when someone's attention wanders. (Conan in particular is a master infiltrator: He gets this manic light in his eyes, slips in, then makes a circuit through the den, the kitchen - whence cometh his Alpo - the dining room and the living room, his paws skittering wildly on the ceramic tile, then bursts through the door and back into the yard: Conan the Raider! You think a beagle can't grin? Think again.)
   Relationship questions
   Would Conan be Stanley Kowalski to Zoe's Blanche DuBois? Would Zoe and Whitley succeed in negotiating some sort of modus vivendi? Now, granted, it wasn't a really cosmic big-deal kind of thing . . . but I think I gained some inkling of what an American president feels while awaiting the arrival of, oh, I dunno - Yasser Arafat? Vladimir Putin? All those imponderables . . .
   In the end, though, it went fine. Zoe wasn't terribly taken with Whitley - I think it was, y'know, a terrier thing - but she seemed fascinated by Conan. His phlegmatic demeanor, his hound-of-the-world manner, and the massive calm with which he accepted her presence seemed to fascinate the pup. (I should point out that this was quite platonic, all three of them having been, well, adjusted early in life.)
   There was some subtle interplay among the three of them . . . and some not so subtle stuff. When Zoe got her high-tech dry chow, Conan plowed happily into it; she got to sample her cousins' somewhat less elegant fare.
   Consistent with her station in life, Zoe bunked inside with Auntie Al - and was a model citizen. Never tried to take chunk of my ankle, even when I was blundering around in the dark and came across her unexpectedly: not so much as a peep from her.
   Altogether, I can think of worse ways to kick off the (you're going to hate me for this, but . . .) dog days of summer.

   Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com.


Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com

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