So, yesterday Lily and I went out wilding. We took a nice, long Junior Explorers' Club walk in the woods near a ruin of a factory and whatnot and there were amazing smells--decomposing leaves, moss getting mossier by the moment, nefarious/scurrilous squirrel poop, all the best stuff. Lily was power-sniffing, I was strolling, all was good. Then, in the distance, I could see the unmistakably menacing forms of The Elderly Man With the Cane and his Giant Dog Who Is Unleashed And Runs Two Miles Ahead of The Elderly Man.
"Menacing? Why menacing?" you might ask. "Are you worried the Giant Dog will savage Lily?"
No. On the contrary, I am worried that Lily might savage the Giant Dog.
I have learned something interesting about Lily in the last several weeks. She loves people INSTANTLY. The second she sees you, she will prostrate herself at your feet, lean her head back lovingly against your legs, and melt. Yet, it takes her several weeks to begin to warm up to another dog. I'm pretty sure that this is due to her being beaten up by other dogs when she was a sick lil' street dog in Mexico. My hunch is she feels like she has to get off to a strong place in the poochy hierarchy before another one jumps her.
Unfortunately, my poor friend's little dog Elvis was shocked by her latina fury upon their first encounters. The second she sees another dog--such as the hapless Elvis--she makes a complicated series of noises composed of yearning, wariness, concern, and what I like to call "a wild surmise." It sounds like "mmm mmm MMM? MMM! mmm errrrrrrrrr." The girl mutters pensively. She kinda seems like she wants to play, she kinda seems like she wants to flee, she kinda seems like she wants to hide behind me, and she kinda seems like she wants to jump the dog in a dark alley with some of her chicas as back-up.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh. It was a sad, perplexing time with Elvis and Lily at first. Happily, they're pals now. But, it took a couple of scary weeks....We'll see what happens with ol' Bob and Precious.
