Category: Pets

Benji’s new little friend

Part playmate, part plaything — dogs will be dogs. When Benji came into our lives, Gita played with him, but, being somewhat matronly, she had her limits. Which I thought delightfully karmic, since it reminded me of her introduction into our lives, and how patiently our then-matronly dog Karma put up with Gita (Bhagavad nothing; short for Dogita, and properly spelled Guita), who equally more or less terrorized Karma. And invoked karma.

FWIW, this is my 1,000th blog post. How time flies when you spend it documenting trivialities!

A lively walk

As we approached the little zoo in Atlántida, a large songbird dive-bombed Benji in the road. Twice (he might well have caught it a third time). This has never happened before. Too quick to get a picture.

A block later, Benji suddenly ran behind a car parked at the zoo, and a goose loudly launched itself into relative safety inside the short chainlink fence. This has never happened before. Too quick to get a picture. (Why are the geese outside their pen?)

On the way back, Benji encountered a dog, but didn’t notice a second one, inside a trash container. This has never happened before. Too quick to get a picture.

Dog just jumped from trash container
But honest, it really happened

So what did I get a picture of? Sticks.dog throwing sticks on beach

Yes, those sticks from two weeks ago. The crooked one, our favorite, has gone up and down the beach a few times since then.

Ain’t it good to know…

Wretched weather today. I missed a window or two of almost-not-rainy weather to walk the dog, and also our masseur was here in the afternoon, despite wind and rain, on his moto with massage table attached. Because of the “strong” (but falling) Untied Snakes dollar, our hour-long+ $37 massage now is  USD 32-33.

With evening approaching, and insufficient wine on hand, it was necessary to visit Tienda Inglesa. When we got back, I asked if Benji had howled as he has tended to do in his FOMO moments when I leave without him. No, Susan said, it was quite cute. He just nuzzled your slipper (house shoes I wear all day).

Walking into my office, I saw the shoe in the middle of the floor; returned to our shoe rack to get the other so I could put them on. Oh, it wasn’t there.

where the dog thinks my shoe should be

… you’ve got a friend?

Because puppy.

We had a problem. When we tried to sit on the couch after dinner to read, Benji would get between us and stretch out. Which amounted to being in both of our laps. At the same time.

So wife said, let’s replace wicker chairs in the bay window with small couch from upstairs. And it worked. She could sit there — reading material illuminated by an amazing 5-watt LED ceiling bulb — while I sat nearby on the couch, its empty two-thirds occupied by puppy.

Tonight, puppy Tetris.

image

FWIW: we bought used furniture and reupholstered thinking rental, since we had another house at the time. Didn’t happen. Stuff’s ugly. Whatever.

 

 

New addition to the family

If you’ve ever tried to take a picture of a puppy, you’ll understand this photo viscerally.

benji

No image manipulation involved. We seem to have settled on his name as “Benji,” which was the name of the beautiful but personality-challenged dog we rescued (with permission) from our troglodyte property-squatting neighbors.

Suggestion inspired by our Uruguayan-American friend Isabel, who recalled that I once said all dogs in Uruguay were named Benny, because when owners call them they say ¡vení! (come!), which seems to be a Rioplatense Spanish conjugation. (If you can clarify, please do!)