Dogz Rule!

We took a trip up north to Antrim County to dog sit for 10 days. Nice deal. No traffic. Clean air. Nice folks. She-who-must-be-obeyed stubbed her toe viciously the first night we were there and could not walk the dog, a job which fell to me. Of course, I knew I was going to have to walk the dog sooner or later, but I thought with a judicious flurry of inconsequential activity at just the right times someone else might walk the dog. No such luck now. It is not the "walking" to which I object; it is the "putting one's hand into a plastic bag". This I had never done before in my life. So I did it. I imagined it would be rather easy, bag on, a smooth, fluid stoop...and scoop! What could be simpler? Just about anything , as it turned out. It is Fall and the leaves-never slow on the uptake-had come in on cue and fallen. Leaves were everywhere and they were just the right color to camouflage things. I mean, I have golfed in the Fall and have had a heck of a time finding a brilliant white golf ball in the leaves. Imagine finding something vaguely the same color as the leaves! Of course, this was all due to the fact that the dog did not do everything in just one spot. He anointed a spot of ground, then scooted over a few feet, then scooted again: 3 stops. Easy enough to GPS the first spot and take care of things. Now find the other two in the camouflage. I realized that now there were scoot, stoop, and scoop. I was surprised that my menial chores had internal rhyme. I tried to think of others. I came up with "smoot" but this was from the "Smoot-Hawley" tariff and I could not think of how to work Utah's own Senator Reed Smoot into the act. Furthermore, I discovered that I hadn't really thought things through. Once you have a filled plastic bag in hand, what do you do with it? Do you just walk around with it? A clear plastic bag? A bit of a smelly little albatross around one's neck! I remember once I was looking up a lady about some business thingey and I found her in the right neighborhood on the street next to my cousin's house. She was walking a dog. I asked if she were Ms. so-and-so, she said yes, and I held out my hand, saying I was Mr. such-and-such. Well, she had a plastic bag in her hand, a used plastic bag. Missing only 2 beats, she switched it to her left hand and proferred the right. I had the pleasure of shaking the hand of a fine lady which had just been hefting dog waste. I wasn't going to put the wretched bag into my pocket; not even a double bag. Originally I had fashioned a scoop from a gallon milk jug to use so I wouldn't even have to bag my hand. This scoop worked fine for 1 day. The next day the dog, having had an entire night to mull things over, decided to carry on maneuvers in tallish grass. Well, a scoop won't work in tall grass. Nothing really does. The tall grass stems sort of comb things and...well, you get the idea. So I used the quondam scoop as a device for carrying things and if I were confronted, I could retreat into the fantasy of carrying leaves ( I used leaves a lot during those 10 days) in a jug. Of course, the dog enjoyed it all. He refused to do what I wanted or go where I directed. His contempt was complete. I mean, why would you even remotely consider listening to some guy who followed you around picking up your waste products as if they were the most precious things he'd ever seen? One neighbor thanked me for my services. I smiled, wondering what it would take to turn his happiness to wrath if what I was doing then merited a fulsome thank-you. Even the walking was not all that it should have been. Just when you had gotten into a brisk stride, little Agamemnon would need to mark territory. It was about 15 seconds between markings on average. Greedy little cuss. If we could make these territorial squirts hold up in court, I'd be rich! Something to think about. And, yes, the dog's name is Agamemnon (almost- slightly changed to protect the innocent). The whole name is Agamemnon Spartacus Simonides. No, I'm not kidding. We were in Petoskey for a day out and some pesky children wanted to pet him. I wasn't sure, although I did allow the show of affection. I mean, it wasn't my dog and, cute as a buttoniere as he was, I did not know him well enough to know how he would act with strangers. (In re kids petting dogs: I have an acquaintance who had a dog. The child of a local Major League Baseball celebrity wanted to pet said dog. The canine party of the first part, dog, nipped the pest on the cheek, requiring 2 stitches! Now, how would you like to find yourself in court up against a sports celebrity!?!? I mean, they do not even convict sports celebrities for murder in this country! What chance do you think you and your dog would have in a lawsuit against a sports celebrity?!) So the father of petting children shows up, all smiles and amiability and asks, "Cute dog. What's its name?" "Agamemnon Spartacus..." "Oh...huh?" "...Simonides." He looked at me and waited to see if there were more nomenclature to come. "I'm just dog-sitting. I didn't name him." "Oh...cute dog." A couple of beats and "Come on kids." And off they went to play airplane and tag and what-not. A boy and his dog.