Reiley’s Confusion
When will these humans settle down?
Dear Sasha,
Thank you for your sympathy. It is much needed. My shoulder hurts where the other dog bit me. Sometimes I limp in the early morning. It doesn’t seem to be healing like I had hoped.
Shortly after we returned from camp, the family all got up early and worked with lunch foods for breakfast. Mmmm, I love bologna for breakfast!
We bustled out of the house and walked up to the playground. Remember I wrote that I thought the children liked to play all day and we pick them up in the afternoon. I was wrong. This time we stayed and watched all the children, a hundred or more, sucked into a building like furballs into a vaccuum. In the afternoon we go early and watch them all get spit out again.
This has become the routine again. The father leaves first in the car. Then the mother and I walk the children to the playground.
All day the mother is alone at home, but she doesn’t weep as much as before. She sleeps in the afternoon and I settle near her. I feel a special need to guard and comfort her in this vulnerable time. She eats often through the day and of course I attend strictly to my duty to pick up what she drops!
Do you remember I spoke about the male dog who left his scent along the front of our yard? The first time I saw him, I barked and got scolded. I saw him again after the camping fight and something went off inside me. Nothing could stop me from barking. I shivered and bared my teeth at him.
The father wasn’t home and the mother called me to her side and petted me until I calmed down. She understood that being bitten by another dog has changed me. I don’t feel as free and easy with my fellows. Or do you think I am protecting her too much?
I don’t quite feel myself. Things just don’t make the same sense they used to. The house is quiet and lonely with all the children gone. Moving to camp and back, having the early morning routine change, it upsets me more than it should.
Thank you for listening to my complaints. I don’t expect you to do anything about it. That would be foolish.
Love, Reiley
Dear Reiley,
You worry me. Limping from a shoulder bite sounds ominous, but if your humans don’t attend to it or take you to get medical attention there is nothing you can do.
Keep licking the wound. Does the taste change?
Keep me informed! I will look for better news in your next letter. I think you are perfectly in your right feeling uncomfortable around other dogs for a while. You have learned a tragic lesson that some of us are deranged and don’t have owners who protect us from ourselves.
You are also right to protect your family mother. She is going to need you to pick up the dropped food more and more often as the child grows inside her. Her middle will swell to amazing proportions, just you wait!
As I said, keep me informed. I worry about you.
love Sasha.
I love dogs. They seem to love me too and this gives me great joy. Do you have an experience like Reiley, moving to a strange place? Getting hurt by strangers? You have my sympathy!
Check out www.tassanara.com for more of what I do!
