DOG DAYS OF SUMMER

“DOG DAYS OF SUMMER”

“It’s a hot one.” Purred Louise as she stretched her beautiful Persian body over the back of the sofa. “These are the days I wished I could shave this fur completely off.”

“Should have been born a dog,” chuckled Fredo, as he lay on his back in the noonday sun. He had just come from the groomer and been shaved for the summer. “I want to get tanned all over this summer. The girls love Burmese mountain dogs with an all over tan, especially this time of year when we celebrate the Dog Days of Summer.

Louise jumped off the couch and crawled under the porch where it was cool and with just a hint of a breeze. She hated to sweat it was so unfeminine.

The screen door slammed and out came Henry carrying a beer and plopping himself into the porch swing.

“Jeez Fredo I just paid fifty bucks at the groomer and you’re out there rolling in the dirt.”

Henry had just lathered Fredo with creamy sunburn lotion.

Fredo looked over at Louise and whispered, “Last summer the numbskull had me shaved and didn’t put anything on me. I burned so badly I looked like a raw hamburger. Thank goodness old doc Riley told him about sunscreen. Besides burning like hell, the girls all laughed at me down at the dog park. I whimpered away with my tail between my legs.”

“I understand.” Said Louise. “Humans can’t seem to get anything right. Look at his wife Dorothy in the backyard pouring baby oil over her naked body. That will be an emergency room visit tonight. She has done this all the years that I have known her; she just gets red and wrinkly. Humans I’ll never understand them.

About this time Gloria the lanky greyhound wiggled past the house. Fredo had a crush on her ever since she had moved to the area. Her damn owner never let her off the leash. He rolled

over and sat on his hind legs, flexing his muscles which since he was shaved were clearly visible. He gave her his best wolf whistle. Gloria turned and her owner stopped.

“Hey babe,” Fredo murmured. “What are you doing tonight? It’s the start of the Dog Day Festival and everybody is meeting down by the pond tonight. We bring along the humans as they usually have some good food scraps. Of course, the humans think they’re celebrating some Greek festival, but we all know it’s a time for us dogs to get out and howl at the moon”

Gloria batted her long eyelashes, “Oh Fredo, I’m going to Max’s home for the dog fest. That dog park thing sounds a little too uh, primitive to me. I mean really, howling at the moon. In fact, Max lives in such a ritzy neighborhood they would not even allow dog howling. Max is even allowed in the owner’s pool, and he has oodles of throw toys.”

Fredo lay back down as Gloria wiggled away. Looking at Louise he muttered, “That’s the problem with those fancy ones. They don’t even know what being a dog is all about. They are so far from our roots they get wheeled around in baby carriages and get dressed up in human clothes. They don’t appreciate the real meaning of Dog Days. Besides, Max is a chihuahua. What could he possibly know about our roots? The only thing masculine about Max is his name. He still squats to pee instead of lifting his leg like a real male dog. “Dog Days of Summer was meant to remind us of where we came from and our role in this whole civilization thing. We never had a need to be led around by a rope. That was some stupid human who came up with that idea. They didn’t realize if we want to be with someone there is no rope strong enough to hold us down. In the past we ran in packs, everyone taking care of each other. We were not even called dogs; we were wolves and others feared us. Humans though are cagey. They realized how other animals were afraid of us and they decided to turn us into domestic animals that would protect them. Along came the Indians who began to leave out nice red meat outside their teepees. Of course, being carnivores, we couldn’t resist a nice juicy piece of red meat so we would keep coming back to wherever they lived. They were very kind to us so whenever they moved, they were always following them, we followed them across the Plains into the mountains, it took a little while but gradually we started to play with their children who took a special liking to us. We didn’t know we were being trained to be pets. They even started letting us sleep in their tents and on cold nights we would cuddle up to them to keep warm. Of course, they thought we did this for them, but it was really for us. They provided protection for us from our predators like bears. I guess that’s how the bears started to hate us because to this day if there is a bear around, they stay away. Everything was going well until the White man came along. He was demanding and he thought we were there to protect him and that we were not worth any special treatment. He would tie us up in a barn and leave us

there for hours. He would feed us bread scraps soaked in fat back. We ate it because that was all there was, gone was the red meat. Since we were locked in the barn we couldn’t get out to hunt for our food. If we did anything he didn’t like he would whip us or hold back food. The White man was not nice, but when has he ever been.

Anyway, this is how we ended up here, wearing human clothes and being pushed in baby carriages. The other thing the White man did was to start breeding us to sell like we were cattle. They even screwed up our natural breeds, mixing us all up, like some people wanted furry coats, some wanted flat noses the list goes on. Basically, it just screwed us up emotionally. I guess I’m lucky, Henry is not the worst “master” as he likes to call himself. Except for the occasional screw up, like the sunscreen debacle he leaves me alone and feeds me ok dog food on sale at Costco.

Anyway, my point is the “Dog Days” are special to us and I don’t need a damn pool to celebrate. I just want to hang with my buddies and howl at the damn moon all night long.