Did Not Call The Sheriff

Tuesday, September 23Ð

      EZ has come to live with me. After ten days I phoned up the animal shelter.

      "Yes," the lady said. "The owner signed her over. Her name is Amber. She's been spayed and has been asking for you."

      So I drove out there, paid the $30 fee and was handed the leash. Amber plowed through the door and towed me to the nearest car, which just happened to be my Honda. As the door started to open she submerged her nose and wedged the door open with her body and torpedoed into the back seat. Quivering. Shivering. As most living things do after ten days in twenty-four-hour-per-day barking bedlam.

      It took two days for her to stop trembling. The veterinarian conjectured that her fur loss was either seasonal or allergic and would probably be a recurring condition. (The fur grew back and is still fine five years later. I am convinced it was a stress-related loss.)

      She's been renamed "EZ" and is at The Woods for the first time, laying ten feet away after being sent there for pestering for affection after I'd given what I had. She ran away yesterday. We'd gone meandering into the woods scouting dead wood. She roamed and I suddenly realized she was nowhere around. I whistled a few times which nearly always worked to bring her near. Not this time. I decided to play it cool and not call the Sheriff, who would've hung up anyway and refused to drive fifty-five miles.

      An hour went by and I returned to the cabin. She was laying on the stoop grinning and wet all over.

      "Where have you been?!" But it was obvious she'd been to the river for a dip and her sudden sulky look was not remorse, but reaction to my voice.

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