I’ve learned a few things in the days that I’ve lived at what the two-legs call Wish Island. Most are about dandelions, which are the best weeds to pull on because they simply refuse to come out of the ground. The fun lasts a long while, and uses up what tiny bit of time I’m left alone, as my two-legs totes me around like I’m her second left hip. Really, I do wiggle and wiggle, but she hates to put me down.
But dandelion heads, when bitten off, explode inside your mouth, making it impossible not to choke on the puffy, white seeds. What a surprise it was to gobble up the first one believing how good it would taste, only to find that I couldn’t breathe for the feathers filling my mouth. My two-legs happened to be taking pictures of my cuteness when I began to choke and scooped me up and rushed me to water for a drink. Declaring loudly with each step that she would rid the yard of every dandelion as she headed to the she shed inside of Wish Island for the hoe.
But I had my own revenge on the sneaky plant--drawing attention to the patch by running around-and-around until all the dandelions were corralled exactly where I wanted them, and then yelping my head off. My frantic cries not stopping until the salty Booga-man came to my rescue and sheared off the dandelions in one quick pass of his terribly noisy machine. Zip! Gone! Saving all of us from choking on their ever-beckoning, I’m so innocent, come-and-bite--me blooms.
Two-legs has no idea that she needs to protect me from much more dangerous hazards--the poop deposited by the country creatures that live wild and free. There is a fox who smells of milk much like my own momma, a pair of quite scary looking racoons who eat berries they can’t digest, and the lone coyote who gobbles down more beetles than I do. I’m not sure why other creatures’ poop seems so appetizing, but what little I’ve managed to choke down while two-legs is preoccupied working in her flower garden, is so, so good. But, then so, so bad, when I get a tummy ache a short while later.
To get me back to the play porch when I wander off, two-legs has come up with a yell that has me leaving all the good stuff where I found it and bob-tailing it back to her side. On the porch she has a cabinet atop a metal table. And on a shelf inside, is a paper sack that makes a mouth-watering, crinkly sound when she takes it out. That rustling sound has me running back toward her even before she beats on the table top and yells McDonalds! My short legs get quite the workout trying to get to two-legs before she tucks the sack back inside the cabinet.
The tidbits that come out of that sack are better than anything my furry friends could leave in the yard, plus my tummy only feels full after I eat it, and not sick. For sure the neighbors in a six-house range can tell when the now famous Buttons is needing coaxing back to the safety of the porch. What I don’t understand is why don’t the neighbors also come running? McDonalds is so, so good.
And you know what else I’ve figured out? (You’re gonna want to pat me on the head for this.) If I get as far away as I can without losing sight of two-legs, and then stop and turn my head back towards her and stand real still as if I’m thinking about whether or not I should run further, she’ll beat hard on that table top every time and yell McDonalds at the top of her lungs! Afraid, just like I want her to be, that my cute little self will disappear in the tall grass where the salty Booga-man doesn’t run his loud machine. Even my momma would be proud of how well my trick works.
Speaking of my momma, I guess the best thing I’ve learned at Wish Island so far happens during couch time each night. You know, right before kennel time, when I’m allowed to sit beside my two-legs and pretend to be intrigued by the colors moving across the big black box. It happens when two-legs has her left arm folded up just so—there’s a sweet spot right in the bend of her arm that reminds me of momma’s soft skin. And I know if two-legs would ever let me knead it just a few more times instead of always stopping me, that I could get a taste of the silky liquid momma kept there just for me. How I’d love to sample it just one more time. It was so, so good.
I was intrigued until the end!!!!