The Four O'Clock Stare

Here is Bisou, giving me the four o'clock stare, which often begins at 3:45 and continues unabated until 4:23, when I can't stand it any longer and give in and feed her (her official dinner time is 5:00).

As parents, my spouse and I believed that consistency was important, and that giving in to unjustified demands that contradicted standing rules was misguided. We applied this same principle to our many dogs in the course of fifty years, with excellent results. Until Bisou came along.

With all my dogs before her, mostly Shepherds and Setters, I had to work hard on eye contact. It became almost a reflex, before letting a dog out the door, or feeding it, or inviting it into the car, to stop and ask for a sit, and eye contact. The sit came easily enough, but the eye contact often took years to achieve. So I was charmed and amazed when Bisou, at nine weeks, came to us with perfect built-in eye contact.

I must have showered her with praise--it's always good to praise a puppy, right?--because she kept up the eye contact, and eventually honed it into a fearsome weapon that none of us can resist. Here is an example. My spouse is a benevolent but mostly uninvolved dog owner. The dogs have always been my delight and my responsibility, but he is glad to help out when I ask. Recently, getting ready to leave for the afternoon, I prepared Bisou's dinner, stowed it in the microwave, and asked my husband to feed her around 4:30. But my plans were cut short and I got home at 2:00--and found Bisou's empty bowl on the kitchen floor.

I ran into the living room, brandishing the bowl. "What is this?" I asked my husband. "You didn't feed her already, did you?"

"Well," he answered, "she stared at me and stared at me, and I figured that you must have made a mistake when you said not to feed her until 4:30."

That lesson, among others, was not lost on Bisou, who is now in her eleventh year of polishing the power of the stare. Did I mention that she's also going a bit deaf? This means that if she's busy sniffing outside and I call and she doesn't come right away, I can't get mad at her because, poor thing, she may not have heard me. So I call again, and again (exactly what I'm NOT supposed to do) until she looks up, all innocence, and says "Oh, it's you!" and trots over and fixes me with her lustrous carnelian orbs. And I praise her for finally coming, and for making eye contact...and she stores it all in her excellent dog memory for future use.

Cat And Dog

People laugh at me when they hear his name--who would name a kitten after an 18th century composer? But I must have done something right, because I have never had a cat, or a dog for that matter, who so faithfully and eagerly comes when called. Telemann, from the first couple of days, he had mastered that envy of all dog trainers: the perfect recall. All I have to say is "Telemann, Telemann!" and, out from under the bed or down from the top of the bookshelf, he waltzes into my presence, tail held high, its tip curved into a question mark, "You wanted me?" 

He is the most dog-like cat I have ever had, learning not to jump into the litter box while I'm cleaning it, and not to even think (please God!) of dipping his paw into the Japanese-style tub that is home to my two fan-tailed goldfish, But his most canine quality is his compulsion to be near me: in the sink (yes, in--he adores water) while I brush my teeth, on my lap as I try to type (why do you think it takes me so long to write a post?), on the bed when I take a nap.

If naps with Bisou were lovely, naps with Bisou and Telemann are divine. The minute they see me take the cozy gray comforter out of the closet they both jump on the bed. Bisou settles next to my left calf. Telemann, purring mightily, kneads the comforter for a bit, then licks my nose and subsides against my right ribs. One hand on Bisou's haunch and the other on the curve of Telemann's back, I fall asleep with the odd but restful feeling that I am a member of a weird interspecies litter.

But he is nevertheless a cat, a member of the tribe of tiger, and our cottage often becomes a miniature Serengeti, with Telemann as apex predator and Bisou as hapless wildebeest. He watches from under the bed skirts, then leaps out on top of her, flings his arms around her neck, and tries to deliver the killing bite. She shakes him off, then runs back to see if he will do it again, which he does.

They paw at each other, stand on their hind legs and wrestle, leapfrog over each other. But in the evenings, when Rachel Maddow alternately mocks and bemoans what is happening in the country, Bisou and Telemann sleep aligned like spoons on the sofa next to me, one of the wildebeest's legs draped casually over the former predator's neck.

On the days when CFS nails me to the bed, and the news--Las Vegas, Puerto Rico, and my country, Catalunya--sits like a stone on my chest, I give thanks for the two fur-bearing persons who, in exchange for room and board, are content to lie close to me in silence, and watch the afternoon light fade a little earlier each day.

Twilight With Frogs

These long, sunny evenings I sit by the pond with a book and a glass of wine, watching the frogs. 

Ours have got to be the most blissed-out, trusting amphibians on the planet.  Bisou, whose obsession with them continues unabated, will come streaking out the back door looking for them.  If she's lucky, one will be sunning itself on the slate slabs, and she runs over and nudges it with her nose.  The frog then gives one or two desultory hops, Bisou gives it another nudge, the frog hops again, and so on until it reaches the edge of the pond and dives in.

Bisou then runs around the perimeter of the pond, looking for frogs that are clinging to the pond's edge or to a close-by lilypad.  She leans way over, her ears waving like algae in the scummy water, until she can touch noses with a frog (sometimes she falls in).  Eventually she wearies of this game and goes off to graze.  (What, doesn't your dog gorge on grass?)

One or two frogs will then do their amazing frog kick to the side of the pond and heave themselves out of the water, looking like members of a swimming team at the end of practice.  Periodically, one of them lets out a croak that sounds like a rubber band snapping against a drum head.  In the low rays of the setting sun, the frogs shine like jewels, green enamel from the waist up, burnished copper from the waist down.  If I get close enough I can look right into their golden eyes.

In the forest of mint behind me a toad is singing its not-quite-birdsong.  I have never seen this toad, but I know it's there.  I made a house for it by leaning a piece of slate against the low board that borders the garden, and it's repaying me by keeping the area mosquito-free (though I have the frogs to thank for this too).

The sun has finally gone, leaving a red streak in the western horizon.  It's too dark to read, and getting chilly.  I pick up my book, call Bisou, and head indoors.  In the darkness behind me, plop! another swimmer dives in.

Since You Asked...

Here are a few photos of Bisou's early days that foretell her future career.

Notice how nicely the black-and-tan puppies are resting in their bed. Bisou, however, has decided to set off on an adventure and collapsed on the way. (Photo by Alix Leopold, Bisou's breeder.)


Soon after she came to us, Bisou started putting her head inside Wolfie's mouth. Here she is, goading him into opening wide.



The end, however, is always idyllic.

They still do this every morning after breakfast, with much yodeling and singing, usually passing a bone back and forth.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Girl dogs, that is. And, in Bisou's case, they just wanna have fun with frogs.

Ever since the frogs moved into our fish pond, Bisou has been obsessed with them. Wolfie was obsessed for several days, and then he gave it up, but Bisou continues to think about frogs day and night, despite having fallen into the pond twice.

I must say, those frogs are quite endearing. They are mostly on the small side, with iridescent green heads and mottled brown bodies. Their eyeballs are bronze. They do all the adorable frog things, such as squat on the lily pads or under the spray of the little solar fountain, or float around in the heat of the day, their heads out of the water, their muscular, human-looking legs splayed out behind them.

Periodically they come out of the water, hop across the patio, and dive into the mint-filled flowerbeds next to the house. I can't decide whether these frogs are lethargic--you hear about all kinds of frog diseases and malformations these days--or extremely courageous, or simply friendly, because they let me walk right up and practically touch them.

So I can see why Bisou likes our frogs. I, however, don't like what the frogs are doing to Bisou, namely, taking over her brain. Every time she goes into the back porch, from which you can see the pond, she flings herself at the door, moaning and whining in the throes of frog frustration. She wants to go out to chase the frogs. Never mind that she was out there just three minutes ago. She wants to chase frogs again.

The frogs are o.k. as long as they're in the water. All Bisou can do is stand teetering on the edge, her ears soaking in pond scum, pointing like an Irish Setter at the disappearing frogs. If, however, a frog happens to be in transit between the pond and the apple mint, that frog is in danger. Bisou goes right up to it and bumps it with her nose, at which point I yell "LEAVE IT!" and she does. If she caught a frog, what would she do? Would she eat it the way Wolfie eats turtles? I can't have two wildlife-crunching dogs.

At one point last week, Bisou started pooping in the house, in the mornings. I was outraged and confused. What was causing this relapse? Would she never be reliable? I thought we were done with house training, and now this!

Then one dawn, when I first let the dogs out I saw that Bisou, instead of focusing on doing her business, like Lexi and Wolfie, was standing with her ears in the pond, watching frogs, and didn't move until I called the dogs inside. No wonder that, after breakfast, her peristalsis had been getting the best of her. Now in the mornings I have to chase her away from the pond, shouting "Bisou! Do your business! Right now!" Not a gentle way to ease into the day.

Will Bisou ever get over this obsession? By the time the frogs go into hibernation, will I have any voice left? Will she ever figure out that if she gets too close to the edge and cranes her neck too far, she falls in?

Here she is. Guess what she's thinking about? (Photo by Alix Leopold, Bisou's breeder.)