Sorry about that. It's not that we haven't had plenty of run-ins and excitement to report...I've just been a little busy. A handful of choice moments for you:
- Myla and her buddy Shadow bringing home the bacon, literally, on Christmas, taking down a boar in California river country. Don't worry, all animals recovered.
- Myla flying across the country to see her grandparents, lounging on the red carpet at the airport where she tried to attack a SERVICE dog before her Benadryl kicked in.
- Our first east coast snow storms which dumped over two feet in the park, allowing for 2-story-tall snowmen, which Myla and I climbed up every night for weeks.
- Myla's first squirrel, which she caught and instantly shook to death in the park, then paraded around for an hour without letting me get close enough to catch her. Soon after, she found an already-dead squirrel and--after presenting it to some children-- actually buried the animal and calmly came back to me.
- About 20 dog fights, none with blood, all incredibly unpleasant. Our friend Matt and fellow boxer-owner, also an FBI agent, helped break up a lot of them with a quick dive and tackle. I've developed a flawless hind-leg grab. I'm really sorry I didn't post these on here. You wouldn't believe some of the comments.
- Our first "training" collar, which helped calm generally skittish Park Slopers for a while, till Myla and her best bud Segy chewed it off in a late-night park romp, never to be found again.
On our run tonight (75 degrees and lovely), Myla took a keen interest in the gutters. In the last couple weeks she seems to have truly become a city dog, first peeing on the sidewalk (as opposed to dirt), and tonight, curbing herself like she could read all the obnoxious little signs telling dogs not to shit in the tree wells. A couple minutes later, also in the gutter, Myla discovered our first opossum, curled up like a big round rat in the shadows of a tire. I thought it was dead, and was preparing to pull Myla away, but instead she nudged it with her nose and the animal instantly skittered away, shrinking impossibly to fit through a hole in the sewer cover, its tail slinking up, as it awaited a return to its solitude.
The other night my friend, a storyteller and a climber, was telling me about an essay he's writing for Rock and Ice wherein he describes city life in NYC as a bouldering problem, the climber hanging over jagged rocks with every move. At first he took issue when I tried to fit my walks with Myla into his analogy, but after a few examples, I think he understood. Each time we leave our apartment, we're walking into an adventure. And you never know how it's going to end.
