Interlude: Boscoe's denial

now wait a minute. that never happened. i never shat all over the basement. for god's sake. and you are not authorized to print that about me, anyway.

well, somebody shat all over the basement. and you're the one who hates the doorbell. and you were the one who looked guilty.

i always look guilty! i'm the responsible one!

well, you're also the one who burrowed deep into my closet and clawed all of my clothes off of their hangers into a heap on the floor and then burrowed yourself into the heap. that was definitely you. i think it was a smoke alarm that time.

that's not the same as shatting. or shitting. and i have not signed any documents that would let you publish this.

it's on the dog license, silly. you gotta learn to read.

Chapter Fourteen: boscoe is lazy and neurosis free

boscoe has always been a very calm dog. we read up on border collies right after we brought him home, and we were dismayed to read that border collies can run 100 miles one day and then get up and run another 100 miles the next day. we worried that we weren't going to be able to give him the exercise he needs. we are both hikers, but we knew it unlikely that boscoe would get more than two walks a day, most days, and he'd seldom be allowed to run until he was tired.

we were lucky. he's the laziest border collie on record. oh, he's got all the moves--he can intimidate through staring with the best of 'em, and he gets down in that border collie crouch whenever he sees something or someone he wants to herd. when he was a puppy, he used to dart up behind us and nip our heels, i guess to herd us, but a few squirts in the face with a water pistol cured him of that.

unlike riley, he's only afraid of a few things. he doesn't like loud or shrill noises; smoke alarms, in particular, send him deep into my closet or, sometimes, behind the toilet. once our doorbell malfunctioned while we were away for the day. we came home to hear this high shrill EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE that had been sounding for hours; boscoe, in fear, had shat all over the basement. poor guy.

when he was quite small we were walking him with the retractable leash one day when we accidentally dropped it; the big plastic handle bounced down the sidewalk behind him and he ran off, terrified. of course because he was attached to the other end, it chased him down the street. i'm ashamed to say that we laughed ourselves silly.

and his first winter we tried putting toby's little red booties on him to protect his pads from sidewalk salt. that scared him, too, and he tried to run away from them. but because they were firmly velcroed to his feet he couldn't outrace them; he ran, then stopped and shook one paw as hard as he could, trying to shake the bootie off, and then shook another paw, and then ran some more.

i'm sorry to tell you that we laughed that time, too.

but mostly he's been an extremely calm dog. thunderstorms don't bother him. vacuum cleaners he ignores. he loves small children and once when we were at Lake Phalen three little girls spotted him, raced across the park and threw themselves on him, petting him and smooching him. holy mother of god i'm glad it wasn't riley they attacked with kisses or they wouldn't have any faces left, i'm afraid.

but boscoe, sweet boscoe, just lay down and wagged his tail.