Tempest Update

Tempest, our retired sled dog from Alaska, has been here in Wisconsin for a week.

Here is what I see in her.

She is a country dog. She is new to houses, stairs, streets with cars, bicycles, and places where there are dogs who don’t look, or smell like her.

She likes to eat, which she does quickly and efficiently, and she likes to be petted. mostly around her ears and face. She likes for someone to look her earnestly in the eye while she is being petted. And she will lick, if the person doing the petting is the sort who likes their face being licked. I’m not, but that might change.

Tempest is always on the prowl for a snack. This is okay in my mind, because nothing says longevity for a dog more than being fed just enough. We don’t do a lot of treats although a friend tonight brought over a bag of “Wild Caught Baltic Sprat,” which appears to be some kind of small, gray, dried, and probably very smelly fish.

If I open the bag, Tempest will be all over me.

Tempest likes Swirl and defers to Swirl in nearly every situation. We bought a new bed for Tempest, but Swirl sleeps in that new bed while Tempest curls up alongside.

Outside, Swirl sleeps on his bed on the porch, a space so inviolate that even I carefully step over it on my way to my writing chair. Tempest doesn’t go near Swirl’s bed or the porch, for that matter, unless there is a clear invitation.

Instead, she nestles under the pine tree in a hollow made by our dear, departed Punchy, our sled dog who died just after Christmas last year. There is straw still there, Punchy’s straw, and Tempest curls up, neat as you please, as if she’d been born and raised on that spot.

It is too early to say I love this dog. But I will probably love her in the future.

These things take time.