Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Durant Diary: Entry #8
There is a chink in Durant’s armor.
He is still a man dog but not as steadily nonviolent as I thought.
A few days ago, he went after a bird, caught the bird, had the bird in his mouth, but, to his credit, dropped the bird when my husband yelled at him. He then trotted up on the back porch to study the fluttering bird from afar.
We were aghast. And then worried about the bird which rolled around on the snow flapping its wings.
It’s a goner, we thought. How could a bird survive being in a big dog’s mouth, albeit a mouth with very worn-down teeth because of a years’ long devotion to chewing a metal bowl. Still, there’s a lot of jaw power there.
So, the two of us, my husband and I, stood frozen on the back porch watching the bird until we thought it flopped on its side and died. This only took a few seconds. It’s not like we let the poor bird flail about in agony. Anyway, we mistook a small pile of leaves for the dead bird only to find out a bit later that the leaves were leaves. The bird was gone. Gone, not eaten. Or dead.
The bird had flown away.
Then ensued our constant vigilance on behalf of the birds. Interestingly, Durant shared in this vigilance, sitting at attention watching the birds at the bird feeder but never making a move in their direction. Our relationship shifted in that moment as well. We weren’t looking at each other – Durant’s big brown eyes searching mine for approval and love. No. We were both looking at the birds. It became all about the birds, the dozens of sparrows that breakfast in our backyard.
Durant is still a man dog but with flaws. He is a flawed man dog. An obsessed man dog, you might say.
But that’s okay. Having the perfect dog was getting to be boring.
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
I really hope this Durant Diary doesn’t become a remake of Swirls Chewed Things. That wouldn’t be a good thing. To his credit at least he he knew to listen to Howard.