Archive for October, 2005

I don’t really smell like dog. Not today anyway. Yesterday, I did. Briefly. At least our cats could smell it. I’m so congested from a lingering cold that I can’t smell much of anything.

Mel and I went to Petco yesterday to get cat food. We weren’t at the “don’t dare come home without it” stage, but we decided on a preemptive strike so that we wouldn’t have to rush out during the first days of NaNoWriMo 2005 to buy cat food. While we stood in the cat food aisle, a black fluffball walked past. I cooed at it and it came toward me.

“You have the touch,” a woman said. The pup was only four months old and was on her first outing with her new family, so she was a bit spooked and wouldn’t come to anyone, she explained. That it came to me right away showed that I had a knack for animals.

I don’t believe I have any more a knack than the average animal lover, but I thanked her for the compliment. I explained that I had lost my dog earlier that year and her dog reminded me of Tiamo. I smiled and we both turned back to what we were doing. Less than a minute later, though, she walks back over and puts the dog in my arms, as if she could tell I really needed to hold a dog.

Indie (short for Indigo) settled easily into my arms, sinking into my chest like she had always been there. She wasn’t scared at all. Her black fur was warm and soft and I could feel her ribs move in and out with each breath. I could have held her all day long, but finally had to give her back. I thanked the woman for giving me a chance to experience a feeling I had missed a great deal. Indie is on her way to her new home in Colorado. I hope she has a long and healthy life.

When we got home, both cats sniffed my hands with great interest. Bub insisted I pet him right away, probably to rub off all the dog smell. I think he really misses Tiamo, though. Especially when he gets all pixelated after a good poop and wants to be chased around the house.

We will definitely miss Tiamo quite a bit tomorrow night, too. Her one household chore was to watch out the front window and alert us when someone came to the door. On Halloween, we never had to wait on the doorbell to know when little ghouls, Spider-Men, and princesses were at our threshold.

I am not ready to get another dog and I won’t be for quite a while. Still, it was nice to smell like dog again, if only for a little while.