Corners

Tag Archives | Confessions of a Lab Lady

Corners

By frances k on August 6, 2009 9:49 pm in Brooklyn Heights, Fun, Pets

2009 will be a summer I remember for turning corners, metaphorically as well as literally.

In the dog-walking business, corners are places loaded with anticipation and dread. Daisy looks up to ask if we’re turning east up Clark Street, toward what I think of as Pizza Place for the food tossed in the gutters, while Pickering and Hermia look west, to Cranberry (i.e., Squirrel Street) and Hillside Park. The concrete building corners and iron fences are redolent with scents, making any corner an adventure in history, but they are also blind spots for who or what is coming our way. I often wish I had a periscope and rearview mirror when I’m out with more than one dog so I’d know if Bangor’s Akita enemy was about to intersect us or what the jingle – keys or tags – is that’s creeping up on us. Continue Reading →

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“Hello, I Love You”

By frances k on June 25, 2009 12:25 am in Pets

It’s my greatest pleasure in life to pick up my Labs each day. They regard the whole process as another repetition of the Christmas they regard their lives as being. In general I can say that Bangor, Daisy, Farmer, Milly, Mully and Pickering – the Labs I’ve worked with most over the years – are ecstatic when I walk in. But the ways each shows its ecstasy is unique and thrilling. Continue Reading →

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Wubba Wander You

By frances k on May 26, 2009 3:47 pm in Pets

The rules at Hillside are vague when it comes to the etiquette of toys – “Exercise caution with food and toys in the Park” – but the rules among the dogs are so idiosyncratic that we humans have to regulate how sharing works on a highly ad hoc basis. Continue Reading →

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Righteous Indignation

By frances k on March 12, 2009 9:55 am in Pets

Early Sunday morning, I took Daisy to play fetch in Cadman Plaza. We lined up between a row of lime trees, well away from the walking paths and the playing field, and she began to bark for her ball. Out on the field, a kid jumped off the bike he’d been riding and threw himself at his father in screams. I threw the ball a couple of times before the inevitable ricochet. Daisy scuttled under the park bench, got the ball and wheeled to bring it back to me. The kid was now hysterical. Continue Reading →

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Travels with Daisy, Part II

By frances k on February 26, 2009 11:38 am in Pets

An hour and half before our flight, my bag already checked through for Newark, it was time to crate my trembling, skittish yellow gallows-dog. She began the simple process by refusing to be weighed. I lifted her onto the metal scale and fed her a cookie while the digital read-out settled at 72 pounds. I wrote a hefty check, cursing my mother for not breeding dachshunds, opened the crate door, took her by the collar and led her to it. She bolted out of her collar. OK, I thought, we’ve had our titular show of resistance and now she’ll go in. Continue Reading →

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Travels with Daisy – Part I

By frances k on February 11, 2009 10:05 pm in Pets

Daisy and I had already been quarreling for the 500 years we’d been together. She demanded the right to dig up carpets, nest in the dishwasher, pee where she pleased and, worst, draw human blood as though it was tap water. Several times a day I had to spray my quite elderly mother with Bitter Apple in order to keep Daisy from sinking her fangs into her legs and hands. Continue Reading →

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Air Dog

By frances k on February 3, 2009 9:39 pm in Pets

I bought my dog, Daisy, while I was on a trip and we’ve been flying ever since. Because so many people ask how I manage to travel with her, I’m sharing here what I’ve learned over the years. Continue Reading →

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Winter Wonders

By frances k on January 13, 2009 11:00 pm in Pets

“It’s Lab weather!” David crowed when we ran into him on a crisp or freezing morning. Cecil was invariably at his side, carrying a glove in his mouth. The season brought out the retriever in Cecil, a dog so stoical and contemplative that I once accused him of translating the Coptic gospels in his spare time.
Mike told me of his and his Lab’s terror when it fell through lake ice. As he skidded down the hill to save the dog, Mully began breaking up the ten feet of ice between him and shore, emerging just as Mike arrived. Mully jumped out, shook himself off, took an enormous pee, and ran back onto the ice to break it up some more. It’s now his favorite game. Continue Reading →

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Cash Is Good

By frances k on December 15, 2008 4:45 pm in Pets

I’ve given Winkflash a lot of business lately. I carry my camera and have collected a trove of costumes so I have great seasonal photos of my Labs and compiled a calendar of each dog.

We love our dogs and love finding the gift that shows our intimacy and enjoyment of them.

I emailed Hermia’s owners this week to keep an eye on her. It’s hard to explain, but she doesn’t do the Bunny Hop when we leave the house, a dance that exactly matches the beat of the old song, accompanied by nips at my sleeves. They’ll take her to the vet this week.

The last time I observed a change in her verve, she had Lyme disease. Continue Reading →

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A Time to Weep, and a Time to Laugh; A Time to Mourn, and a Time to Dance

By frances k on December 3, 2008 11:40 pm in Pets

A terrible misfortune has befallen his humans in the last few weeks so Daisy and I are taking care of the dog. “My heart goes out to you,” I emailed them. “Words fail me.”

Given the impotence their friends and family are feeling, I feel lucky to have the dog. Words don’t fail with Mr. Happy: any oogly-googley will do. He carries my heart in his Lab’s soft mouth and drops it at my feet in a continual offer to play. I can love him to distraction and he absorbs it with a smile as bright as the skyline. The tummy rubs and ear-scratchings I give him are the solace I can’t give his owners. I have the one member of the family unit who can be cosseted and loved into peace. Continue Reading →

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Woof Waffe

By frances k on October 10, 2008 10:23 am in Pets

The first time I met Allen, he bit me in the face.

In military parlance, a “dog fight” is two or more planes in harrowing chase through the skies. I think the term came not from the dogfights that are to the death, but from play fighting. Knowing the distinction can make visiting the Hill or meeting new dogs pleasanter as well as safer.

When I sit among or supervise my Labs in full Battle of Britain mode, there are predictable scripts they follow in what looks, to the unfamiliar, to be a lethal situation. Continue Reading →

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Love Letter to Allen

By frances k on September 22, 2008 6:00 am in Brooklyn Heights, Pets

The first time I met Allen, he bit me in the face.

His owners were humiliated and apologetic. I laughed and said, “I came on too strong. It’s my fault.” I lay down on the floor and asked them to tell me about their new dog, a Lab-terrier mix I had already deemed “Cutie-petutie.”

“We got him from the shelter,” Rachel told me. “They warned us he doesn’t like men and was probably abused but he’s so cute they thought maybe he’d be adopted. He liked me right away but was shy with Sam. When I came back from the restroom, he was lying at Sam’s feet and they were already old friends.” Continue Reading →

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Warf and Woof

By Homer Fink on August 14, 2008 10:00 am in Brooklyn Heights

Hermia, Daisy and I had taken Pickering home to DUMBO and were on our way to Hermia’s house, a straight shot down Hicks Street. Police tape barred our entrance at Clark and the cop asked me for I.D. when I told him I lived here. I offered him plastic bags and Milk Bones and he let me pass with the warning I shouldn’t come out again.

Not come out again? I wondered. Was there a bomb scare? I could see activity another half block from my doorway but no steel trucks or flashing lights. I picked up my passport and the girlies and I were on our way.

By the time I got to the scene of the activity I had an idea of what had happened. Word travels fast between doormen and neighbors, even if the exact facts take another day to straighten themselves out. Continue Reading →

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The Sharks and the Jets: Part II

By Homer Fink on July 17, 2008 1:59 pm in Brooklyn Heights

A couple of times a week I meet a new dog and fall into conversation with its owner. We can do this because our dogs have decided to tolerate each other and so, inevitably, our conversation turns to our dogs’ Dark Sides. If we venture into our dogs reactions to strangers, I lower my voice and look carefully around before admitting, “Daisy doesn’t like Black people.” Continue Reading →

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