The neighbors a few houses over have two dogs, and following the tradition of these parts, the dogs are left to run wherever they’d like. It seems they like our place. I was concerned in the beginning (strange dogs running wild and all that), but after Andy went out and played with them a few times and didn’t get eaten, I felt better about having them around. I think I’ve even gotten to like having them visit. After Buddy died, it got sort of lonely outside. Eventually, we’d like to get a dog of our own, but for now these neighbor dogs are good enough. They come and visit and we can enjoy their company, but we don’t have to feed them or pay for vet bills or give them baths or tuck them in at night. They are a bit stand-offish, which I like (strange dogs running wild and all that), but they will come within a few feet and sit with us and follow us around and jump up and down and chase each other in circles.

This afternoon, Anya and I were down by the berry bed working on Anya’s Sunflower Garden. Andy had dumped a load of mulch on the square that will be the garden, and I was raking the mulch out flat while Anya watched. The two dogs trotted down the hill behind us, stopped to say hello for a bit, and then moved on. Anya starts shouting, “NO NO DOGGIE”! I look up and one of the dogs has grabbed my sweatshirt off the ground and is running off with it! I like that sweatshirt! I started waving my rake in the air and yelling at the dog as I watched it run off towards the row of pine hedges backed by a barbed wire fence leading to neighbor’s field. I felt like Sandra Bullock’s character in “The Proposal” when the eagles grab the dog and she’s yelling at the bird to let the dog go, except I didn’t have a cell phone to throw. Thankfully, the dog dropped my sweatshirt a few feet before the hedges, and then the pair of them ran off. I still don’t get it. What did that dog want with my sweatshirt?? It wasn’t his size or color. Maybe he wanted to eat it?

A few days ago I was carrying the compost pail out to the compost pile. My eyes were on the ground because I am paranoid about snakes leaping up out of the earth to sink their pointy fangs into my ankles. I was pondering how the weather was getting warmer, and those jumping snakes were probably waking up, and they were probably hungry for ankles, and I should probably pay very close attention. Then I told myself I was being crazy to worry about ankle-biting snakes when it felt like I was being watched. I looked up, and there was one of the dogs…watching me. Or, more correctly, watching the compost pail. As I continued walking toward the compost pile, I kept my eye on that dog, and then the other one showed up, and then I recalled how I often see those two loitering around near the compost pile, and I got a sickening thought. They were waiting for me to dump the pail. No, no, that couldn’t possibly be true. What could these dogs find palatable in a pile of slimey, moldy vegetables and fruit bits? Oh wait, don’t dogs eat cat poo out of the litter box. Hrm. I dumped the pail and banged the bottom of it and tried to get all the slimey bits out, and sure enough, the moment I started back towards the house, those darned dogs were jamming their noses in the slop and chowing down.

I have hesitated to name these dogs because they aren’t ours and they will probably end up as road pancakes or go rabid and I’ll have to beat them to a pulp with my rake, but today I got really tired of calling them “The Dogs,” and “that dog,” and “the other dog.” Lately Anya has been asking me to read “Lady and the Tramp,” except she calls it “Pongo and the Tramp.” Since both of these dogs are boys, I figure Pongo and Tramp are good names for them for now.