Snickers darts across the living room straight to the couch, pulling Julia along for the ride.
“Snickers!” Julia exclaims. “Slow down, girl!” She kneels. “Bob, are you hiding under there?”
I move an inch, exposing my snout.
Snickers goes insane. She yanks free of her tug-of-war string. For a moment, she pauses to do a polite nose tap with Rowdy. Then she lets loose with zoomies and yips and howls of joy.
“Bob,” Julia says, “come on out and say hi.”
I pretend not to hear her. Which isn’t a big stretch, since Snickers is barking like a maniac.
“Robert,” says Julia.
Fine. I belly-crawl out until I’m exposed.
Snickers is ecstatic. She showers me with licks and nips and nudges and leaps. “Bob,” she croons, “how I’ve missed you!”
I cover my head with my paws, but there’s no escaping her adoration.
“There’s a reason we survived, Bob,” she says, her fuzzy tail in high gear. “The fates want our love to blossom.”
“Is this your girlfriend, Uncle Bob?” Rowdy inquires.
“Girlfriend today,” Snickers responds in a giddy voice. “But who knows what tomorrow may bring? Perhaps you should start calling me Aunt Snickers.”
I am relieved beyond measure when Julia finally pulls Snickers, with great effort, out the door. I try to ignore Nutwit’s teasing. I try to tolerate Rowdy’s stifled laughter.
But when Minnie starts chanting “Bob and Snickers!” followed by Moo’s “sitting in a tree!” I’ve had enough.
I head for my doggie door, ignoring the popcorning guinea pigs, and try to locate my dignity.
a visitor
This evening is like lots of other evenings.
The guinea pigs are squeaking. Nutwit is puttering in his tree. Julia and Sara and George are watching something about meerkats on the nature channel.
I’ve just settled in with Rowdy on the couch when George drops a cookie on the floor.
I leap into action.
“Robert,” says Julia, “leave it.”
Briefly, I consider my options. But not for long.
At least I share a piece with Rowdy.
“You are hopeless,” Julia says. “But I love you anyway.”
And that’s when we hear the bark.
It’s coming from the front porch.
“Hmm. That’s weird,” says George.
“I’ll check it out.” Julia runs to the door and pulls it open.
She hesitates.
She looks over at me, back at the porch, back at me.
“Bob?” she says. “I think it’s for you.”
And it is.
Author’s Note
Dogs. Aren’t they just the best?
If you answered “no,” or even “yes” with a hint of ambivalence, um . . . what is wrong with you?
Sorry. Even if you’re not on Team Canine, I’m sure you’re a swell person. Maybe you’re a cat fanatic, or a guinea pig fan. I get that. I love all kinds of creatures, right down to tarantulas and naked mole rats.
And I’ll admit that some dogs are easier to love than others. My own mutt, Stan, is a case in point. Mercurial, needy, narcissistic, he’s not exactly the poster dog for Man’s Best Friend. Still and all, when Stan cuddles up just so (usually while I’m busy on my laptop), he somehow manages to pull off that mysterious canine magic trick: he makes me feel a little bit better about life.
Stan also serves as my muse, albeit sporadically. As a matter of fact, Bob, the narrator of this novel, was modeled on Stan, right down to the misanthropy, the gluttony, and the odor.
Bob originally appeared as a character in my novel The One and Only Ivan, inspired by the true story of a western lowland gorilla. The real Ivan spent twenty-seven years, alone and caged, in a shopping mall in Tacoma, Washington. Did he ever have a pal like Bob? I don’t know. But there was a pet store at the mall where Ivan lived, and he had lots of visitors. It wasn’t a stretch for me to imagine such a friendship evolving.
And so Bob was born. He had to be tiny, to fit in a hole in Ivan’s cage. He had to be wily. He had to be a street dog: tough and blunt and no-nonsense. (You can imagine my delight when I learned that the inimitable Danny DeVito would be voicing Bob in the Disney The One and Only Ivan movie. Yep. That’s Bob, all right.)
Bob’s had a tough life. He’s seen the darker side of humans. He doesn’t really get the whole “man’s best friend” thing. (His best friend, as it happens, is a gorilla.) He’s carrying some pretty heavy baggage for such a little dog. And he faces down a lot in this story: tornadoes and owls, floods and wolves, terror and guilt and self-doubt.
But through it all, Bob never loses his tiny-mutt swagger. And he never stops listening to his good-dog heart.
Even if you’re a devout cat person, I hope you enjoyed spending time with the guy.