winston is such a dick.
don't get me wrong...i love him with all the heart, but he's got an attitude the size of texas.
ok, so he's a little dude with a little dude complex. he despises the cats, but only shows it when they turn their backs. he growls at the birds when they squawk, but at a safe distance of 5 feet. he mad mugs buddy from 'his' side of the glass door, but curls his tail and cowers in fear when he's outside with him. he's a dick - plain and simple.
he and big bit (also known as fat-pat-the-androgynous-cat) have a love/hate thing going on...she loves to fuck with him and he hates the fact that she wastes oxygen by breathing it. she is always close by wherever he is...he watches her from the corner of his eye, constantly wary. when she gets up to move, he gets all bad-ass and lunges at her; stopping short, of course, of actually reaching her. she, being the smartass 'ho that she is, will often turn at the last possible second and lunge back...resulting in a shocked yelp from him, a i-will-fuck-you-up hiss from her and then the chase begins. usually her after him, but sometimes he 'nads up and gets her running. this is all cute and silly unless it happens to be 3am and they are laying on the bed with me.
he gets all shitty when something like a cat or a bird or another dog happens to even glance at his food dish. he races to it and stands there with his face buried in the bowl until the threat passes. keep in mind that the food that is in the bowl wasn't even mildly interesting to him 3 seconds ago, but now it's suddenly manna from Heaven. the food dish happens to sit next to the water dish, which everyone shares...God forbid a cat want a drink when there is food in winston's dish. after the threat is removed, he again wanders away from the bowl and returns to his couldn't-give-a-shit-about-that-crap-you-tell-me-is-food attitude, while sitting "pretty" for a bite of my fruity pebbles.
the birds really freak him out. cause they're LOUD. disturbing kind of loud, bleeding from the ears loud, especially when someone has flown the coop (and is running in circles on the floor trying to figure out how they went from their nice cozy home base to another planet in 2 seconds - good GAWD don't run past his food bowl, you idiot!) and they are tattling on them. sometimes larry bursts into his 'mockingbird' rendition of somewhere over the rainbow and the crowd goes wild...but i digress. winston will sometimes growl at them, but he generally keeps his distance. until i wheel their cage outside. as they are moving AWAY from him and out the door, he starts giving them the what-for about how lucky they are they he allows them to live...dancing around, barking at them and telling them to just get the fuck out.
then there's the car. winston LOVES to ride in the car. he's a little intense - leaping back and forth from window to window making sure he doesn't miss anything. will sometimes bark fiercely at particularly loud vehicle - of course he waits until it is almost PAST us before he starts talking shit. he growls at other dogs as we pass, letting them know that he IS a badass motherfucker and it's a good thing they are out there and not in here. cause...you know. "i could fuck you up. probably i wouldn't do it, cause that's not really how i roll...but i could if i wanted to. so just consider yourself lucky is all i'm sayin'." he also navigates quite divinely. he will perch by one of my shoulders (still vigilant of course, constantly looking around making sure he's detected all signs of danger and quashed them) to make sure i'm going in the right direction. he sometimes leans left or right, depending on where i should turn. he's only gotten us lost a few times and those were NOT his fault. he couldn't do two things at once, i guess and probably was off tending to some particularly nasty danger when i stupidly made a wrong turn.
but more annoying than being in the car with winston is getting to the car at all. he knows the signs; he hears the keys jingle, he sees the purse go over the shoulder, he knows which hat is for driving...he's verrrrrry observant. now, he does know to sit and wait to be invited to go and it's tough on him. one day he will probably have a heart attack from just that strain alone. he is pretty good about staying when i tell him to and when i give him the let's go, he unfailingly peels out, taking a full 5 seconds to even find traction as he races out the door. i generally open the back car door for him and he usually makes it in on the first jump...he has been known to ram into an unexpected backpack or kid that happens to be in the way, and when this happens he hits so hard he actually seems to hover midair before falling onto the concrete. he scrambles to get upright, shakes it off and does it again.
when i DON'T want him to go and i'm already outside, having given the stay order, and a kid comes out to get in the car, he takes full advantage of what he must consider to be the 'simple' ones, by barrelling past them and leaping into the car. sometimes i let this pass, but rarely because it just pisses me off. getting him out of the car at this point is a real bitch. he will get as far away from me as possible (uhh...it's a suburban, i've lost kids in there), and i generally have to climb in and drag the little fucker out.
this morning (wow...took me awhile to get here, LOL!) the girl and i head out to go to school, winston gets to go and is, in fact, already in the car when my neighbor comes out and suggests he take brynn because he's taking his daughter and might as well, right? cool...save me a trip i can get started on my chores. well, winston doesn't buy it...he's sure i am once again reneging and just trying to get him out of the car so i can leave without him. so over to the other side of the car he goes, telling me "you go to hell, you promised me a ride and i. am. NOT. getting out!" my hands are full of shit like coffee, keys, purse, paper whatever, and i can't drag him out, so i just slammed the car door, and went into the house. i waited a couple of minutes, put my keys and my purse away and went back out...i see him standing in my seat, paws on the wheel, ready to drive if he has to, gawd dammit and as soon as he sees me he scrambles to the far left back of the car. OH-EM-GEE he's a fart. i ended up leaving him in the car for about 30 minutes, after which he happily agreed to get out in exchange for a big dog biscuit...
it's a really big biscuit which he can't eat - it's too big and i gave it to him just to fuck with him. before you go all whiney and call PETA on me, know this: he is perfectly happy guarding it with his life against any and all domestic and/or global terrorist attacks that may occur, even though he can't enjoy it himself. so see? i gave him a PURPOSE. my work here is done.
