Pariahs

Well. it has come to this.  Zoey and I were out walking this morning and I stopped to chat with a neighbor I hadn't seen in awhile.  Her wonderful husband, now deceased, famously called Zoey "half a cat'.

Down the street, heading toward us I spy a man in an orange shirt.  I don't recognize him until I see his dog,  Max.  They see us at the same time and cross the street and head the other way.

We are now pariahs since the ill fated evening a week or so ago when Zoey, my "half a cat" dog nipped Max in the corner of his eye.  Dear timid Max, a Havernese who always "loved" Zoey, according to his owners.  Well, that relationship is down the drain !!

They used to be such good friends, Max's owner says, anthromorphising Max.

Do dogs really have friends?  Maybe some do. Zoey doesn't care about dog friends.  Only people.

I'm feeling paranoid.

How did I get such a dog in my old age???  A dog who has separation anxiety so badly she chewed through the screen on our porch when we left the house recently.  So where did she go after a frenzy of screen-chewing?  All the way to our front yard, sitting in the shade, waiting for us.

This is a dog no one else would have.  A dog who is on Prozac and two other meds for anxiety.

How did I end up with this dog who is anti-social??  A dog that is such a predator my husband can't hold her leash when he walks her at night.  What is she after, I ask.  Rabbits, he says.  Where, I ask. Everywhere, he says.

Yet she is loving and most of the time just ignores other dogs in neutral territory like the Arboretum or Botanical Gardens.

No one else would keep this dog but me.