Dogs

Monday’s Rune: Rescue This

 

Innocently Unhelpful

One day I was chopping weeds.
When I looked up Libby, our toy poodle, was gone.
I knew she would go home with virtually anyone.
But she’d been fixed years earlier, so she could go play.
I noticed a familiar SUV driving away. I was unarmed, but I felt, maybe,
Libby had been dognapped. I called for her and looked around.

After a while, the car returned and pulled over near me.
The lady driving rolled down the window. She held a small black dog
in her lap and asked if it was my dog. I said, “I don’t know. Lemme check
her license right here on her collar.” Libby was calm. I got semi-sarcastic.
“Yep. Last seen right over there in my yard sniffing her own shit.”

The indignant do-gooder gave me a look and said, “I’m a dog
rescuer. I rescue strays.” I took Libby and said, “Today you’ve
moved up to dognapping. Last I checked that was against the law.
Now may I see your rescue license?”

I could tell she was getting pissed at me.

Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall
started pounding my mind and I turned up my volume,

“Hey!       Lady!         Leave this dog alone!”

All-in-all, look both ways when tending your flock.
Your poor wretched strays may get “rescued” the minute you look one way.
Mind the gaps in the minds of those dumbly righteous souls who do good to feel better than.

NaPoWriMo April 2022 (Day 17)

Click the graphic for prompt page and more poems.

Today’s assignment was to be another fun one. It was a prompt developed by the comic artist Lynda Barry, (see the full tweet prompt here). For NaPoWriMo, it asked me to consider dogs that I’ve known, seen, or heard of. Then I was to use those thoughts as a springboard for a poem.

Must I?

Must it be one or the other?
Either I prefer cats to dogs, or vice-versa.
Like I must take sides in some
canine versus feline conflict.
Must I own one to prove some
provocative preference?

Is it wrong to treat an animal as a loved pet,
or to suggest an aggressive breed as not the best?
Synonyms for pets include loved, not family,
not as human, and now here comes the guilt trip.
Others see pets like children. Fine for them. To be right,
must I see the world through their eyes?

I’ve had a few pets, loved most, regretted few.
Most memories are good when all was well.
But all my pets, like many
of my family and friends are gone.

Unlike the Billy Collins humorous poem,
The Revenant, most dogs seem willing to
let me be, the cats I’m still uncertain about.
And they like it that way.

Look both ways respecting nature’s fauna.
Mind the gap between the lion and the lamb.