Dos manos in Matamoros

 LANGUAGE LESSONS

     It’s months now since I blogged about my constant companion, Brioche.  Constant until I abandoned her for three weeks while I floated down the Rhine on a Viking river boat called TIALFI.  We flew with her in a carrier

so she could spend those weeks with my son and his family in South Carolina where she discovered that there is more to life than accompanying a lady of advanced years who is by nature sedentary, either reading a book or typing away on a computer, or playing the piano.When my daughter-in-law gave her a bath she dried her with the vacuum cleaner,

a real first for Brioche!

     They tell me she waited at the front door for me to appear for the better part of the first couple of days, but after that my sense of it is that she reveled in this new lively household with four adults (two of them aged 16 and 18 but the two boys and their father measure six feet or close to it), two cats, both of whom outweighed her, and a very large very sweet Bernese Mountain dog who patiently tolerated Brioche’s attempts to get her to run and play.

     I’ve written before about Brioche’s mastery of language, my language, because I totally disobey those dog trainers who insist you should NOT talk to your dog as though he/she were a person, and should limit your conversation to one word commands like sit, stand, stay, come, etc.  On the contrary.  I talk constantly to Brioche and she absolutely understands.  Maybe with a lengthy sentence she sorts out the one word she cares about.  Or maybe she just listens to the tone.  But she is absolutely clear about “Do you want to go in the car?” and races to it and stands by the car door.  Or about, “Do you want to go to your playground?” and from whatever place on my porch or front yard she races to the gate to the enclosed space and waits impatiently so we can both get in there and play our game of throw and fetch.  Her game rather than mine.  She insists on it. Or, “I’m going to take a nap.” And we both repair to my bedroom sometime in the afternoon, I throw a pillow on the floor near my bed where she immediately takes her place (only for naps, not at night; she has a bed on the other side of the room).

A frequent question is “Where is Susie?” and she will search the house to find her first and favorite toy, a much battered brown stuffed dog that I found two summers ago in the Good Will in Traverse City.  She carries Susie upstairs and down, chews on her, sleeps with her, and often demands that I throw her. 

While in South Carolina she found another favorite, a toy intended for Sadie, the Bernese Mountain dog, but scorned by Sadie and pounced on joyfully by Brioche, a fox whose four stiff legs make it appear as though rigor mortis has set in. 

We brought it home with her and now she also carries Foxy upstairs and down, shakes it ferociously as though she’s a rat terrier, chews on it, and asks me to throw it. Other toys come and go in favor.  Any new one is treasured for the first day but isn’t sure to continue in favor, but Susie and now Foxy are forever friends. 

     I remember writing last year about her one linguistic confusion.  Probably my fault for not staggering the teaching.  “Sit” is absolutely clear.  I can whisper it from across the room and she sits.  “Down” is also very clear.  But once she is sitting and I say “Stay” she lies down.  I have to insist that she sit, and then insist on the “Sit, Stay,” and once I’ve insisted multiple times she will in fact stay in place sitting for almost five minutes, but every time the first “Sit, Stay,” results in her lying down.  We can’t seem to erase that confusion.

     Brioche joined my life in September, 2020.  For those terrible first months before the vaccines we didn’t leave my house and saw no other people or dogs with the result that once things opened up and she discovered, like Miranda, “O brave new world!” that there were other people and other dogs, especially the other dogs, she was thrilled.  Her greatest joy is going with me to the Saturday Farm Market here in Larchmont where many other people have also brought their dogs, and there is a great reunion and celebration for all of them.  And unlike most poodles, snooty and monogamous as they are and are supposed to be, she loves almost all people, and especially our mailman, my dance instructor, my neighbors, and many, many others.  In fact, on the rare occasions when she holds back and clearly is doubtful about a new two-footed acquaintance, I have to wonder what it is that she senses, why there isn’t the joyful greeting for those few.  I don’t have the answer. They seem like nice people to me, but she isn’t so sure.

     I left her for those three weeks to travel in Europe, but I doubt I go again in the foreseeable future. It’s hard even leaving her for a few hours to go into Manhattan to meet a friend or see a show or attend a concert.  With any local trips to post office, library, grocery store, she always comes in the car and is never left at home.  The look I get when I say to her, “You are staying here” is accusing and definitely intended to make me feel guilty.  It’s another of the phrases she understands 100%.  If I say it to her on the second floor while dressing to leave she stops in place and makes no attempt to follow me.  So those trainers with their rules about how to address your dogs are wrong, or wrong in any case when the dog in question is a very smart, very linguistically able miniature poodle.