the prince and the pee

Ooops, I lied. This is not about lesbian sex. I came home from a movie on Saturday night - the turgid There Will be Blood - and found that Oscar, the senior wiener in my home of lurve and devotion, had pee'd on the bed. This is a regrettable first for him. He has, I admit, been driving me nuts this winter, making what seem to me to be arbitrary decisions to pee indoors sometimes. At best the puddles are right by the open back door, as if he had every intention of taking his ten pound self outdoors but was beaten back by the California sprinkling we call rain. At worst, a river of piss runs down one of the gently sloping wood floors in my 100 year old house. I have been ready to throttle his little neck. And he knows it. He looks at me with brown menacing eyes and says 'I freakin' dare you Jill. I'll have Animal Services down here so fast you ....you ....well ....I just will'.
Oscar, as some of you know is somewhere around the 18 year old mark. This gives him enormous leeway. But the indoor pee thing. Wow, that just pisses me off.

But just last weekend, I went on a hike in the hills with Susie and the dogs including Oscar, and he probably walked at least 2 miles of the trail. He bounces, more than walks, on his short, still muscular dachshund legs, and his ears rise and fall as his body elevates. He is definitely at the back of the pack but never really out of sight (except when I lose him and panic), and the small bell I attached to his collar heralds his turn at a corner. Sometimes I start singing 'he'll be coming round the corner.....if he comes'. Most people we meet on the trail insist on stopping Oscar even though it slows his momentum and means he has to start his engine again. A few berate me for not carrying him. My answer 'hey, he asked to come on this walk, if he keels over right now, he's only got himself to blame' elicits looks of shock and tut tutting over my lack of dog parenting skills. Susie giggles.

But look - Oscar is a miracle. You've seen the pictures. He looks like a being from another planet. He is happiest when with me and the other dogs. Whether that's in bed or in my office watching me - as he is now - or out in the sun on the dusty trail finding some long forgotten horse poop to eat, he is first and foremost - a dog. During the night I often wake and check for his little chest heaving gently. I suppose it would be fine for him to go to sleep tucked into my arms and never wake up. But I suspect Oscar would be equally content to stop on the trail one day, look up at the redwoods and the blue sky and fall over.

I'm mad at him. He can't be pissing on the bed. But last night after piling all my bedding into the laundry and re-making the bed, I lifted him from the floor and tucked him up as usual. One of my cats, Blackie (I didn't name her by the way) who lived with a homeless woman next to the railroad tracks for years, before Linda asked me to give Blackie a more certain future,  jumps on the bed at some point every night and finds Oscar. She begins to purr and curls up beside him, licking his threadbare ears till they are damp and crinkly. Oscar just lays there with his eyes shut gently soaking up the attentions of this special feline. In the morning these two are entwined like lovers.

So I put up with my prince and his pee and remind myself that, as Anatole France wrote 'Until one has loved an animal a part of one's soul remains unawakened'. I am wide awake.