Books, Dogs, Fairs

It's spring! Trees, vines and shrubs are bursting into bloom! This one has the gaudy, manically cheerful colors of many homes and businesses here in Florida. Visiting manatee in the creek (below) is subtle in color, graceful in motion.



Ever on the alert for any book title with the word ‘dog’ in it, and continuing my research into young adult novels, the other day I landed on The Boy Who Spoke Dog, by Clay Morgan. What a gem! Once again, of course, I am biased: the main dog character is a border collie! I found myself laughing again and again while reading passages describing this dog’s behavior:

The little dog backed away. She did this in the way Jack had seen many of the Border collies do. They kept their heads low to the ground and their eyes on the sheep. The little Border collie kept looking back and forth between Jack and the stick. She seemed to be willing him to go to the stick.

Each time Jack throws the stick for the dog, the dog brings it partway to him but won’t come all the way.

“Bring it closer,” Jack said.
But the little dog just backed away from it again.

Personal prejudice aside, the expression tour de force is not inappropriate to describe this book. People who love dogs will recognize the truth on every page and say, “Yes, yes, yes!” laughing with tears in their eyes. As for those readers who just don’t get it about dogs, if they can be persuaded to read this book, they may gain some inkling of what all the fuss is about.

David read Round Ireland With a Fridge and loved every page of it. Now I tell him he’ll love The Boy Who Spoke Dog, too.

On the subject of dogs, our Wednesday visit to the dog park was interesting. As often happens, Sarah found a “best friend of the day,” one perfectly matched to her play style and energy level. After Sheba left, however, Sarah had to make do with the social opportunities remaining, and one of the dogs unfortunately took a need to dominate a little too far. Sarah loves to wrestle and doesn’t mind being rolled over and having her ears chewed lightly: she’ll give the same in return and love it, play-barking and play-growling. But this other dog’s growling lacked the playful sound, and its attacks, while stopping well short of bloodshed, were freaking out other owners, who one by one took their dogs away, finally leaving only Sarah and the conquistadora.

Now as I say, Sarah’s a tomboy and a roughneck, but she does not like to fight. When hostilities break out, she quickly distances herself, as if to say, “Not interested! None of my business!” In the case of this particular hostile dog, whose only potential target was now Sarah, Sarah wisely did the dog equivalent of folding her arms across her chest and turning her back, refusing to be engaged in that manner. The other dog kept trying to pick a fight, and Sarah kept declining to be interested, making a fight impossible. I was so happy watching my dog, keeping herself out of trouble, wise beyond her years! David was proud of her, too.

Seriously? Our work? David finished a large painting the other evening, and I think I’ve found a solution to the narrative voice problem that was plaguing me. It’s unusual, but I really think it will work. So far, so good, for a while, but now I'm over the hump and into the woods again. Slogging on but doubting I'll achieve my goal of a complete first draft by the time we return to Michigan.

We went to a book sale last Friday in Floral City and afterwards took in the Citrus County Fair in Inverness. My fair dinner, jambalaya, was a great success--very generous portion and hearty eating. I was probably guided in this choice by thinking of friends and relatives in New Orleans this week.



These little porkers sharing a last kiss were not as sad as the hog who wouldn't stop squealing and trying to climb out of his pen, as if he knew what Fate held in store for him.



The comforting aspect of fairs is how little they change over the years. David and I enjoyed the crowds of young people and reminisced about the St. Joseph County Fair in Centerville, Michigan, and the 100-meter Ferris wheel in the Tuileries in Paris.