I am not a food purist, heaven knows. But still. None of us needs much of that stuff.

It started with one small box of PupCorn. And then Newman's Own Peanut-butter dog cookies. And then Bacon-flavored Canine Carry-Outs.  I can see it now, with the clarity of hindsight, how Lilly developed a discerning palate, one on-sale item at a time. She's slowly becoming a dog-snack snob.

When a food deity drops a sub-optimal treat into her gullet, the small dog spits the offending item to the floor and then turns her googling eyes back to the heavens. 

"Eat it!" one of the gods tells her. Another roars, "That's a delicious snack!" 

The dog looks momentarily distracted. Perhaps that WAS one of the good ones. She noses the dropped treat. 

If she does not immediately set-to, there is a further round of hearty encouragement from the food gods. 

If the treat still does not pass muster, she may bark her displeasure -- which calls for heavy artilliary. 

We begin the shell game: I put a bare foot over the cookie and tell her that I would be delighted to receive such a treat. Denied access, she grows more interested. She does not like feet. Feet make her agitated and jumpy, which in turn gives her a less persnickety appetite for the forbidden fruit.

She feints toward my foot. I slide the dog-biscuit along the floor, flash her a sight of it, and then cover it again. Lilly finds this kind of thing intolerable. That biscuit must be eaten! Those feet will not keep her from her just reward! For f%$^# out loud, people!

Snorting and panting, she manages to zip in, get her mouth around the treat, and tear off to a safe distance, where she gobbles without evident relish, hurrying to get it safely stowed in her belly. Then she trots back to the couch to announce her requirement for a second course. 
 

In Polish, the phrase is pronounced (as I hear it) "Nemoy seerick, nee molya mahlpey." It's a nice piece of distancing humor, unless of course, these ARE your monkeys, and it IS your circus.

I grant you, two elderly small dogs do not much of a circus make. There's no trapeze, no elephants, no big top. But we have spangles, clowning, a variety of death-defying feats, and they do present a startling spectacle when leashed and walking.*

Have we acquired another diminutive retread for the household menagerie? 

Not in this decade.  This well-groomed poodle is another eccentric old tenant at Uncle Markie's Home for Wayward Pups. A bit of a howler when left alone, she kept Lilly company while Markie was away recently. 

(*The word "walking" is not quite adequate to the occasion. "Walking" sounds so linear -- as if we start and go someplace with purpose. The process is more like a swooping, circling Spirograph of dog movement around a ringmaster. Passing cars pause at the sight of a human-and-dog dust-devil in slow-motion. Pedestrians nudge one another and smile at the show.)


The old lady-dogs maintain cool diplomatic relations, despite sharing a distaste for the vacuum-cleaner and a fondness for the dog-bed. Whether they like to admit it or not, they both huff down their kibble with more gusto for having a bit of encouragement and competition. 

But they are not close. The poodle seems as insubstantial as a puff of goosedown next to the solid brick of cheddar that is the resident small dog. Though she is younger, the poodle seems older, drifting around on tiptoe and staying out from underfoot. 

Still, it would be only a tiny stretch to have the poodle sport a tutu and jump through hoops in the center ring. Lilly is more of a roustabout by nature, hauling on ropes and shouting at the rubes. She does not have the figure for prancing around in a leotard. 

It's not exactly unique. At some point during the day, you find yourself standing in a room looking around with a certain sense of urgency. You may think, "What did I come in here for?" Or maybe, "What was I going to do?" 

Perhaps you mentally tick through a list of the errands or chores that might have sent you into this room at this moment. Sometimes you draw a blank.

It happens to Lilly. 

Especially as her hearing has grown -- ahem -- less acute, I sometimes find her frozen in place, as if cast adrift in the back bedroom. I haven't been able to watch very long -- her determined little form plucks at my tenderized heartstrings. I clap or call her name, or stomp to get her attention, and she turns with an expression of relief so sincere that it's with difficulty that I resist the temptation to pick her up and squeeze her.  

She is an elderly dog, after all, and has never enjoyed being separated from the solid ground, regardless of my little firestorms of affection.  

My friend L is a social worker. As part of the job, she takes case notes about clients, jotting down health history as well as the occasional personal detail. What kind of detail, one might naturally ask? Her answer: "Oh, you know. The very long single rattail braid. Or -- you know -- poor dentition."

I love this phrasing. The delicacy and precision of "poor dentition" over any one of the less kindly descriptions of gappy or discolored teeth.

There are no metal kennel gates for Lilly to chew at our house. Her teeth have continued to deteriorate regardless. She has, for instance, a strangely porcine obsession with acorns. Despite -- or maybe because of -- the bitter, tannic flavor, she seems to enjoy rooting around the yard and snarfling them up.  The raw acorn of course, is a stout oaken nugget quite capable of standing up to the odd tooth, so along with the bitter chunks of acorn meat, she chows down on her own teeth.

Also, though it squeezes at my heart to remember it, we helped loosen at least a couple of those teeth for her. She's got a spry way about her. When encouraged, she'll tear up her toys and haul ass around the house, all spring-loaded mischief. But the enthusiasm has a downside.  At first, we did not notice that this fierce little tug-of-warrior was leaving the odd tooth fragment embedded in her fuzzy toy after an evening's frisk. 

There she'd be, shivering a little with excitement, holding Cry-baby Lamb-chop clamped between her jaws, the light of battle still shining in her buggy eyes, despite the little smear of blood on the greyish fur of the toy. Like a kid refusing to admit chill after hours in the lake, she'd want us to continue yanking on the toy. She'd want to go on sliding on the hardwood with her back legs braced, growling. 

Smiling her jack-o-lantern grin in a Platonic ideal of poor dentition.

The small dog comes trotting to my desk, the sound of her feet like small-arms fire. The addition of metal taps could not make her noisier on the wooden floorboards.  Her small, flattish face has an expression of urgency. 

"Oh no! Is Timmy in the well?" I ask her.
She replies with a dismissive snort. She hates it when I am facetious.

I tilt my head to the side and gaze deeply into her goldfishy eyeballs. "What is it, Lilly? Tell me, girl!"

She snorts. She's not having any of my phony-baloney. 

Backing up with a lot of unnecessary ball-change steps, she gives me a look of as much impatience and disbelief as she can muster. Which is considerable.  

If I insist on finishing the sentence I am typing -- especially if that sentence turns into two or three sentences -- she lunges with both front feet held out straight.  She delivers a canine judo chop with her chilled ratty little feet. 

If I continue to ignore her, she will be so moved as to give a gruff bark. It's five o'clock, dammit! 

And after all -- really, truly -- who am I to resist her blandishments?  I might be her Food Goddess, but it's evident my little disciple demands that I kick my divine self into gear and dish up the goods. It's dinner time already.

Within the first days of Lilly coming to stay with us, we discovered that she was an excellent watch-dog.

If someone rang the doorbell or knocked on the door, she was up and barking, sometimes before she was even awake.  

One memorable UPS delivery ended up with Lilly somehow summersaulting off the couch and landing upside-down between the side-table and the couch-leg, stuck like an angry capsized turtle. She remained there, wriggling and barking wildly, until I un-wedged the table. By the time I got to the door, the UPS guy was in full retreat, swinging himself back into the truck, probably having visions of three or four huge mutts tearing up the furniture in their eagerness to get to him. 

Naturally, I wanted to turn Lilly's useful canine instinct into a party-trick.

One evening, playing with the small dog, I gave the wooden floor a few experimental knocks and called out "Helloooo?"

 Lilly was off like a stick of dynamite.  

A few minutes later, I did it again and got the same rewarding noisy reaction.  She was ready to tear someone UP. 

This went on for a while.

By the, let's say the sixth time, she barked less explosively. As she raced to the door, she kept glancing back to keep an eye on me.  

Seventh time, she barked, and stayed nearby. She studied me as I stifled my hilarity to call out "Hellooo? Who's there?"  By the set of her ears and by the wary, suspicious look in her eye, it seemed as though she might be catching wind of the game.  

Eighth time, she bounced up, barked once, and then came over and gave my knocking hand a decided nip. The message being emphatic: Do. Not. Freakin. Mess. With. Me.  

Of course, I continue to mess with her. 

"You'll never guess what that dog got into today," Jeff says. Without waiting for an answer, he continues. "I looked over and it looked like she had a little cigar in her mouth."

He pauses for a dramatic moment. "She wouldn't let go of it. I had to pull it out of her mouth."

The small dog has very few vices. But her weakness for cat poop is pretty appalling. 

Like most addictions, there's a familiar cycle: a furtive, all-encompassing obsession, then indulgence and a momentary high. Followed by shame, suffering, and someone else cleaning up the vomit.

She knows it's wrong. Or rather, she understands that it's forbidden. But she goes back to the poisoned well over and over. 

The small dog will snarfle up anything that seems like food. "No human food from human hands" is the rule, but if it's on the floor, it's hers: slivers of cheese, spilled spaghetti. A crunchy slice of fennel once transformed her into Sméagol with her Precious, her Precious!  

She's like an organic steam-mop, and she's only happy in a new kitchen once she has canvassed every square inch of floor with her nose and tongue.

On her outdoor walking circuit, she has been known to hoover up the chewy carcasses of dried earthworms from the sidewalk, and she'll inhale the crunchy carapaces of shrimps on the sea-wall.  Dining on the fly or mindless snacking, it's like an automatic reflex. Catch her quick enough and she'll drop the prize. 

But cat poop is different. The resident feral cats who live in the neighborhood make full use of the sandy soil wherever the notion takes them. The small dog, pottering around while we garden or work on boats, will slink off to find it. She starts looking guilty as soon as the thought drifts into her mind, but she's sneaky. 

When caught mid-gulp, instead of dropping it and apologizing, she'll turn and try to swallow her prize whole. Addiction is a terrible thing. This is a dog who usually abhors conflict, and who shivers when scolded. But in the grips of demon poo, she refuses the help of a Higher Power. 

She'll come to the door, tardy, smacking her lips with her head lowered. She'll resist making eye-contact. And it's clear how the next three days will play out: first, the bad tummy with all the bells and whistles, with multiple trips outside in the middle of the nights, the little dog listless and unhappy, her humans disgusted.  

Other times, I'm taken unawares. She'll seem pokey on a walk. There will be a rather pathetic series of minor yarks. She'll resist play. I'll be reminded of her inevitable mortality, of how the vet told me she is on borrowed time. I'll say to Jeff, "She IS an old dog."

He'll look at her, as she huddles in her bed with her eyes the only part moving.  He'll make a dismissive sound at the same time he stoops to rub her forehead. "Eh, she'll be fine. She's been eating cat poop again."

To the small dog, I am not so much a person as I am the Food Goddess.  You can see it in her eyes.

It may be the universal dynamic of canids and their people, but I only know about this dogmatic little sect. Belief carries her through her daily round, comprised as it is of a rigorous series of naps and meals. She wakes, prays, and the Food Goddess provides.

However, it's obvious that the small dog suspects that I --  fickle, fickle deity! -- am liable to abandon her in her hour of need. (What is a grocery-run to Lilly but a test of her belief that I will return? Her vehement prayers and rituals hold the entire world together.)

However full of faith and reverence, the small dog IS an opportunistic believer.  

I'm okay with that. Temporary divinity is better than none, and Lilly's pantheon, to be fair, includes a string of lost Food Goddesses before me.  A certain theological flexibility works in her religion: she's even welcomed a Food God into her church. 

The Food God responded to her worship last summer by including special treats in her dry dog-food breakfast. Trying to speed up the morning routine, Jeff took the shortcut while I was away. Just a sprinkling of parmesan and she went from picky to piggy. And hey-ho, hey-ho it was off to work he went. 

As far as Lilly is concerned, cheese is an article of faith. Her prayers have been answered: cheese!   (insert sound of heavenly choir -- or better yet, Pink Martini.)

We on Mount Olympus (aka the bed, to which the small dog is forbidden access. Except in special circumstances when her small warm presence is required as organic heating pad.) struggled with the issue. To cheese or not to cheese? On the one hand, she is an oldish dog, liable to drop weight and lose appetite. On the other, she's already fairly insufferable, dog qua dog.

Her Uncle Markie, who runs a home for Wayward Canines, settled the matter. He claims to treat dogs like dogs, and his advice is unusually direct and useful.  "Just put some hot water on the dry food," he suggested. "They love that."

The first day of gravy was a joyous day of thanksgiving in the world of the small dog. Her devotion was rewarded. At long last. Not since the bowl ofchicken salad fell to the floor had she experienced such proof of divine favor. 

Her ladylike belch at the end of the meal sounded like the word "amen."

When thwarted in her simple requests -- more biscuits, additional time to sniff that deliciously stinky spot, will everybody just sit on the couch already -- the small dog pipes up. 

She has a filthy vocabulary. Swears like a sailor, which is to say that the apple does not fall too far from the tree. 

Denied what's owed her, she'll snort, "Where's my #$%ing biscuit?!"  Sometimes it's just, "Mother-#@#s!" when we don't -- you know -- recognize her needs.    

When particularly exasperated, she does an open-mouthed loud breathing reminiscent of the non-vocal communications of teenagers.

Like a teen, she relies heavily on sarcasm. The set of her ears will proclaim, "Yeah, right," when told that we will be right back. 

The small dog is a rare barker, though when she does speak, it's a deep, resonant sound for such a diminutive creature. Mostly, she uses an eloquent variety of sneezes, snorts, huffs, and sighs to communicate. 

There are at least three kinds of sighs: the mild, Eeyore "How Like Them" sigh; the lengthy sigh of general acceptance when she retreats to her dogbed  (usually involving a long-drawn-out curse word, "sh!#$%^*&%^!!."); and, finally, a dramatic, throbbing, eloquently tragic sigh that makes me think a little of Sarah Bernhardt. 

When we return -- after five minutes or five hours, it doesn't matter -- she races around at a ridiculous rate of speed, sometimes forgetting herself so far as to leap up on a leg. 

She will hunt up the biscuit she'd been saving (in case we never returned) and chew it as if gobbling up her own worry. 

Sometimes, for no external reason I can figure, she'll make a querulous, yodeling cry as she dashes underfoot during the homecoming excitement. Pure emotion, but is it whining? Some variant on, "You g.d. jerks! Oh! I was so f$^*ing worried!"  Is it a song of thanksgiving? 

Or is it simply a new way to demand that we fork over the dog-biscuits, "Posthaste, Moth@#$$s!"? 

Like some other birds, vultures spend their winter months soaking up the sun and playing canasta with their friends in the sunny South. Or anyhow the carrion-eater's version of canasta, which seems to involve the rubber gaskets of your car windows and doors. 

The park angers warn you upon entry to the Myakka River State Park: the vultures will nibble any exposed rubber on your car. They'll peck away the seals on your windshields. They'll chomp on your sidewalls. 

And they are good at this: they can remove the weather-stripping from a mini-van in under an hour.  

...No, the rangers don't know why these creatures do such a thing, but there it is. A vice. Among vultures. 

Our annual Christmas camping trip a few years ago brought us -- Jeff and me and the small dog -- to Myakka River State Park.  (It's a thing we do, hopping into the RV and nipping away for a day or two over the holidays.)

Myakka is a couple of hours south, a pleasant enough drive. It boasts 57 square miles of wilderness with an oak-canopy walk, wide river-of-grass vistas, and a whole lot of alligators. 

It's rightly billed as "Where the River and Prairie Meet the Sky." 

But the camping area itself is surprisingly compact, with tents and camping vehicles and portable dog kennels and such packed tightly. A crowded little island of humanity. The racket of generators and recorded Christmas songs and people shouting quickly nudged us on a long walk with the dog after sunset. 

Less than a hundred yards away from the camping area, along the paved road still radiating the day's heat, artificial sound faded. We swept flashlight-beams into the trees, hoping to spot bats or flying squirrels. With the lights switched off, the dark seemed to first press in close and then back away. The stars were bright in the gaps between the oak boughs above. 

When we stopped to listen, we heard coyotes in the distance, the sound incongruously dry for the marshy surroundings. 

We walked on, silent, the little dog leaning, in her Boston-Terrier way, at the end of her nylon leash. The yipping and howling got a bit louder -- whether clearing some sound-break or growing closer it was impossible to say in the dark. 

Then the sound of the coyotes was much closer still, and Jeff said, "This is not good."

"Don't worry," I assured him. "They are shy. Listen to them." Jeff knows about alligators, sure, I was thinking, but I know canids. 

And our dog was snuffling unconcernedly at the pavement. She's a good watch-dog, our Lilly. She pipes up when there's conflict.

The yodeling, yelling, yapping cries -- continual now -- grew very loud. There were at least several different voices, all talking at once, the sound like the torment of souls. 

As anyone who's been camping in Florida can tell you: an armadillo the size of a meatloaf moves through dry palmetto with roughly the same sonic footprint as a marauding elephant. 

By the volume of their vocalizing, the pack could have been right next door. It seemed remarkable that we didn't hear the pack moving through the underbrush. 

Then nothing. As if someone had shut off the radio, the silence stunned and absolute. 

Jeff's alarm infected me. "Come on, dog," I said. I jiggled the leash and she, still unconcerned, obligingly turned back the way we'd come. Night fog was settling as we crested a small rise, and then -- as we entered the damper, misty bit of lowland -- we could smell the pack. The scent clinging to the fog was rank, musky, unmistakably wild.

"They are probably watching." Jeff said, his voice low.

We skedaddled back to the lights and the noise of the crowded campground. We listened intently for the coyotes to resume their serenade, but they kept silent. Probably watching.

The next day at the ranger station on our way out, I told the ranger. "We heard coyotes!" I recounted how while we were walking our small dog, we'd heard a chorus of them. How they'd come close, closer, then went silent. How we'd picked up their actual scent in the hollow.

"Next time," the ranger said, his voice calm as he stamped some papers. "You might want to pick up and carry the little dog."

I repeated the ranger's words as Jeff steered the RV back through the gates of the park. "Next time," Jeff echoed the phrase, consideringly. "Next time, we'll make her a little bacon-suit."

"Gah!" I replied. Then, "Hey!" Outrage rendering me inarticulate.

Keeping eyes on the road, he said, "Who doesn't like bacon?"