The Small Dog Chronicles: La Recherche du Temps Perdu

It's not the slurp of madeleine dunked into a cup of tea that sends me back to the early days of my time with the small dog. 

It's the panting.

Possibly symptomatic of that leaky heart-valve, or simply due to her general chestiness, Lilly has taken more and more to panting as a means of communicating her emotions. 

Whereas she once-upon-a-time capered and barked to express her feelings about –– say –– the leash coming down from its hook or the possiblity of a snack, nowadays she sits in a slump and pants at us malevolently. 

Her ribs pump out Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah! while her brown eyes stare above her brown teeth and her fat tongue clicks against her fat palate.  The most noise from the least effort. 

Oh, it's cute, really. 

She's no Cujo: she's smaller than a breadbox and she frequently slides off-task, distracted by a swarm of something only she can see. We think it's floaters, because she gulps at them and then gazes loopily into the middle distance the same way she used to do when hunting lizards. Something else she doesn't do any more. 

To be fair, the panting works for her: Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah! is like water torture to me, drip drip dripping on my ears. Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah! gets a biscuit, a walkie, fresh water in the dish. 

She still has a kick-ass sarcastic blink, however. I don't understand how she does it, but in addition to the normal blinking done by any buggy-eyed dog, she has a special blink, heavy with irritation and impatience, that says, "By all means, take your sweet mother-f*^ing time." Especially when I have neglected to biscuit her promptly. 

I've tried to video the blink, but of course she refuses to perform for the camera. Come to think of it, the camera tends to make her stop panting, too. 

Just as –– back in the day –– she would wake up and assume a less ridiculous sleeping pose, or shake off the cute crown of flowers, or jump down from her weird perch just as soon as I got the camera ready. 

That hasn't changed.