crochet blanket pose
up he jumps, to sleep he goes
early morning doze
Schnoodle Haiku
Boo Shoo Nonet
Boo’s got that human look in his eyes
the kind people give as eye rolls
stare-down between dog and man
are you being for real?
I’m gon’ ignore that!
you’re joking, right??
go away!
I’m done.
Shoo!
****
oh,
but then
Boo Radley
steals my chair, begs
me to sit with him
to assure him that his
world is on its right axis
that he is the favorite dog
begs my forgiveness for his Boo shoos
A Saga in Six Days of Life When You Live on a Farm: Featuring Boo Radley and the Unexpected, Day 6
Day 6
our Boo Radley
did a most
surprising thing ~
our Boo
forced a threatening
brown bull to retreat
to turn tail
and
take to the woods
or was that his intention?
was he a charger of bulls
or was he a shepherd
of cows?
was he herding them
back in their farm direction
because he knew they
were lost, drifters one
farm south of theirs,
needing a nudge?
this is, after all
the Funny Farm,
where you have
to be a little
sideways to end
up here in the
land of the
unexpected
where wrinkles in
perceptions become
realities like this:
Boo Radley is a
shepherding schnoodle
of lost herds, the
meanest bulls not
excluded, because
he knows how it feels
to be lost, looking
for home, aggressively
persuading them not
to give up a good thing
all this brings back
the day we were
on the beach
late afternoon
on a cloudy day
sipping wine
on a blanket
when two women
much further into
their bottle
walked by us too close
to our beach campout
according to Boo
Boo corrected
them
~not politely~
and in their swagger,
in their smirks,
their chuckles,
one taunted back:
oh, what a little badass!
fast forward
the years
to today and I
want to go back
to that moment
and say
yes ma’am,
he certainly is!
he fulfilled the
prophesy at the bottom
of your
wine bottle
you saw the future
of our little rescue
Schnoodle named
Boo Radley~
a champion badass
herder of bulls
you weren’t bullshitting
He’s Home, all Healthy
Boo Radley gave us a scare this week. Our sevenish-year-old Parti Schnoodle who came into our lives as an abandoned, starving, severely matted rescue whose tangles were so horrible they nicknamed him Einstein, had a lump pop up over his left hip.
We went straight to the verge of panic, stopping short of it when the vet had a quick opening.
I dropped him off Thursday morning for some tests and left a skeptical, trembling Boo with the look of betrayal in his eyes in the caring hands of our veterinary clinic’s staff, who always greet us by name.
The call came during a state Zoom call when some of our students were presenting their projects on poverty to leaders across the state.
I shut off my camera and muted my microphone and took the call.
“Boo Radley is going to be fine,” the office assured me. “He has a lipoma, a benign tumor of fatty tissue.”
They’d performed a fine needle aspiration and examined the cells to be sure that they were not cancerous.
I picked him up after work, and as I was waiting for him to be brought up front, one of the veterinary technicians whispered, “I just want you to know how sweet your dog is. I was back there earlier, and I caught him looking at me with his big eyes, pleading with me to love on him. I opened his kennel and took him out and he showered me with kisses. He is one sweet boy!” This vet tech was a man, and Boo has always taken to men much more quickly than women. On the Schnoodle Facebook page, this seems to be a Schnoodle trait to prefer men.
He’d already forgiven me for leaving him by the time they handed him back to me. He caught a glimpse of the dog before him leaving, meandering with his family back to their car, and barked cuss words at them like a little banshee.
“This is ‘the other side’ of Boo Radley,” I pointed out. “Sweet boy can’t mind his own business. He has strong opinions and forces them on others.”
They chuckled and handed me the bill. I did not chuckle, and paid it.
As we neared the Johnson Funny Farm, I cracked the window so Boo could do his favorite thing – – sniff all the smells of the fauna and flora of the realm that is now his permanent place in the world – not a place of abandonment, but a place of love and belonging. The place where he will live out his full life, grow old, and cross the Rainbow Bridge someday. Just not today, thankfully.
I assured him when he got up this morning that he did not have to go back to the vet today. He went outside, did his business, and came in and had his blue jean time where he plays tug of war with the legs of my husband’s jeans for a moment, then had his treat. As I write at this very moment, Boo is snuggled by my right shoulder as he is each morning, snoozing in the comfort of the life he knows.
And my heart, too, is at peace.
Common Threads 