If you ever visit Palenque, be sure to stop by. I live in the cut out square of earth in the cement sidewalk of the third block up on the left. My home is located on a pretty steep hill. All the crazy looking pale skinned people huff and puff up my hill, staring down at me, saying silly words, trying to talk for me in high pitched voices. If they only knew how low all our voices really are. My name is…. well, I don’t really have a name, at least one that the humans call me by. But my friends call me Harry.
I’ve got a bunch of buddies who live right by the El Olivo church where all the whitie’s lived for a few weeks in those funny looking blankets. (I don’t know how they stay warm, they hardly have any fur, and those blankets are pretty thin, but at least they keep the rain off their fur.) My buddy Gus makes his morning potty run to the clump of grass right outside of the church every morning. He doesn’t understand why all the humans wait in line for one plot of grass encased in concrete when there’s so many clumps all up and down the street. Gus told me he didn’t mind sharing his plot. It’s too bad that the day he was going to inform them of the possible solution, all of them left and took their blankies with them.
We’re kinda sad they left, even though they talk to us like we’re babies. They gave us lots of attention. More attention than we ever get. It’s a breath of fresh air, really. Another friend of mine told me that he followed a group back to the church and turned around to go home, when another couple showed up walking toward the church. They saw him coming and leaned down. And then he told me that they petted him! I didn’t believe him. I totally thought he was bluffing. Charlie (that’s his name) said that the couple spoke to him in a squealy voice, put their hands all over him, and kept looking back to make sure he was still walking with them back to the church. Charlie knew that the church wasn’t in his neighborhood, so he eventually turned around to head home. But I’ve heard lots of these kind of stories since the gringos came to town.
When we have our early morning “coffee” talks, as the humans like to call them, we usually congregate right around the corner from my home. I never worry about leaving my home unlocked, I have a pretty decent reputation, so I only get a little bit of excrement in my hole, unlike Buck’s place, who lives in a grass heap of feces. He needs to learn how to lock up so this won’t happen. Anyhow, when we get together in the morning we sniff eachother’s butts so we can get caught up on what we’ve all been up to since yesterday morning. Sometimes there are some interesting stories.
Like one morning, three dogs showed up. I knew what two of them had been up to right away, they were glowing. The third was just jealous, although I did find out that it was his girl. He had already had three litters with her. But the story from them was humorous. It had something to do with the white folks at the church staring, yelling, and pointing. All three dogs were a little embarrased about the whole incident. They weren’t really looking for an audience to begin with, and then they got stuck. You may have heard this story before so I won’t go into details.
I hear that other dogs around the world have it better than us. Yeah right… we have our own homes (no sharing for us), eat whenever we want (the humans just toss stuff away), and sleep wherever we lie down. Not to mention all the time we get to hang out with our friends. That’s the life.
There is something to be said for the high pitched baby talk… it makes me feel special.
