Vignettes

1. Pooka has just gone outside. She returns to the house. She eats dinner. I sit down to eat dinner. She begins whining to go outside again -- whine whine, walk to the door, turn to look at me, ears up.

I ignore her at first, then say, "Pooka, let me eat dinner first." She takes a few steps closer, whines, paces a little. She then walks behind me on the couch, and though I don't notice, stands with her nose very close to the back of my head. WHINE! Eeek, I jump. We go outside.

A day later, we repeat the little dance. When I still don't give in, she stomps her feet and tosses her head. She does some sort of snorty growly whine. And then starts talking -- or her closest approximation given her anatomical shortcomings. Rwaawwwwwwawawarrarrgggggh. I cannot help but crack up. Pooka, are you talking to me? But still, she wins. We go outside.

2. Pooka eats breakfast. I putter in the kitchen. She stares at me from the other side of the baby gate. I have an empty cereal box, so I insert a few treats and seal it back up. I hand it to her and she drags it into the living room. The clasp on the box was already shot, so instead of tearing the box itself apart she's able to stick her entire head right down into the box. I hear crunching. Then she swiftly picks up her head. Who turned out the lights? She lurches around for a few steps, pauses. Changes direction. I take pity on her and remove the box, but again, I can't stop myself from laughing. She's so silly.

In which I call the Good Samaritan

I finally called her, the woman who left the note in Pooka's file, telling me she saw the accident over on Aurora. I don't want to dwell too much on the details, but I am glad I had a chance to thank her.

The person who hit Pooks had his whole family in the car, and felt terrible, she said. She disregarded advice of other onlookers, urging her not to touch Pooka, and went over to pet her. Then she and a friend drove P. to the shelter, and on their advice, turned around and took her to the emergency room. Thank you 100 times over, J.A., for all that work.

She said she was worried all these weeks that Pooka was so badly hurt that I wouldn't have the means to afford her care. She was very interested in the details of the injuries, and told me she had a little dachshund who fell off the sofa and was paralyzed in the hindquarters, but that it goes on walks in a little doggie wheelchair.

And that was that.

This week marks the beginning of slightly longer walks for P., so today I took her to the coffeeshop to visit with the baristas for a few minutes. Lots of sniffing and peeing along the way. And of course, when we got home...she wanted to turn around and go right back out. Soon enough, missy, soon enough.

Like watching paint dry

Dear Pooka-lovers,

Just a quick update on a crisp Friday morning. Pooka is doing very, very well. She still walks like a drunk -- somewhere between a swagger and a stagger -- but in all other respects, is very much herself.

She's back to peeing almost normally, with just one squat per walk, for the most part. And she's got a manic amount of pent-up energy by the time I'm home from work. Of course, with the stock market plummeting and the product cycle kicking up at the companies I cover, I do not have a manic amount of pent-up energy by the time I'm home from work, and I can sense the frustration on her part. The other night she went over to her toy box and pulled out every last thing, tossed it around for a moment and looked at me. "How about this one? Can we play with this one? How about now? Can we please go back to the life I used to lead, where you'd chase me in endless circles around the couch? Please?"

And two nights ago, I gave her a Bully Stick. Now, Pooka chews through chew-treats faster than any dog I've seen. I have brought home things the nice but naive doggie boutique workers say should last for "hours" and watched her devour them in just a fraction of that. An eight-inch bully stick lasts her * maybe * 10 minutes. But the other night, she did not gnaw or chew at it, she bit off whole pieces like it was a Slim Jim. Manic, I tell you.

I sigh. Poor kid. I try to explain to her that as soon as her bones have mended, it will be back to business as usual, with lots of running around like a crazy-dog. But for now, and at least the next 3 1/2 weeks, we have to pretty much sit still and wait for things to happen on the molecular level. Pooka sighs a lot, too.