Creatures

“All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.”
-- Samuel Butler

For the first twenty-four years of my life I went completely pet-less. My father suffered from allergies to all things furry, my mother’s throat closed up at the word cat (my brother too), and with my chronic asthma the idea of throwing a pet into the mix of our infirmity did not portend a comfortable home environment. My dad placated us with fish; the pinnacle of our fascination with them focused on their ability to shit in strings twice the length of their bodies.

Nearly every other member of my family had a pet; Bear, Sassy, Maxi, Pippen, Maggie, Chopper – all objects of envy in our allergen-free household. Even my Uncle Joel’s first dog, Frank, a legally blind, manic-depressive mutt who our uncle generously rehabbed from road kill garnered the utmost esteem from my brother and I.

I should have known that my streak of fur-free living would end when I moved in with my Uncle Joel. A constant theme of my family’s Florida vacations had been wildlife. Alligators, manatees, and dolphins always made cameos on our fishing expeditions to Mosquito Lagoon and the St. John’s River. During those trips we reeled in five completely different species: fish (naturally), one crab, a freshwater ray, a massive turtle, and one horribly unlucky pelican. So, coming to Florida and finding my Uncle Joel with a loyal posse of wildlife, the likes of which we have not seen since The Beastmaster, was no surprise.

After losing his cat to the alligator in his backyard pond (it took out at least a half-dozen other neighborhood house pets before it was removed), my uncle adopted some less traditional pets. After substantial holes opened up in his screened-in porch, the area became a feeding ground for a plethora of different animals. My uncle left handfuls of peanuts on the table for Rocky the squirrel (there may well have been more Rocky the Squirrels than there were Rocky movies), bird seed for his most adventurous feathered friends, and at sunset he left an egg in a cup for Roger, the raccoon.

My uncle’s relationship with Roger bordered on foolish. After developing a trust with the animal, he began to leave his sliding glass door open. Roger’s meals moved from outside the backdoor to the kitchen counter. When their schedules meshed, Joel would guide the raccoon to the refrigerator with all the courtesy of a maitre d’, and Roger would stand at Joel’s feet while they scoured the shelves for buffalo wings, or leftover hamburger, whatever Roger seemed to be squeaking for on that particular evening. Sadly, my uncle’s interaction would come to an immediate halt when he welcomed my cousin, Courtney, into his home while she finished her student teaching. After Roger caught her in her bathrobe, Joel was forced to banish the creature from the house.

When I arrived, even my uncle’s apparently diminished relationships with these creatures fascinated me. Roger arrived like clockwork around nine every evening, and if Joel was not there to feed him I did my best to serve him in my uncle’s stead. While my with him interaction was more in a business capacity, I developed a more personal fondness for Rocky. In the early days of my Florida tenure, I would sit on the porch with a handful of peanuts on the table in front of me, waiting for Rocky to brave my presence for a free meal. The first week or so was a tad dodgy, with Rocky climbing in the screen and roaming about the ceiling and walls, apparently testing my civility. After a few days, he got to the chair, sitting up on his hind legs, staring askance at me while he considered a run at the peanuts. Once he finally got to the table-top and concluded I was trustworthy, we developed a unique symbiosis during my study hours.

Aside from the furry little creatures that frequented our porch, the most fascinating members of Uncle Joel’s posse were the Sandhill Cranes, Heathcliff and Gertrude. Though not quite as majestic as the Great Blue Heron who wanders our pond with Godfather-like authority, their courage allows us to get up close and personal with them routinely. Right off in the morning, Joel takes a bag of bird feed and dusts the backyard patio. Sometimes they miss a day, off doing whatever Sandhill Cranes do, but most days they spend ample hours of the afternoon around and about the living room windows, where I can sit on the sofa and watch them interact.

These are highly curious birds. Tall and regal, their signature mark is the cap of red flesh atop their heads. Though on first glance it appears to be red feathers, closer examination reveals a crown of dry skin similar to the gobbler on a turkey. Their loud and obnoxious squawk could wake the dead, sounding like a cross between a semi’s horn and a velociraptor. Most entertaining of all is their mating dance, a spastic flurry of flapping and leaping and throwing of pine needles. Ironically, their mating dance closely resembles their bravura posturing in the face of severe threats. And we thought the human dating world was tough. Talk about mixed signals.

In addition to these regulars – the Norms and Cliffs of our neighborhood – we get cameos from Florida’s tragically emaciated deer, a two-foot alligator with a Napoleonic complex, as well as the occasional bobcat or black bear. As I told my uncle just the other day, as an eight-point deer wandered onto our patio around midnight: “This never gets old.”

As if this cornucopia of wild animals was not enough, my uncle threw a grenade into the mix when he adopted an 18-month-old Schnauzer named Scamp. This was of some concern to me, not because I worried about the chemistry of our Dr. Doolittle family, but because I had grown up under the assumption that a dog in immediate living space would be highly detrimental to my health. The ability to breathe is normally one of the primary focuses of one’s existence, and since I am already handicapped in that area I hardly needed to hinder myself further by testing my resistance to a dog. I soon found out that my breathing would not be any more an issue than it had been before, but that certain other health risks came with welcoming Scamp into our home.

We did not come up with the name Scamp ourselves. It was given to him by his original family, the family who gave him up after an ugly divorce. At first my uncle was reluctant to accept it. In the furor of the 2004 election he wanted to tattoo his support for the Democratic Party on that poor little pup by renaming him Kerry. Considering the results of the election, that would have been unwise. Instead of being the furry ball of joy and mischief that Scamp is, he would instead be a bitter reminder of one of the most depressing days of my uncle’s recent life.

Aside from my aversion to the name Kerry and all it implied, the name Scamp seemed too on-the-nose to replace. With a coat of unruly hair, a mix of grey, black, and gold, his unkempt features support the nature of his name. His left ear points continuously to the ceiling while his right hangs limp over his face, bouncing as he walks, until something threatening catches his attention. He hosts a wide range of barks, from the threatening growl, to a feminine whine (for which Courtney refuses to cut him any slack), to a playful howl whenever Joel riles him up. He wears his heart on his sleeve; when his head hangs low, his ears back on his head, we know to search the house for his latest unapproved chew toy. When he can’t stay on the ground when we come home from work, there’s no way he’ll leave us alone till we wear him out playing fetch in the backyard. With a name like Scamp, one shouldn’t expect anything but a handful. When his first month in the house claimed three pairs of shoes, a half-dozen toilet paper rolls, untold numbers of newspapers, two sets of binoculars, one watch, and one wallet (credit cards and cash included), we knew no other name could have embodied that little rascal, other than, well Rascal.

The entry of Scamp into our world has been calamitous for Joel’s former posse. The idea of a squirrel surviving a trip onto our porch became moot after the Schnauzer Assassin came into the fold. The Sandhill Cranes pay little attention to Scamp’s incessant barking, but the minute he breaks free of the porch, they’re sailing off to the tee box on the other side of the pond. The rivalry between Scamp and the raccoons, however, has become the most contentious. I’ve occasionally needed to pull all the shades in the house to silence Scamp’s pre-dawn barking at the scavengers picking through the cranes’ scraps. Every night as the sun goes down, Scamp begins his manic patrol of the patio, sweeping into Joel’s bedroom, then onto the chairs next to the living room windows, and out to the porch, waiting for the raccoons’ arrival. Occasionally, the raccoons flee to the trees, waiting for the racket to die down, but many times they merely shake their heads and go back to their meal.

Even with Scamp playing the loyal sentinel through out the night, I still have some sneaking suspicions that their may be a greater criminal mind at work here. I’ve begun to liken Scamp to Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. Gollum always presents a trusting, if not lovable, façade to Frodo (Joel), who butters Scamp up and loves on him even as his bites draw blood. Meanwhile, Sam (Phil) is always watching, keenly aware of the well-masked cunning of their counterpart. He knows that underneath that playful, lap-jumping, pillow-wrestling display is a wily adversary.

Example:

From day one, Joel and I became astutely aware of Scamp’s ninja-like attacks. Using his snout as his weapon of choice, he found ever-more inventive ways to take a man to the floor. This tiny beast, all of 15 pounds, knows exactly where to hurl his nose in order to put a grown man on the floor. He’s like a furry, midget, Sydney Bristow. He dives at the back of my knee in mid-stride, folding me up on myself. In my less astute moments, these sniper attacks have thrown me off-balance into the sofa and the wall.

Cunning, I tell you.

In addition to his magnificent use of brute force, he also finds awkward and painful places to bite his adversaries. The Achilles Heel, for instance, can prove extremely painful after Scamp’s Sting-Like-A-Bee-and-Flee attacks. The knee-cap, painful to be shot in, is just as painful a bite target. My personal kryptonite has been the top of my feet. These incessant podiatric attacks have sent me kicking and flailing about like the fore mentioned Sandhill Cranes.

Cunning, yes. A master strategist, as well.

But the nuclear weapon of Scamp’s arsenal centers on the tenderest part of a male-dominated household. As damaging as his nose can be to the back of the knee, nothing puts a man to the ground like a swift jab to the crotch. And for Scamp, this is his five point exploding heart technique. Since Scamp is technically my uncle’s dog, and not my own, I have avoided scolding him except in the most extreme circumstances. Crotch diving has become one of those extreme circumstances. One can only take so many leg-numbing, stomach upsetting blows to their legacy before it becomes time to lay down the law. And I did just that. I grabbed Scamp about the face, looked him straight in the eyes, and in my most eloquent prose shouted:
”Scamp! No! Bad!”

After the fact it always occurs to me that I am speaking to a dog, but the authority with which I conveyed my pain and emotion seemed to do the trick. Scamp went a few weeks without assaulting the Netherlands, and I assumed we had finally come to an understanding.

But I soon realized that our family puppy was a much more patient and crafty creature than I had originally suspected. A few days ago, after a particularly trying evening, I rolled off my futon and pulled on a T-shirt. The previous night had been a chilly one, so I also grabbed my Army Basketball hooded sweatshirt in case the cool had spread through the house. I opened my door and found Scamp standing outside my door, his head low, ears back, puppy-dog eyes glistening. I turned my head, glaring down suspiciously at him.

“Hey puppy,” I said, pulling my sweatshirt onto my arms. “What did you do?”

I pulled the sweatshirt over my head, and as soon as the room disappeared behind gray cotton an explosive thump erupted in my groin.

BAM!

Startled, wounded, and bound I clumsily ricocheted through the room before ending up on my ass in my laundry basket. Fires burnt on the side of my head, my elbow, and my knee which had crashed into the door, the wall, and the futon, respectively. I yanked the sweatshirt off my head, and turned to the hallway. But my attacker had fled.

I stalked into the living room, my Brainstorming Bat held at my shoulder. As I crossed the threshold of the hallway, I noticed my uncle at the computer in an adjacent room. I innocently dropped the bat behind my back, and gave him a benign nod. He gave me his morning “Hey” and returned to the computer.

I scoured the room and found Scamp, resting innocently in his chair by the window. He sat up on his haunches, both ears perked. As I glared down my nose at him, he popped a Mentos in his mouth and gave me the thumbs up.

Unfair, I thought. The Mentos Pardon.

I shook my head, and accepted my defeat. This time, Scamp. You got me this time. But don’t expect it again. I’m wise to you. Don’t think I’ll be so easy next time.

And if you ever get too confident, remember this. Even Scooby-Doo was nothing without his Scooby Snacks, and there’s a reason why the Milkbones are on the top shelf.

That’s right, puppy.

Game on.