It\u2019s day number five with Ella, the Meat Chunk. Meat Chunk is a specific breed of dog that is native to my brother \u2014\u00a0large in stature, dense, the mass of three imploding suns and likes to sit on small children while riding in the car. The aforementioned child no longer has any feeling in her thighs. <\/p>\n
My brother and his family went on vacation for, well, close to eternity, and we\u2019re dog sitting ye \u2018olde Meat Chunk while they\u2019re gone. It hasn\u2019t been a bad experience \u2014\u00a0for the most part she\u2019s a good dog. It\u2019s just that dogs have their own quirks, and this one especially. Partly because my brother believes dogs NEED quirks. That they should be uncivilized and unruly, and that these eccentricities should be on display like a neon peacock. <\/p>\n
You know, like a dog who can\u2019t walk in a straight line. I swear I thought she was drunk the first time I walked her. She darted left and right on the leash, like a divining rod swerving from water source to water source. I was dragged behind like a rag doll, my knees all skinned up and the circulation to my poor hand long since cutoff.
\n<\/p>\n
There are lots of things she can\u2019t NOT do. Like she can\u2019t NOT step on other peoples\u2019 toes. This is simple physics. Just like an apple can\u2019t NOT defy gravity. A bird can\u2019t NOT float. A man can\u2019t NOT use a bottle of mustard simply because it\u2019s been in the refrigerator for 18 years and has turned green. Meat Chunk can\u2019t NOT leave a trail of screaming, crying people whose toes have been squished flat in her wake. <\/p>\n
Oh, and then she has to get so worked up running around outside that she drinks a whole bowl of water \u2014\u00a0I mean, like the whole bowl is desert-dry when she\u2019s done! \u2014 before dribbling three-quarters of it out of her mouth. <\/p>\n
Add this to the fact that she is a dirt-toe clincher. Dogs fall into two categories: Those who clinch dirt in their toes and those who don\u2019t. The dirt-toe clinchers you can spot because after dribbling water all over your house, they unclench their toes and leave acre-wide mud puddles everywhere. Science doesn\u2019t know why dogs clinch dirt in their toes \u2026 only that it is the leading cause of popped blood vessels in humans. <\/p>\n
The list goes on: She has to sit behind me while I work at the computer and scratch, causing the house to shake like an earthquake. <\/p>\n
She has to wake up at 3 a.m. to scratch, causing the house to shake like an earthquake. <\/p>\n
After she finishes scratching, and I finish throwing up from sea-sickness, she has to pace and wander the halls with her big, fat dirt-clinching toes click-clacking on the floor \u2026 at 3 a.m.<\/p>\n
And the only positive? My toes aren\u2019t there to be squished in her wake. \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s day number five with Ella, the Meat Chunk. Meat Chunk is a specific breed of dog that is native to my brother \u2014\u00a0large in stature, dense, the mass of three imploding suns and likes to sit on small children while riding in the car. The aforementioned child no longer has any feeling in her thighs. My brother and his family went on vacation for, well, close to eternity, and we\u2019re dog sitting ye \u2018olde Meat Chunk while they\u2019re gone. It hasn\u2019t been a bad experience \u2014\u00a0for the most part she\u2019s a good dog. It\u2019s just that dogs have their own quirks, and this one especially. Partly because my brother believes dogs NEED quirks. That they should be uncivilized and unruly, and that these eccentricities should be on display like a neon peacock. You know, like a dog who can\u2019t walk in a straight line. I swear I thought she was drunk the first time I walked her. She darted left and right on the leash, like a divining rod swerving from water source to water source. I was dragged behind like a rag doll, my knees all skinned up and the circulation to my poor hand long since cutoff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571,555,561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-nutshells","category-animals","category-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1599,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598\/revisions\/1599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}