Tug. With babushka.

A weird chain of events was unleashed about a week ago when I was walking the boys.

Tug had stopped to smell something probably unpleasant at the base of a post. He yelped and I saw a big, black wasp sitting and sneering at me so I thought he’d been stung.

Tug’s ear swelled and swelled until even Miss Carol felt uncomfortable. She thought briefly about poking a pin into it until I reminded her she’d have to go it alone.

Call me squeamish.

Instead, Miss Carol called the vet and I took Tug in. Turns out he’d shaken his ear into a hematoma. Come to find out, a Tug can shake his head so vigorously that he can and could and did separate the skin flaps in his ear. The capillaries burst and filled his dog ear taco with blood.

Enough?. I think maybe yes.

So anyway. We took Tug and Cutter to the vet and while my little brother and his cupcake walked Cutter around the parking lot endlessly, Tug had lots and lots of bloody mucus-y stuff sucked out of his ear flap which was mummy wrapped to the top of his head so he couldn’t shake it for awhile, but leaving his ear canal wide open.

We got home and I fed them before their walk.

I’m not hungry, Cutter said.

Me too, Tug said, looking sadly mournful, his head being wrapped in bandages.

Cool baby, I said, wanting to get the walk done and maybe take a shower and relax with a cocktail.

We were strolling down the street when Cutter glanced over his shoulder at me and said- he looks like a turd.

Tug looked hurt.

I pulled them along, wanting to get the day over, when all the sudden Tug stopped and said, I hear the crickets moving through the grasses.

Cutter stared at him. What the fuck are you talking about?, he said to him.

And I hear the clouds moving through the sky, Tug said, grinning, his eyes closed and his bandaged open ear cocked to the sky.

Cutter sat and stared at him and then he turned to me. What did you do him?, he whispered.

Nothing, I said, and smiled. I was enjoying it.

Tug turned his attention to the ground and said, I can hear the grass growing, his grin huge and happy.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, Cutter said and pulled us all forward.