The Right Side Wag

It's 5:30am and I'm awake. Why aren't you?

I’m back in Napa again, wearing my dogs-sitting hat for the next six days while Jason and Sarah explore another island in Hawaii. I think after three times of providing this service, I should be able to add it to my resume under the heading of “professional dog-watcher and house sitter.” Perhaps this could be a whole new thing for me – I could give up the whole hotel gig and just hang out in people’s houses and watch their pets while they go off and do fun things.

Coming back here after eight months and getting reacquainted with Porter is a bit like getting back together with a boyfriend that you used to date but broke up with. You kinda remember all of the things he liked and didn’t like and all the things you loved about him but it takes a little time to get back to that place where you feel really comfortable with him again.

Fortunately Porter is a dog and not a man, so it took all of about five minutes and one crotch sniff (mine, not his, of course) and we were back to where we left off in April. If only human relationships were that easy to maintain.

Porter has changed a little bit since the last time I saw him. He’s changed from an overly-energetic pup to a more mature dog but he’s still perfectly capable of enthusiastically dragging me across the kitchen floor when we’re playing tug of war with his green dog toy. The dynamics between Porter and the cats, Boots and Stella, have changed as well. Where before the cats played an elaborate game of hide and seek in the house to avoid Porter, only appearing briefly at breakfast and dinner time, they seem to have reached a détente where they can all be in the same place together without the fur flying. In fact, Porter and Boots shared my bed during my mid-afternoon nap today; Boots curled up on one side of me and Porter stretched out along the other side, my body a fleshy Berlin Wall separating West Canine and East Feline. It was pretty amazing.

In preparation for my dog sitting adventures, I started reading a book called “Inside of a Dog” that is an insightful look at exactly what our furry friends see, hear and think and how they interact with their “humans.” One of the interesting things I learned is exactly what it means when a dog wags his tail in a certain direction and at a certain speed. Dog behaviorists claim that happy dogs rapidly wag their tails to the right, while they typically wag to the left when they’re interacting with someone new or feeling uncertain.  I’ve been watching Porter’s tail since I’ve been here and he’s definitely a “right wagger.” I take that as a good sign and I think it bodes well for the rest of our time together.