Muddy Paws Quotes

I'm a Starbucks coffee connoisseur. You know I'm an expert, because I can't distinguish between their java and muddy duck water.

Dog Talk … I have seen Ben place his nose meticulously into the shallow dampness of a deer’s hoofprint and shut his eyes as if listening. But it is smell he is listening to. The wild, high music of smell, that we know so little about. Tonight Ben charges up the yard; Bear follows. They run into the field and are gone. A soft wind, like a belt of silk, wraps the house. I follow them to the end of the field where I hear the long-eared owl, at wood’s edge, in one of the tall pines. All night the owl will sit there inventing his catty racket, except when he opens pale wings and drifts moth-like over the grass. I have seen both dogs look up as the bird floats by, and I suppose the field mouse hears it too, in the pebble of his tiny heart. Though I hear nothing. Bear is small and white with a curly tail. He was meant to be idle and pretty but learned instead to love the world, and to romp roughly with the big dogs. The brotherliness of the two, Ben and Bear, increases with each year. They have their separate habits, their own favorite sleeping places, for example, yet each worries without letup if the other is missing. They both bark rapturously and in support of each other. They both sneeze to express plea- sure, and yawn in humorous admittance of embarrassment. In the car, when we are getting close to home and the smell of the ocean begins to surround them, they both sit bolt upright and hum. With what vigor and intention to please himself the little white dog flings himself into every puddle on the muddy road. Somethings are unchangeably wild, others are stolid tame. The tiger is wild, the coyote, and the owl. I am tame, you are tame. The wild things that have been altered, but only into a semblance of tameness, it is no real change. But the dog lives in both worlds. Ben is devoted, he hates the door between us, is afraid of separation. But he had, for a number of years, a dog friend to whom he was also loyal. Every day they and a few others gathered into a noisy gang, and some of their games were bloody. Dog is docile, and then forgets. Dog promises then forgets. Voices call him. Wolf faces appear in dreams. He finds himself running over incredible lush or barren stretches of land, nothing any of us has ever seen. Deep in the dream, his paws twitch, his lip lifts. The dreaming dog leaps through the underbrush, enters the earth through a narrow tunnel, and is home. The dog wakes and the disturbance in his eyes when you say his name is a recognizable cloud. How glad he is to see you, and he sneezes a little to tell you so. But ah! the falling-back, fading dream where he was almost there again, in the pure, rocky weather-ruled beginning. Where he was almost wild again, and knew nothing else but that life, no other possibility. A world of trees and dogs and the white moon, the nest, the breast, the heart-warming milk! The thick-mantled ferocity at the end of the tunnel, known as father, a warrior he himself would grow to be. …

As his littermates scampered away, the smallest one, realizing he’d been abandoned, tried to catch up with them. But his legs were too short, and all he managed to do was stumble into a puddle, turning his once tan chest and legs brown. Abigail smiled as the puppy, apparently enjoying the sensation of muddy water on his legs, flopped onto his back and began to roll in the mud. “Muddy paws?” Ethan chuckled. “This one looks like he has muddy everything.” The pup rose and shook his fur, sending droplets of mud toward Abigail before he plopped down in front of her and looked up with the biggest brown eyes she’d ever seen on a dog. Right now those eyes were beseeching Abigail, tugging at her heart. “Oh, Ethan, he’s so cute. You can’t drown him.” “What do you propose?

We had been looking at some land adjoining the zoo and decided to purchase it in order to expand. There was a small house on the new property, nothing too grand, just a modest home built of brick, with three bedrooms and one bathroom. We liked the seclusion of the place most of all. The builder had tucked it in behind a macadamia orchard, but it was still right next door to the zoo. We could be part of the zoo yet apart from it at the same time. Perfect. “Make this house exactly the way you want it,” Steve told me. “This is going to be our home.” He dedicated himself to getting us moved in. I knew this would be our last stop. We wouldn’t be moving again. We laid new carpet and linoleum and installed reverse-cycle air-conditioning and heat. Ah, the luxury of having a climate-controlled house. I installed stained-glass windows in the bathroom with wildlife-themed panes, featuring a jabiru, a crocodile, and a big goanna. We also used wildlife tiles throughout, of dingoes, whales, and kangaroos. We made the house our own. We worked on the exterior grounds as well. Steve transplanted palm trees from his parents’ place on the Queensland coast and erected fences for privacy. He designed a circular driveway. As he laid the concrete, he put his own footprints and handprints in the wet cement. Then he ran into the house to fetch Bindi and me. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s all do it.” We grabbed Sui, too, and put her paw prints in, and then did Bindi, who was just eight months old. It took a couple of tries, but we got her handprints and her footprints as well, and then my own. We stood back and admired the time capsule we had created. That afternoon the rains came. The Sunshine Coast is usually bright and dry, but when it rains, the heavens open. We worried about all the concrete we had worked on getting pitted and ruined. “Get something,” Steve shouted, scrambling to gather up his tools. I ran into the house. I couldn’t find a plastic drop cloth quickly enough, so I grabbed one of my best sheets off the bed. As I watched the linen turn muddy and gray in the rain, I consoled myself. In the future I won’t care that I ruined the sheet, I thought. I’ll just be thankful that I preserved our footprints and handprints. “It’s our cave,” Steve said of our new home. We never entertained. The zoo was our social place. Living so close by, we could have easily gotten overwhelmed, so we made it a practice never to have people over. It wasn’t unfriendliness, it was simple self-preservation. Our brick residence was for our family: Steve and me, Bindi, Sui, and Shasta.

I was always glad when Leibniz came on stage, because he was so exuberantly over the top. Newton would as soon bite your head off as look at you. Leibniz might have knocked you down, too, but only by accident, the way a sixty-pound, muddy-pawed golden retriever might if you chanced to pick up a tennis ball. Newton and Leibniz are one of history's great mismatched pairs. No playwright would have given in to the temptation of having two such opposites come up with the same colossal invention at the same time.

I wasn’t getting along with Trouble and for good reason. He strolled over and made a snide remark. “Patches,” he meowed, “why do you look so worried? Has Santa got you on the Naughty List this year? Oh, look, someone left some muddy shoes by the back door. Meowr.” “GRmpf.” I snarled. “Oh. And is this a Patch-of-mud on the doormat?” mewed Trouble. “Look, Cat,” I said, “My status with Santa is a private affair. Someone with a name like yours shouldn’t be pointing paws!” “That’s so. That’s so,” he purred. “Pointing paws usually lead to flying fur and the need for hair ex-ten-sions.” Trouble did say things that made sense sometimes, in a weird sort of way. (He was trying to mes-mer-ize me with those purrs, but it wouldn’t work). “Purr--cise-ly. Oh, uh-hum, I meant to say, pre-cise-ly,” I growled, “So let’s drop the subject.” Then he PURRED at me.

My stick! Alarmed, he skirted the edge of the lake, keeping to the grassy bank until he reached the line of trees edging the shore. Weaving among the trunks, he tried to guess which one held the stick in its roots. Sniffing carefully, he recognized with a burst of relief the rowan where he’d wedged it. He scrambled onto a thick root and leaned over the edge. The water was lapping the bank. He dug his hind claws into the bark, reached a forepaw down into the water, and felt for his stick. It’s not there! He flapped his paw in the space beneath the root. With panic rising in his throat, he leaned farther out, planting his other forepaw on the muddy bank so water lapped his claws as he dangled over the edge. Reaching as far as he could, he splashed his paw in the lake, feeling desperately for the sleek piece of wood. The waves licked his muzzle, making him splutter. Where is it? Had the lake taken it back? He might never see it again! Something hard bumped his muzzle. Something floating on the waves. He sniffed, coughing as water shot up his nose. But he recognized his stick at once.

My pulse thunders in my ears. It feels like my heart’s rattling my ribs loose, it’s pounding so violently inside my chest. If he touches me any further, I won’t be strong enough to resist Ren anymore. I’ll throw myself at him, beg him to give me everything for just a little while. To give me for now until he can have forever with her. Her. God, my blood boils, and a kick of anger surges through my veins. I hate her. I’m wildly jealous of this woman, who I can only assume is entirely, completely worthy of him. And I know, I trust that she is, because I trust Ren. He’s measured and thoughtful. He has his head screwed on straight. He values the right things. She’s probably an understated beauty, because Ren’s too wholesome to need a knockout—he only asks for beauty from within. She’s one of those rescue-shelter volunteers who bakes perfectly circular chocolate chip cookies and makes friends with all the grandmas on the block. She wants three kids—two boys and a girl—and she loves to scrapbook. She also reads those criminally sex-free romances and is the least erotically adventurous woman on the planet— Whoa, there, Francesca. Getting a little nasty, aren’t we? Well, yes. My thoughts have turned uncharitable. That’s my jealousy talking. That’s my covetous envy. A fierce possessiveness for someone I have no right to. An unwarranted, unfair animosity toward a woman I should be happy for. “I want to apologize, Frankie. About last night.” I spin, tugged out of my thoughts. “What?” Ren frowns up at me from his crouched position, petting Pazza. “I don’t remember everything, because that headache was…unearthly painful, and I’d taken one of the pills for it that Amy prescribed me, but I have a vague memory of being very into hand holding.” Heat rushes through me as I bite my lip. God, you’d think we’d made out, the way thinking of it affects me. “You were.” He grimaces. “It was unprofessional of me. I’m sorry.” His face transforms to a wide smile as Pazza licks his face, perching her muddy paws on his knees. “Pazza, down.” My voice is sharp, and she drops immediately, jogging over to me. Ren slowly stands with a look of wariness on his face. “What’s the matter?” “Nothing. Just Pazza. Sh-she’ll ruin your slacks.” I point at the grass and mud staining his knees. He smiles and shrugs. “I don’t care, Frankie. I can do my laundry. I’m a spot-treating wizard, actually.” “Of course, you are.” I can’t get a stain out of my clothes to save my life. Why do all these little things about him add up to something so perfectly right to me? Why does he have to be so wonderful? Why do I have to be so fucked up?