A Filthy Animal

When we first got Lili as a new dog, one of the cats happened to catch and kill a mouse. He left the dead mouse in Lili's bed. Generous gift, or hate crime? It's hard to tell.

A more serious crime has been repeated the last two days, but this time, the dog is the perpetrator.

Somehow, she has figured out how to get out of the back yard. This is a bad thing, since we live on a busy street. Fortunately though, her escape hole -- which I have not been able to find -- allows her into the next door neighbor's back yard, which is also fenced.

The neighbors in that house arrived soon after Hurricane Katrina. They seem pleasant enough. The man has some sort of small consulting company, and after the storm evacuation, he moved all of his employees into rental houses in Baton Rouge. He has a wife and a toddler. We haven't talked to them much, but they seem pleasant enough.

A nasty diaper on the floor of my study this morning

Well, Lili has found the spot where they like to set down the kid's dirty diaper. Being a filthy animal, she likes dirty diapers. Each of the last two days, she has noticed a diaper, picked it up, brought it back home, and then actually carried it through the dog door into our house. She brings the nasty thing all the way through the house into the very front room. This also happens to be the only carpeted room that she can get to.

I can picture her lying with her belly flat against the carpet, legs splayed behind her, chest high and proud over her prize. Then -- with tail wagging -- she pins one end of the thing to the ground and starts ripping the diaper into tiny bits.

Here and there, she gets to a glob of baby shit, which she eats like a delicate hors d'oeuvre. When she hits a mass of cotten that is heavy and soggy with piss, she leaves the spitball on the carpet. Life is good for a dog.

I'm reminded of one of my favorite parts of Pulp Fiction

Dialog: John Travolta (Vincent) i Samuel L. Jackson (Jules)

Vincent: You want some bacon?

Jules: No, man, I don't eat pork.

V: Are you Jewish?

J: No, I ain't Jewish, i just don't dig on swine, that's all.

V: Why not?

J: Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.

V: But bacon tastes good, pork chops taste good...

J: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfuckers. Pigs sleep and root in shit, that's a filthy animal. I don't eat nothin' that ain't got sense enough to disregard its own feces.

V: How about a dog? A dog eats its own feces

J: I don't eat dog either

V: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?

J: I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy, but it's definately dirty. But, dogs got personality, personality goes a long way.

V: So by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filty animal. Is that true?

J: We' have to be talkin' 'bout one charmin' motherfuckin' pig. I mean he'd have to be ten times more charmin' than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I'm sayin'?

Lili is not so mutherfuckin' charmin' that this can be allowed to continue.