River and the Dog Across the Streeet

I am a peaceful dog who loves everyone except the dog who lives across the street. I spy him from the only window I can see without climbing on a perch, in the kitchen, by the porch.  He comes outside, and I begin to bark with a ferocity that can be little matched in this or any other neighborhood.

    My Mommy tells me to be quiet and that I am over-reacting.  The officious dog is a senior beagle, who is blind, has no teeth, and takes stiff steps because of his arthritis. Mommy tells me he is harmless, but I see through that veneer.  He is pure evil.

I have only come snout to pressed in snout with him once.  It was shortly after he moved in with his parents.  Pocket and I were in our front yard, enjoying our soft grass and beautiful flowers when the beagle’s dad made the brutal mistake of leading him outside.  I pulled on my leash and stood on my back legs letting loose a string of vitriol that would make sailors blush.  Pocket joined me, not knowing why I was barking, but she always has my back, unless she is the one I am sniping at.

The beagle had the gall to not react.  There I was, hitting him with all the evil I had stored inside the darkest part of my brain, and the beagle doesn’t even give me a glance.  His dad detected my ferocity and decided correctly that I, while smaller than the beagle, and being totally snoutless, could still put quite a hurt on the account of the beagle’s vision, orthopedic issues, and me being a tiny ball of rage, so he took his dog to the back yard ending our interaction.

When we got inside I growled about the unsatisfactory interaction I had experienced.  I could not believe the beagle had not reacted to my best barks.  Pocket suggested that perhaps the intrusive dog was hard of hearing.  She could be right.  That would be just like him.

We have a very dog friendly neighborhood.  People don’t mind if a dog picks up a scent, travels a few feet up their driveway and pees.  This greatly expands our urination distribution area.  

But not all driveways are constructed alike.  We have the greenest grass in the village.  Our flowers are carefully selected, planted, and cared for with love.  Our neighbors walk by and compliment my parents on their floral choices.  We are all quite pleased.

A few days after our initial encounter I saw from my window the dog and his seeing-eye human on a walk.  I shouted like Trump at a female reporter, but again, he ignored me.  I watched him cross the street.  He was on our green grass.  Then his dad let him take a few steps up my driveway.

Then Mr. Magoo peed in my yard, and on my flowers.  Oh, the humanity!  I barked with every bit of air in my lungs.  At first, I thought he would ignore me, but before he left, he back kicked the dirt, surely a dismissive gesture.

I barked that I needed to go outside.  Daddy leashed me and I, ran on the lawn but all was ruined.  I had spent weeks peeing a five-gallon autobiography for my friends to read and M,r. Magoo pissed on it ruining the story’s flow.  It was sacrilege.  It was plagiarism!  It was vandalism! It smelled like vinegar!

So now it is war. A pissing contest to end all pissing contests.  If you read this and can spare some pee, please mail it to me.  As a dog as my witness, I will cover up his pee if I have to drink a dozen bowls of water a day.

Never piss on, piss off,  or piss on the piss, of a Griffon.