I am sitting on the kitchen floor clipping Jack the Terrier’s toenails. Hazel the Weimaraner is curious and then delighted, and she quickly turns it into a game, tracking down each new tiny bit of clipped nail and eating it. Jack watches her from my lap, seemingly concerned, and Kallan (who is sitting above me at the kitchen counter), takes up the narrative from Hazel’s point of view …
“What? This is me flirting.”
“OK, well it just annoys me when you tell me I frighten you.”
“Listen, boy. This is how my love works, and if you’re going to be all babyish about it, we can just call this thing between us over.”
“Hold still … let her clip another one.”
“What? Toenail scrap-nibbling is too a thing.”
“A flirty thing … did you see how I caught that one mid-air? Yes, this is a flirty thing. It’s a piece of you, and now I’ve eaten it. How is that not flirty?”
“Stop being so wimpy. It’s not like I’m nibbling them off of your actual feet. These are freebies. You don’t need them anymore.”
“Whatever.”
“Later, you’ll be all sleepy and curled up next to me, and you’ll look up at me and ask Why does your breath smell like toenails? And …”
“Shut up … in my story you haven’t seen me eat the toenails. Geez, could you be less boyfriendy?”
“OK, so you will look up at me, and you’ll sleepily ask, Why does your breath smell like toenails? And I’ll be all … STOP INTERRUPTING WITH FEAR-TALK … I’ll be all …”
“Did you see how I flipped in the air to catch that toenail bit? You have to admit, that was pretty impressive.”
“OK, so you will ask why my breath smells like toenails, and I will say …”
“No, in this story, you do not have bloody-stump feet … I SAID STOP INTERRUPTING WITH FEAR-TALK.”
“Just shut up for one second.”
“OK, you will ask why my breath smells like toenails, and I will say, I ate them … because I love you, boy.”
“THERE ARE NO BLOODY PAW-STUMPS IN THIS STORY. Why do I even talk to you?”
“I caught another one mid-air! My flirtiness is off the charts, boy!”
Having finished clipping all of Jack’s toenails, I release him, and he scrambles to right himself and reassert some dignity. Hazel stares at him for a second and then races away. Jack shakes himself and stands, his head cocked worriedly, listening as Hazel barrels through the house.
Jack braces himself for her return, but as she weighs quite a bit more than he does and has velocity on her side, he is doomed. Hazel comes flying into the room and throws Jack to the ground, rolling him over and pinning him beneath her. She holds him tightly and shoves her nose into his defensive maneuvers to grab at one of his front feet.
She starts nibbling giddily on his just-clipped toenails.
Jack lets out a little shriek of questioning terror.
“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, BOY!”
Kallan is awesome. She should narrate the dogs all the time. I’d read that.
Speaking of reading… I finished Fightball and my only complaint is that it took me way too long to realize there wasn’t any more. My Kindle app said I was at 100% on page 3308 of 3312. Anywho review to come. I read it during downtime in a training session so I’m surprised I wasn’t fired for giggling loudly.
Loved it
Kallan is indeed awesome at the narrating of the dogs’ inner lives, although the role of Hazel is very changeable … Hazel is sometimes a would-be girlfriend to Jack and other times hunter to his prey and other times queen to his serf. Only occasionally does Jack get a dominant role these days.
As for the reports of rowdy giggling?
LOVE IT.
Thank you!
Ewwwwwww. That’s all I can say about this one.
However, I’m about 80% done with Fightball and I ADORE IT! I promise an Amazon review when it’s released, as it wouldn’t let me do it yesterday when I tried. Randomly, can you do an audio book and have Maj screech her part? The thought endless cracks me up, while the reality would probably give me a brain aneurysm.
An EWWW plus some adoration … what more could I ask for?
Although there will be no audio-books. Even if I wanted to do such a thing (and no, I do not), Maj would never be on board.
Ever.
You are braver than me. I can’t clip the dogs nails no matter who would be catching them. I’m too fearful of being responsible for bloody stumpfeet.
Kallan narrates superbly.
Persie the Labrador has very long toenails I am terrified to cut, because they are black, and I cannot tell where the quick begins. The times I have tried, there has been minor bloodshed, and so she is WARY IN THE EXTREME if she sees me with the clipper, which makes things even more difficult.
Sigh.
Further to Issa’s comment.
No, we do not want to hear Maj in full voice.
We are way to old, and colorful, for that, thank you so much.
Fightball Owns the Internet.
Fightball owns the internet?
HA!
Too. Crap.
HA!
Ahem.
Catching up but not catching toenails because *gag*.
Also, Kallan needs to come and narrate at my house because the giggles would be endless!
Kallan does bring the giggles. Also the screaming and the incredulous teen-rage and the lies. But giggles … she does bring those … and so she continues to live.