ALL WET
Baby is a rescue, found on the streets of Tijuana, emaciated and battered. I have never seen a creature with so much fear. She bonded comfortably with my wife and other women, but whenever I entered the room, she would growl and shake violently. It was clear Baby had been abused by males. It was a challenge living with someone who despised me. I began to wonder if we should take her back. I had to set my fragile feelings aside and focus on Baby. What she needed was a man who would never hurt her, along with hearty helpings of love. I decided to keep her, which turned out to be the best decision I ever made. Once she got somewhat settled in her new home, she started to display behaviors that I, as an inexperienced pet owner, can only call odd; When it came to eating, she was insanely finicky, refusing to touch any of the countless brands of dog food presented to her, and the same with human food. The only thing she deigned to consume was cat food - She had a propensity for staring, sometimes for hours, often at me, with a gaze so intense it could melt steel - Normally very timid, she couldn’t keep herself from barking ferociously at other dogs, especially very large dogs - And, of course, there was her baffling affinity to the rain.
When I decided to write a book about a talking dog my secret hope was that the talking dog character would speak to me (as written characters sometimes do), answering questions and solving mysteries. Alas, that was too much to hope for.
Zeroing in on Baby’s rain fixation, I studied her closely for months, finally concluding that what she loves most is not the rain but the toweling off afterward. Actually, the thing that causes her to wriggle around ecstatically, whimpering with joy, and hoping it never stops is the entire ritual; the rain and the toweling and the song I sing to her during the toweling. In Baby’s mind, these elements are all connected, part of a whole, and absolutely cannot be altered.
Another conclusion I came to is there is nothing wrong with Baby, she’s simply who she is, quirks and all. She adores our rain ritual, exactly how it’s been practiced, and she insists that is how it should be. And that is how it is.