Photo by Maria Wulf

Fate is a bad influence, the Pirate Dog. First off, she is not allowed on the furniture in the house, but she somehow manages to slither up into my lap and wriggle upside down there. She just cuddles sweetly for a couple of minutes, and then I see the Pirate gleam in her eye.

She lulls me by licking me and cuddling up and then turns her pirate eye to me and starts trouble, then she strikes.

She grabs my hand and finger – lightly – and tries to catch and capture my hand in her paw. I move my hand up and down and back and forth and she tries to catch it. Sometimes, she catches my hand in her mouth, but she never harms it or grips it hard. Sometimes I move it back and forth and drive her mad.

She loves to lie in my lap upside down. Maria laughs and says we are ridiculous. This is all the dog’s fault, I say. She is trouble, I have nothing to do with it..

We wrassle. This can go on a long time, Maria says Fate and I are much a like and deserve one another. This happens two or three times a day and eventually I toss her off of my lap and one of these days I will scold her for causing so much trouble. Maria says we each tap into the crazed parts of the other. I deny this.

She is just a bad influence. A Pirate Dog.