What Doggies Eat

A few weeks ago Boo Boo finally discovered the purpose of sticks. We were hanging out at a playground in the West Village when an older woman, a grandma, ambled up to the sprinklers where Boo Boo was playing. She had her granddaughter in tow and a French bulldog trundled alongside the stroller. 

 

The woman’s granddaughter was around two years old. The first thing she did when she was hoisted out of the stroller was grab the dog’s leash and parade the dog around the playground.

The little girl ambled from the swings to the slide to the jungle gym. The dog was admirably fine with this, airing no complaints as its tongue lolled out of its face, nearly dragging on the ground the same way the leash did. 

 

Boo Boo continued splashing around in the sprinklers and started collecting sticks that had been cast from the tall trees that shaded the playground. 

 

After making the rounds at the playground, the duo returned to the sprinklers, where the grandmother was finishing some chicken nuggets on one of the benches. She did not give any to the dog.

 

Boo Boo pointed at the dog and started woofing. He had one hand wrapped around a stick, and with the other he had been throwing a ball into the puddles, chasing it and grabbing it and throwing it and chasing and grabbing it, but communing with dog quickly took precedent over water sports and he hurried to the dog as quickly as his little legs could carry him. 

 

I asked if it was okay for Boo Boo to say hi, even though I already knew the answer.

 

The dog eyed Boo Boo, who, even at his diminutive toddler stature, towered over him. The French bulldog was unfazed, and remained so when Boo Boo started pointed at his nose, which inevitably led to his fingers almost probing the dog’s nose. Clearly used to being abused by small humans, the dog sat there and stared off into space, as if Boo Boo were nothing more than a fruit fly orbiting his head. 

 

“Aaaaaaohhh, aaaaoooooh,” said Boo Boo, who thinks that in order to speak fluently to dogs one must growl at them. 

 

The dog’s ears perked up–not because he was moved by what Boo Boo was telling him, but because Boo Boo had something he wanted. His stick had been firmly in his grasp the entire time. I let him hold it, despite having visions of him poking his eye out, even though that would be very hard to do and it’s not something I’ve ever seen happen in real life. 

 

Boo Boo is not happy when his sticks are taken away. I could not explain this to the dog, though. The dog unabashedly grasped the stick in his mouth, and for a second I thought an extremely uneven bout of tug-of-war would ensue, or perhaps Boo Boo would erupt in a tantrum. 

Instead, Boo Boo just looked at me and pointed and the dog gently but firmly pulled the stick out of his grasp. The stick became one with the dog’s mouth. 

 

“Oh!”

 

Then he squatted to be at level with the dog’s mouth. For a second I thought he would try to extract the stick from the dog’s saliva-sopped maw. Instead, he cocked his head to the side to get a better view of the dog’s large teeth crushing the stick into pulp. And then his smiled, stood up and turned around. He scanned the ground, and then squatted and picked up another stick, and hurried back to the dog.

 

Boo Boo squatted again so his face could be level with the dog’s, and proceeded to break the stick into pieces. Then, with an outstretched arm, he offered a piece of stick to the dog. The French bulldog was perfectly content pulverizing the first stick, but stopped to regard this new offering from the small hand and squishy arm hovering inches away from his canines. 

 

He gingerly grabbed the stick morsel, and the tiny hand did not flinch. Boo Boo interpreted this to mean that the dog was hungry, and offered more sticks. The dog took each offering, dropped it to the ground and nosed it. 

 

Boo Boo clapped his hands and reveled in this new mind-blowing discovery that the reason sticks fell from trees was so that dogs could graze on them, and that he, little stick harvester that he was, could feed them.