Back from Addis: Free at last

Finally, on Monday, my mistress sprung me from the vet’s, where I languished for two weeks. There are dog psychologists who say that we don’t have any concept of time, but don’t you believe it. I was counting the days—and there were 14. Just before she picked my up I had my usual spa treatment—bath and nail trim—so I knew it was almost time.

Anyway, as soon as I got home and jumped onto the feather quilt on Mary’s bed, I started hearing her and my master carrying on about their trip to Ethiopia. It sounded like it was no kind of place for the likes of me, as animals there are expected to work like--shall I say it?-- dogs. They saw horses threshing wheat, donkeys carrying all kinds of loads and oxen plowing fields. What dogs they saw were mangy street survivors.

Mary and Lewis crossed paths with a group of Gelada baboons in a national park, where they learned that harems of lady baboons choose their shared mate in what is known as a matrilineal society. Being of the female persuasion I can see the logic in that. As I do for the way hyenas sort out gender roles.

My master and mistress interacted with a pack of spotted hyenas in Harrar, an ancient walled city to the east of Addis Abbaba. Legend says that men have been feeding the beasts outside those walls at night for 500 years. When Mary mentioned to the guide that a big male grabbed all the food, leaving the females cowering behind, he pointed out that the piggy eater was in fact, female. Turns out that in the hyena hierarchy females are larger and more aggressive than the males. You go, girls.

On Wednesday, Mary and I met with the Wednesday Walkie Talkies for the first walk of the New Year after a holiday break. Partway through their walk through Olmos Park, it started misting, then raining. So as soon as I got home, I jumped back into my favorite warm, dry spot: the feather quilt on Mary’s bed.