Even when she wasn’t on an official adventure, Rosie still had plenty of duties to attend to, duties that interrupted her leisure time, but that could be trusted to no one else.
Even when Rosie the Three-legged Dragon wasn’t on an official adventure, she still had plenty of duties to attend to, duties that interrupted her leisure time, but that could be trusted to no one else. Chief among these was her nightly patrol. In canine if not quite dragon terms, Rosie’s territory was large, consisting of well over ten acres that, much to her chagrin, was also home to rabbits, ground hogs, squirrels, deer, birds, coyotes, and the occasional black bear, anyone of which constituted an unacceptable threat and potential incursion. There was also no shortage of dogs with adjoining territories, anyone of whom might decide to encroach on hers, few of whom she trusted to help her like the aging pitbull that came to her aid after she became lost while attempting to run away during the munchkin invasion. In short, it was a jungle out there, even though Rosie the Three-legged Dragon lived in rural New Jersey rather than the African savannah where wild dogs roamed in terrifying packs and it was up to her to protect what was hers by right, as a queen and a dragon. Ideally, she would undertake this patrol on her own, soaring over her domain more like a vengeful angel than a mere dragon, but mommy and daddy didn’t generally approve and rather than letting her run free, insisted on accompanying her, frequently with another human servant and little, almost completely useless Carlitos. While this was quite confusing to Rosie and as either a dog or a dragon, she had very little in the way of reasoning skills to which to attribute turning her sacred duty into a family affair, where she was reduced to being on the dreaded leash, it probably had something to do with her only having three legs, and whatever the case, some jobs simply needed to be done, either on a group or on your own, and so she suffered the indignity in service of a higher calling.
Perhaps needless to say, the higher calling didn’t mean she couldn’t have a little fun. If she knew one thing about daddy, it’s that he was crazy and though he had only two legs and was a slow, pathetically uncoordinated human at that, he would frequently attempt to keep up with her in the early goings. After exiting the back of the lair, Rosie would bank left, across the grass and the driveway, around the car trailer mommy hates just sitting there because daddy insists on thinking he’s a race car driver, onto the open plain that was the neighbor’s yard and simply start running. A greyhound on the wing, even one with three legs, is a sight to behold, bounding across the lawn in huge, graceful strides, especially in the half-light of an early evening, after the sun has just set and a glow still lingers in the sky, but a human, especially this particular human who has never been known as either fast or agile, is pretty much the exact opposite. The result can be likened to a shark dragging a really bad water skier over rough seas at high speed, bouncing him along until he ends up in the monster’s jaws. For his part, daddy held onto the leash for dear life, legs flopping around as fast he could get them to go with this tiny, near spastic strides, hoping against hope that he didn’t fall flat on his face. Rosie, meanwhile, raced ahead as far as the leash would allow, running, bounding, leaping around despite her three legs, and occasionally glancing back to snicker at how slow daddy was. At the same time, she gave him some credit for trying to keep up with her when no one else dared and her overall goal was to have a little fun at at his expense, not to drag him down like an actual water skier pulled under by a shark, and she never quite went so fast that he was in danger of breaking his neck. Fast enough that it was funny to watch, but not enough to seriously injure him, or so she hoped, despite that on at least one evening Rosie remembered quite fondly, daddy was attempting to keep up with her in flip flops while carting his fancy new camera around. Perhaps needless to say, it didn’t work out well for him. About half way across the open plain, the flip flops flew right off, he almost fell over, and the camera came close to flying itself, but Rosie barely slowed down.
Regardless, fun time was officially over once they crossed the open field that passed for the neighbor’s yard and the business of the patrol officially began, or technically began after the rest of the family finally caught up. Mommy was the most beautiful woman in the world, the same as she was the most beautiful dog, and Rosie would wait on her close to forever, or as close as a doggie gets with their too short life spans. It was the other two, the human servant and her younger brother that annoyed her to no end. Though Carlitos was supposed to be a whippet and therefore able to run almost as fast as a true greyhound even if much less gracefully, and he in particular fancied himself either a comic book superhero, a spy, or a cartoon character, he was exceedingly slow and lackadaisical when it came to patrolling the territory. Rather than drag his human servant along as Rosie did, eager to get on with it, Carlitos took his sweet, sweet time, walking in an odd way with his butt tucked in and raised high, as if he owned the place, and keeping pace with the slow humans. He wasn’t so much as out on patrol, as ready for a parade, leaving it up to Rosie to do all the work and slowing her down even further when he refused to keep up, completely failing to recognize the seriousness of the business. In that regard, a good part of it was actually doing her business as they say. After crossing the field and waiting rather impatiently for the laggards, a scene which generally meant her going in a few circles while daddy stood there close to as impatiently trying not to get tied up in the leash himself, Rosie began marking her territory primarily by urinating in key spots as she proceeded up the block. On both sides of the street over the course of close to three hundred yards, the neighbor’s houses rose from large lawns in the early evening air, stately things with brick faces, well-manicured yards and finely cared for landscaping, proudly lining the main thoroughfare.
To us, it would have made for a fine neighborhood, the perfect place to walk a normal, respectable purebred dog, but Rosie was neither – dragons simply cannot be bound by canine terms or sensibilities – and wasn’t particularly concerned about such human things in any event. Whoever’s property it was, she crossed from one side of the street to the other, dragging daddy along while methodically leaving her scent about every ten yards. A part of her might have been aware that daddy wasn’t precisely thrilled with the idea of being caught with a dog peeing right outside a neighbors’ window, followed by being caught right outside another, as if he could imagine alarms going off up and down the block, but he didn’t have much choice in the matter and if that did happen, he’d be forced to make some kind of excuse, likely asking how he could prevent a three-legged dog from wandering where she wanted? Are you really that cruel? What do you want me to do, drag her around by the neck? Either way, Rosie was in charge even on the leash, which incredibly had far less impact on a dog than it would on a human, and in between the markings, she turned into the canine equivalent of a classic detective, substituting her snout and keen sense of smell for the magnifying glass. The information a dog can glean from the scent left behind on something as simple as a blade of grass is astounding from a human perspective, especially if she really worked at it, practically burying her nose in the ground and taking short, deep breaths all around, like a crime scene photographer capturing multiple angles. Daddy frequently grew impatient during these inspections, wondering if she was sticking her nose in some other dog or animal’s poop or perhaps even eating it as Carlitos did from time to time, but some things simply needed to be done by the book as they say, and this was one of them. At a minimum, Rosie would conduct a detailed analysis of any animal that had passed within the last 24 hours, if not longer. She would study the species of the animal question, and also something of its mood and intention. The deer, which were by far the most frequent trespassers, she carefully monitored in case they decided to mount a full on invasion, yet largely ignored because they were everywhere, but the others could be far more concerning. Bears and coyotes were reclusive, yet constituted a potential threat.
When she scented either, a more thorough investigation was required to make sure they weren’t close and such investigations could be dangerous, requiring Rosie to leave her territory proper and proceed into the unknown, which in this case meant dragging daddy through a neighbor’s yard, out to a line of trees at the back of their property. As the neighborhood was generally dark and there were no street lamps, this took courage, fortitude, the heart of a dragon, all things she possessed to the highest degree, at least in her own three-legged mind. For his part, Daddy had no choice except to follow into the night or rather he felt bad about putting too much pressure on the leash and hurting her, a fact Rosie used to maximum advantage, but the rest of the family must’ve been cowards, especially Carlitos. While she ventured headlong into danger, protecting her territory as she must, they almost always remained behind on the street, calling on Rosie to come back, as if she had any choice in the matter and it was acceptable to have large predators simply roaming about freely rather than intolerable. After making sure whatever it was no longer either in her territory proper or near it, looking off into the woods with the sharp eyes of a sight hound even in the dark, she frequently made an additional statement of her displeasure by pooping in the creature’s path rather than merely peeing, apparently believing that sort of highly concentrated stench would serve as a necessary warning not to venture back this way. While it might make no sense on the surface to humans, we can presume or hope it makes some sense to her and the other animals, or else the nightly patrol must be accompanied by a bout of diarrhea because pooping three or four times was not an uncommon occurrence. Of course, this left poor daddy in an even more precarious position, standing at times right outside a neighbor’s house in the dark, visible in the light of the windows should anyone peek out, with the family dog taking a big dump on the lawn which necessarily took longer than an ordinary marking, but Rosie, being a dog, didn’t know and didn’t care, not when she had a job to do.
If anything, she seemed to take a perverse delight in getting as close to the house as possible, though possibly in her dragon-dog way she concluded she was protecting them as much as her own family as a result of these actions. After all, if she didn’t want a bear or coyote in her territory, why would they want one in theirs? From that perspective, these nightly patrols were a service to the entire area and therefore, we should not be surprised that Rosie took great pride in their undertaking. It was serious, serious work, but accompanied with a sense of accomplishment, the more markings, the more poops, the more ground covered, the better. At the same time, we should not assume there was no selfish motivation of any kind. There was prey to be scented in addition to predators, and of the critters known to frequent the area, nothing drove Rosie crazier than the presence, or even the proximity, of a rabbit. From her days chasing stuffed ones around the racetrack back before she was retired at less than two years old, there has been nothing that drove her to such a frenzy, and should she scent one on patrol, she would immediately begin pulling on the leash in whatever direction the rabbit had come from, no longer caring whether she accidentally strangled herself. Most of the time Rosie had no interest in human speech, but on these occasions, she wished she could inform daddy that she was on the hunt and maybe, just maybe, he should let her run free just this once.
Instead, after a larger than usual amount of sniffing around, frequently while waiting for the rest of the family to keep up, the patrol would continue, up to the curve in the street, and across the equivalent of the lair from behind, albeit from several acres away. While Rosie refused to admit it, the turn was around the point that she began to feel the reality she was on three legs rather than four, at least to the extent a canine or a dragon could feel such a thing. All she knew was she seemed more tired than she should’ve after running and walking for around for less than fifteen minutes, panting harder than seemed reasonable, especially compared to Carlitos who blithely continued his tucked-in butt of a walk as if he was simply out for a stroll. Needless to say, Rosie the Three-legged Dragon wouldn’t concede this was the case under any circumstances, not when she possessed the heart, the will, and the pride of a dragon. Even if she could talk, she’d pretend absolutely nothing was wrong and indeed, while on patrol, she was sure to continue with the same level of diligence as previously, hoping her human servants and her little brother didn’t notice that she was running a little less and stopping a little more while panting rather profusely. It was around this time that Rosie, heavy as the head is which wears the crown, frequently wished Carlitos would step up and do his share of the work, rather than coasting on her coat tails, or I guess in this case, her actual tail would be more accurate.
One particular night, the feeling was even more pronounced. It was dark by the time they reached the point where they began to circle back down the path that led to the complete circuit of her territory, and the wind had picked up, carrying with it an overwhelming number of scents from near and far, so many even a dog could not separate them all. It was though Rosie was caught up in a tornado, where the world itself was spinning around her, and she had no idea where she was or why. Her own smell was cast back at her, along with seemingly every bear, coyote, and rabbit that had crossed her territory the entire year along with several armies of deer, all of it so jumbled she couldn’t say when or where, as if she’d been deposited by the tornado in some entirely new planet, one she’d never seen before. Carlitos must’ve felt it too, because he looked at her funny, tucking back his ears and placing his tail between his legs. Even mommy and daddy paused in their walk, wondering what had happened. Rosie the Three-legged Dragon wanted to press onward and complete the patrol, but which way to go and what was that new smell?
TO BE CONTINUED…
While you wait for the next installment, check out Rosie the three-legged dragon and the three days of night and Rosie the three-legged dragon and the munchkin invasion.
