Stella, my English bulldog and Charlee, my Chinese pug, share a long and contentious history. I’ve tried to be an understanding diplomat, mediating international relations when minor incidents escalate into full-blown conflabs, and most of the time I’m able to negotiate a truce.
Stella is a bitch. She’s idealistic, unafraid of jihad, mounting attacks with little warning, sometimes over food, other times over territorial infractions, real and imagined.
Charlee is neurotic. She is not an aggressor, but she doesn't have the good sense to know when to back off. When static begins to pop above Stella’s head, Charlee picks it up on radar and scrambles F-16s to mount a counter-attack.
We (The Humans) had ignored signs pointing toward a full-scale war, disbelieving that either of them would let their differences get in the way of peaceful cohabitation.
They started in the other day like so many other skirmishes: snarling and barking, a boy yelling above the chaos demanding that peace be still. But neither would concede, and then Charlee began to yelp and the yelp split into a yowl that curled into a sickening whine.
Jake ran to me, holding Charlee who was in wide-eyed shock. If you haven’t seen a popped out eyeball it’s as disconcerting as you might suspect. It stared at me, unblinking, and I had to look away. Like I always do in a crisis, I froze. Then I had the thought to call the vet. Someone else thought of dripping Visine on the eyeball until we could get to the doggie ER.
The vet was pleased with how easily it popped back into the socket. “Didn’t even need a stitch,” he said.
That was two weeks ago, and in many ways Charlee is back to her old self. The spring in her step has returned, and she still stages barking brigades for no apparent reason. But the eye, still bulging a little too much, stares off in another direction, as if patrolling the corner of the room, the doorway.
Stella won a piece of Charlee. The pug gives the bully a wider berth, has surrendered first food rights, and forged a deeper alliance with The Humans Mounted on one of our laps, she’ll puff her chest and trash-talk the bulldog, but as far as throwing down, she’s seeing things a little differently these days.
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