Free Flea Exchange

She really is a lovely dog but she smells. A lot. When I go to work, I know she creeps onto my bed because I can smell that funky scent in my sheets later. The bloody dirtbag even pulls back the covers. Apparently her scent derives from being short haired: the oils she produces to stay warm kind of go off after a while. When she gets bad, we go down to the inlet shore and I throw out a stick. She fetches it, I rub dog shampoo through her coat and throw out the stick again. The simple life.

Her and the cat have their daily fight, often in the evenings. She growls, howls and snakes her neck at the cat, inching closer and swinging her claws at the cat. Close, but never too close. Haunches in the air, tail waving. Cat growls, fuck off you baby punk, and retreats under the bed where she can strike better at the dog in the dark.

I patted them both goodbye yesterday morning on my way to the fire tower, started up the car and got a hundred metres down the corrugated travesty of a track when I realised there was no phone to plug into the car charger.
I walked into the house and there on my bed, set up in the living room next to the fire, was the dog and the cat, lying curled around each other like two commas.