Thursday, June 10, 2004
The Adventures of Cosmo, the Mostly-Good Dog, Adventure the Fourth: Coz and the Carcass
We’d hosted thanksgiving, which was a time of gladsome carousing and abundant leftovers. By the end, our 20 or 30 closest friends had loaded up with pies and fresh bread, soup and kugel, mashed potatoes with bacon and a full spectrum of cookies, and Kel and I sat in the smoking waste of our house with Cosmo. It had been, I think, his first really big party, and he’d been just as good as he possibly could have been. Of course, he had tried to lick a few plates, and wrestled all comers to win any crumb that fell to the floor, but he’d had fun and we’d had fun and everyone had told us what a very good boy he was, so we were glowing with the pride of stuffed drunks who’d somehow mounted a successful party at their own home. We cleaned up a bit and went to bed. Cosmo snores but that night we didn’t hear him.
The next day we were gearing up to work with the single biggest prize of the thanksgiving leftovers - a turkey carcass, spangled with savory meat and rich with marrow and flavor. We intended to drop it in a stockpot and simmer it until it was soup, so we hauled it out of the fridge and set it on the counter. The phone rang. Who it was, the nature of the emergency, are no longer remembered or important. The only part that is still worth the telling is that we had to leave - and in a hurry. Lights were shut off, the radio turned on to keep the dog company, and we bolted.
Coz had slyly kept a very low profile as we left. We’d had no idea what he was planning in that thick heavy head of his. But he’d somehow contrived that we’d leave him with a carcass and a few hours of solitude.
I only wish I could have seen him, seen the triumph in his eyes as he somehow got hold of that carcass on the counter and pulled it to the floor. And once it was on the floor, maybe it’s better that we didn’t see him gorge on it. Seeing the aftermath was enough.
At first, when we got home, we didn’t see the dog. This caused us no small concern - he should have been at the door to greet us. We went to the kitchen and saw carnage. Carnage - and an empty roasting pan. It had been a big bird, maybe 20 or 25 pounds. There had been stuffing, too, and onions… what we saw was the roasting pan on the floor in a shallow sea of crumbs of meat and bone. It wasn’t hard to follow the trail of grease, bone, meat and gluttony out into the dining room and thence to the living room, to the narrow space between the back of the old brown davenport and the front window.
There was coz, lying on his back, his feet helplessly cocked in the air. And there was the carcass, distending his gut. Coz looked over at us, dolefully but with deep satisfaction. Bits of turkey meat clung to his fur and face and carpeted the hardwood floor where he lay. The remaining bones were mere splinters; the remaining food, mere specks. Really, there was almost nothing left. His tongue rolled out of his mouth like a cartoon tongue. I’ve never seen a dog so uncomfortable, yet so happy. He’d eaten the whole thing. Though we’d deprived him of the celebratory fowl it for an entire party, we couldn’t protect it from him forever. And we couldn’t protect him from himself either - though, despite his painful-looking bloat, I don’t think he held it against us.
