Feeding the Dog

Miss Guinness, our 10-year-old collie makes the daily trip to the bus stop in the morning and again in the afternoon when the girls arrive home from school. The Three are clearly the envy of all the other uniform clad children, who press their noses against the glass of the tour coach and wave and point at our dog.

While I wait for the bus to arrive there are other people at the back gate doing their rountine 4:00 things as well. The lady who works at the recently opened dry cleaners and the lady from the China Welfare Lottery office are usually taking a little break on stools, outside of their places of employment, enjoying the afternoon sun.

The dog has become their topic of conversation, and I sometimes regret having admitted that I understand at least half of their banter.

"Does your dog eat apples?" The dry cleaning lady asks.

"No." I tell her shaking my head and trying not to make eye contact. (She's a person who likes to offer her opinion, pester and nag, and I've found limited communication most prudent.)

"You don't feed her apples?" she muses...

"No. No apples." I confirm.

"What do you feed her?"

"Um, food for dogs."

Side Note: I'm not sure the Chinese expression for dog food, so I just do a literal translation. I find this often works... providing a definition for the term I'm looking for when I'm unsure of the actual word.

Once, I could not for the life of me remember the Chinese word for "nurse." So I resorted to saying...

"You know, the person at the hospital who helps the doctor and wears the cute hat."

"Oh,you mean 护士 Hùshì," they said jovially.
I smiled with pride that my definition had worked, confident it was "the cute hat" clue that helped them make the connection.

(It's like playing Charades or the board game Taboo every single day!)

"Do you feed the dog tomatoes?"

"No... just food for dogs."

"Why not tomatoes?" she quiries. "You can feed a dog tomatoes," she insists. As if I really should have considered consulting with the dry cleaner at the back gate before committing to the Purina Dog Chow in the import section of the grocery store.

"Why not tomatoes?"

Did I mention she is relentless?

"I don't want her to get diarrhea." I finally admit. (Thankfully diarrhea is part of my Chinese vernacular and I don't have resort to a round about definition.)

"Oh," she says, nodding knowingly. And then for the benefit of all the other shop keepers in her strip and any passers-by within earshot, she proudly exclaims, "She's afraid of diarrhea, so she doesn't feed the dog tomatoes."

And finally she seems satisfied. My daily interrogation is over. But only for today.

Thankfully just then the bus drove up. The girls fought over who would walk the pup home, and then when we got there dished her up a cup of "food for dogs".