Indigestion

"I bought Orion a present?" Katie, my longtime friend tells me over the phone.
"Oh?"
"I got the princess pool. Bright pink, waiting for him on my back porch."
"That is awesome. He'll love it."

"Come on Orion! We're going over to Katie's!" Orion lumbers around the corner of the hallway. The heat increases lumber behavior in both my dog and myself because inside we are melting every lingering 98 degree day in the midwest. I have driven to the park just to drop him in the creek and back home again. But today, we are off to my original stomping ground when I returned to Ohio. Pulling up, I suggest firmly, "No bark."
He yipes.
"NO BARK!"
Apparently Ceasar Milan's philosophie on energy and meaning it hasn't translated through enough for me because he's still barking with anticipation.
I pop out of the car, cracking the windows so my butt won't burn off when we return, look at Orion from the outside, point my finger and say, "NO BARK."
I have many conversations with my dog coming too and from my car. Often I presume people think I'm talking to my car itself because he will lay on the seat or on the floor, but I don't mind.
Orion is quiet for a moment, so I open the door.
"Good no bark."
We walk up the path to Katie's, push through the gate, and Orion bolts for Katie's peacefully sleeping self on the hammock.
"Here he comes!" I holler after him, in hopes of giving her a heads up. She rotates to put her feet on the floor and scoops up my happy dog.
Katie was Orion's first dog sitter, and taught me all about how a dog remembers his "mom's" heartbeat. I think this is why as a young pup Orion spent a lot of time curled in my lap, pressed against my torso.
After Orion completes his greetings it doesn't take long for him to take advantage of free reign in the yard and he's off, sprinting through Katie's gardens, the grass, behind and into the shed, up on the porch and...
into the princess pool.
He jumps in as if this pool absolutely should be here and just for him. Dropping down in the water, his whole mass demonstrates the concept of volume, as water spills out to the porch floor. He happily licks up the water, tosses his legs out to the side to roll more of his hot fur under and then up and out. He's off exploring again.
"Um Molls?"
I look up.
Orion has a brown banana peel dangling from his mouth.
"Oh geez."
And I'm up, doing exactly what Caesar tells you not to do, chasing my dog around the yard trying to get the gross banana peel before it disappears into the great beyond.
While I manage to pull it out of his mouth, returning to the princess pool to rinse my own hands, it takes no more than five minutes till, "Um Molls?"
He's off with a decaying pepper.
Pepper, another banana peel, another pepper, grass, and some bark from a stump, and finally he returns to the princess pool to cool off.
Never mind that I just gave him a bowl of food and some tuna fish leftovers.