Image by Sally Russell
By Chris Giblin
A local bulldog sniffed a fire hydrant he believed to be rightfully his but sensed strange odors emanating from the area. The dog proceeded to growl angrily and pace back and forth near the hydrant for the remainder of the afternoon and night yesterday.
The dog, Rusty, has laid an unofficial claim to the fire hydrant on his owners’ property for about four years now and visits the site on a daily basis. Rusty’s hydrant activities normally include sniffing it for a while, pissing on it and, at times, taking a shit near it.
However, after loping out for a routine afternoon piss and sniffing the fire hydrant, Rusty was noticeably unnerved by an apparent breach of his property. Smelling urine from some animal other than himself, Rusty made everyone a suspect, barking at passing cars and birds and growling at dogs being walked by their owners.
“He’s never been much of a social dog,” owner Henry Ludlow said. “He’s never really liked strangers or other dogs. He kinda feels entitled to a lot of things, when of course, that shouldn’t really be the case.”
Indeed, the pet has successfully laid claim to all leftover dinner scraps the Ludlow family has to offer, and he has also obtained sole possession of the family guest room year round. A self-centered, exploitative, poorly trained dog, Rusty thrives on human attention and has developed little sense of discipline.
In the interest of finding the perpetrator, Rusty has refused to come inside since the initial sniffing, despite a harsh thunderstorm that hit during the wee hours of the morning.
“I couldn’t sleep at all,” annoyed neighbor Arnold Crandall said of the night before. “That fucking dog was up barking all night. By two in the morning, I was hoping a bolt of lightning would hit the thing just so it would shut the fuck up and die.”
In contrast, the lightning only encouraged Rusty’s vigilant barking, giving him clear flashes of the scenery around him from time to time. He spotted a suspicious-looking deer during one of these flashes, causing him to escalate the volume and frequency of his barking to alarming heights.
Along with the deer, Rusty seems to believe other top suspects to be a German shepard from down the street, a Domino’s pizza car that passed by the house a few times over the course of the day and a black squirrel that often scurries around the Ludlow front yard.
“I think I’m just gonna let him do his thing for a while,” Ludlow said of Rusty’s behavior. “He’s completely occupied, and I’m a pretty heavy sleeper so I don’t mind the barking so much. I just don’t want to deal with the needy little bastard right now.”
At press time, Rusty was seen with both front legs resting on the top of the fire hydrant, barking at a Westie being walked about three blocks away.
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Chris Giblin is a junior TV-R major who doesn’t usually piss on fire hydrants. E-mail him at [email protected].