Peppy hogging the sheets in our apartment.
I live in an apartment with no closed backyard, so I walk him several times a day. On these walks, Peppy encounters things that are of great interest to him. His primary interest is other dogs. But certainly it does not end there! Oh, no.
He is also interested in squirrels, birds, large, loud men, children, high-pitched voices, bees, long-haired, bearded people, dropped food, groundhogs, fire hydrants, tall grass, deer, falling leaves and also shadows.
He does not like all of his interests, strangely enough. Usually when you think of interests, you think of things you like. Not Peppy. He often takes greatest interest in things he does not like. Too often.
The most prominent of his disliked interests are loud, rolling things. Semi-trucks. Buses. Tractors. If they are within his field of vision or audition, he immediately turns to where they are and either tries to chase them or digs his feet into the ground, starts shaking and breathing loudly and waits for them to get closer so he can viciously bark at them and successfully scare everyone sharing the sidewalk with him.
It's a progression. He is alerted. Then he gets excited. Then tense.
And then fucking livid (!!!) that such a creation is even on the face of the planet and convinced it should by all means be exterminated and he is just the dog for the job.
It's usually only a few seconds before the storm (truck) passes. Then he returns to normal, but walks with some more pep in his step.
The rough times are when we are walking on the sidewalk and he spots a skateboarder. Especially if we have not gone to the dog park that day, gods help us. When Peppy has not gone to the park, he acts as hyped up as a human who has just consumed four times their bodyweight in a viscous liquid mixture of coffee, cocaine and adrenaline. The difference is the person would die-- their heart would likely explode. Peppy drinks adrenacoffecaine for breakfast.
When a skateboarder careens-- or worse, lethargically drifts-- by, I am almost always certain that the morning headline will read, "Vicious dog breaks leash; skateboarding punk sees end of days", or something to that effect. The shocked look on the boarder's face: Oh my god, is that dog coming after ME? What the hell did I do?? OH GOD, WHAT DO I DO, SHOULD I STOP, OH GOD, OH GOD, JESUS, HELP, HELP MEEEE, GOD.
Then they're on their way.
Most times, I do not even see the skateboarder until Peppy is already freaking out.
I have grown to associate skateboarder with angry dog. This too, has been a progression.
Peppy hate skateboarder. Skateboarder give anger to Peppy. Me hate Peppy anger. Me hate skateboarder.
So when I walk by myself and I see a skateboarder, I think to myself, "That person is rude and uncaring and I don't know what business they have riding a skateboard when they could use literally any other mode of transportation if they wanted to, but they don't because they're selfish and I hate them!"
I mean, I don't think I'm being unreasonable here. Comment if you agree! If you disagree, kindly remove yourself from the premises.
peppy knows best.
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