I am apparently famous.  Around here at least.

This morning, as I was out for a run, I was set upon by a terrier smaller and finer than our Rudolph, but clearly just as insanely energetic.  I stopped and let the growling little beast sidle up and sniff my legs, even though there was some pretty damned aggressive growling going on.  I wasn’t too worried about it… our Rudolph can also sound like a maniac, but he never means anything by it except that he wants to really fight you for the rope, stick, Frisbee, or oversized broccoli plant you’ve just pulled out of the ground to eat for lunch (which, mind you, doesn’t mean he wants to have the object in question, just that he wants to play tug of war with you over it).

The mortified owner of the growling terrier then arrived, very apologetically, and asked if her dog had bitten me… because, while the little dog didn’t usually, sometimes…  But the little terrier had just sniffed and then started jumping up on me just like Rudy does when he’s happy to see you (which is always, no matter who you are).

Relieved, the woman took to chatting at me at about 500 kilometers per hour, taking roughly 90 seconds to go from asking did her dog bite me to realizing, oh, I must be the “English woman” who lives in so-and-so’s old house and, oh, wait, didn’t I have a terrier, too, one that I’d gotten from this farm over there and, oh my goodness, was our terrier just as hyperactive, running around all over the place, curious about everything as hers and, ugh, it was just awful, their terrier sleeps every night in their daughter’s bed under the covers (which, hah, I could only laugh at because we lost that battle long ago, too).

Hah.  Living out in the countryside.  Eventually everyone within a 5 mile radius is gossiping about you, even if you don’t live in the same village and you’ve never previously seen each other, not even from afar.

Although, we do actually know a couple of people out here in the six or seven villages surrounding us now.  We even ran into one in the grocery store parking lot this afternoon.  Joern, the police officer from two villages over who is friends with the alpaca people and also helped the alpaca people out when the alpacas were sheared 6-ish weeks ago (the day the first slash wounds came to light).  Joern was driving out as we were driving in and he stopped and rolled down the window and yelled, “Geil!” at the logo of Spouse’s company now proudly stuck as a large magnet on the car door (these days you can get anything printed in waterproof, UV-resistent ink on big flat, flexible rubber magnets).  This made Spouse very proud.  (Even though, ahem, it was yours truly who designed and drew the logo.)

But mostly this just reminded me that I only recently learned that this German word literally means Horny! and I’m not brave enough to think about at all the times I may have totally inappropriately deployed it thinking that both its connotation and its denotation were Awesome!  Even worse, I have also learned that none of the young kids say, “Geil!” these days.  It’s as outmoded as groovy, announcing to the world that you are a dinosaur, although at least of the Gen X as opposed to the Baby Boomer variety.

But, ugh, speaking of horny, oh my goodness.  Has our Rudolph viciously hit puberty.  I can’t sit on the sofa and watch tv without being sexually harassed by the dog.  He also spent the whole day today sitting at my feet while I worked at my desk, giving me that 50-yard stare that means if I am unfortunate enough to get a glance of his undercarriage, I am treated to the view of full extent of his wet, pink, pulsating, helmeted hot dog.

{A little aside here… no, “hot dog” did not originate as a reference to a particular bit of anatomy on a hot dog.  It’s probably more that wieners probably did used to have a bit of surreptitious dog meat slipped into them and so came to be known as a bit of “hot dog.”  More interestingly, apparently the origin of the word dog is one of the “greatest mysteries of English etymology,” the proto-Indo-European terms being something closer to hound.  But I’d be willing to bet, dog just grew out of someone’s name for their hound and the term stuck and spread.  I’m always calling the escargot snails that wander around the garden here and can reach 35 years in age Fred.  Every last one of them (it’s not like I can tell them apart).  And when I talk about them to people, I always talk about the Freds.  So maybe I am planting the seeds of a later etymological mystery myself.}

Anyway, a few weeks ago, after Rudolph attempted sexual congress with my elbow one time too many, I put my foot down, and insisted Spouse deal with the hot dog problem.  My elbow is no longer flattered to be the sexiest elbow in the world. It simply wants to be left alone when trying to watch tv.

Surprisingly to me, quite a lot of Spouse’s personal manhood is invested in Rudolph’s testicles.  The grumbles I had to endure during the weeks it took Spouse to gird his loins and call the vet!  But he finally managed it.  But instead of being given an appointment for an operation, he and Rudy went in for a “castration consultation.”  Because, apparently, Germans don’t neuter their dogs as a matter of course.  Even spaying is not considered a moral imperative.  Instead, you need to have a damned good reason to mutilate the dog that way.  So vets encourage you to take male dogs you’re thinking of neutering on a testosterone-free test drive.  Thus did our Rudy come home from his castration consultation, as they say, intact but implanted with a six month supply of a blocker of testosterone production that will take six long elbow-assaulting weeks to begin to take effect.  Then we’ll see if his sex drive goes down without him turning into a vision of the older Elvis.

But all that’s happened so far is that Rudolph is experiencing a surge in testosterone production to which I can only say, sigh, because a sex-crazed dog is an unbearable dog.  The hot dog was out all day long, accompanied by much shaking, whimpering, and whining.  I’d feel sorry for the poor fellow if I hadn’t had to listen to that the entire day long while I was trying to write.

Also, Rudolph’s overly testosteroned state is starting to have expensive side effects.  Today he self-soothed during the one hour he was unsupervised because we were in the grocery store parking lot listening to Joern say, “Geil!” by chewing through one leash and Spouse’s eyeglasses, which Spouse had unwisely left within a terrier’s reach from the ground.  Their replacements are totally coming out of Rudolph’s allowance.  He’d better go get himself a paper route or something, although at least he didn’t swallow the lenses, just popped them out of their frame, which he then went on to demolish.