Lucky dog senses mom’s indulgence





After my mother moved West, she graciously became my No. 1 choice as dog-sitter. Although in her late 70s by then, she was still robust. Well, Frisbee tosses and trail runs were a bit beyond her fitness level.

Mostly she over- indulged my dog with table scraps and shared “terrace time,” hanging out together on her condo’s small terrace that directly overlooked a neighboring estate’s elegant backyard.

“My, but that swimming pool does look inviting,” she’d say wistfully to the dog, who had a reputation as quite the creekdipping, ocean-frolicking canine.

My mother never learned to swim, an unusual circumstance since my dad was an avid swimmer. But she cherished a ruffled, daring, blue-and-white checkered bikini she’d bought on a visit to Paris in the 1960s, which she could still fit into many years later.

It wasn’t a particularly flattering fit anymore, but the swimsuit reminded her of her one foray abroad, as well as family beach visits.

Wading knee-deep to splash about and cool off was as far as my mother ventured. She trusted my dad’s aquatic skills to rescue her, so would appoint him to safeguard her on her “plunges into the deep,” with “deep” being any body of water more significant than a kiddie pool.

Peering down at the estate pool’s activity, where kids, guests and dogs were “whooping it up,” as Mom liked to describe it, my dog whined and paced frantically.

“It is hot,” she told the dog one day. “And the condo manager won’t let you go in our pool. . . .”

As she murmured this, some spark of inspiration and mischief was conveyed between my dogsitting mother and her watercrazy charge.

Mom grabbed the dog’s leash and marched with the dog around the block to the estate, proceeded up the long walkway lined in roses and trimmed boxwood, and rang the doorbell.

A very burly man with dripping gray hair, thick brows and mustache opened the door.

“Oh my, aren’t you that actor from that detective series long ago?” my mother gasped in astonishment and awe.

“Aren’t you the little old lady from that balcony, who waters her potted plants while wearing that blue-and-white bikini?” the man asked, sounding equally astonished and awed. “My grandkids think you’re so adorable. Is there a problem? Are the kids too loud? Would you like to come in for a lemonade?”

“Actually, my dog here— well, I’m looking after it; it’s my daughter’s dog and just the nicest dog, really sweet and obedient and very neat—I was wondering if she might have a swim? In your lovely pool?”

The man laughed and ushered my mother and the sweet, neat dog into his backyard for swim time and a barbecue. Afterward, his grandchildren escorted the tired, ecstatic pair home, where my mother fed them mint chocolate chip ice cream, her all-time favorite.

When my mother recounted this adventure, I marveled at her single-minded, top-priority devotion to doing something that would thrill and delight a dog in her care.

“He was such a big star once, a real important big shot on TV, and he let us right in, us nobodies!” she said.

“You look like Brigitte Bardot in that old bikini and have ‘alltime terrific mom and dog lover’ written all over you. That’s why he let you in,” I corrected her.

Glasser is a writer fascinated by the flora and fauna surrounding her home in the Santa Monica Mountains. Reach her at ranchomulholla@gmail.com.



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