Dog 1 : Bird 0

Yesterday started off like any other typical Saturday for us. The little one and I were up at around 7 am (and before you start grumbling about the hour, I actually woke up before him, and couldn’t fall back to sleep), and following a stroll with the four-legged family member, we returned home for chocolate milk and coffee (and I’ll leave it to y’all to figure out who had what).
A few short hours later, we were showered, dressed and out of the house, heading down to Tel Aviv to meet some friends at the Park Hayarkon. Following approximately 45 rounds of “This Little Piggy” with my son (who kept taking my hand, placing it on his toes, and sweetly asking, “more piggies?”), he was thoughtful enough to fall asleep just as we were pulling into the big city, allowing him to nap for about 23 minutes or so, while we found parking and waited for our friends to arrive.

We realized about halfway through the drive that we’d forgotten to bring the stroller, which could have put a serious damper on things. We needn’t have worried, as our friends – who have three children – brought both a stroller and a little bicycle (with parent steering from behind) for their youngest, so while she alternated between the stroller and her father’s shoulders, our little one happily took over the bike. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of going to Park Hayarkon, it is a lovely, huge park with lots of grass, a huge play area, footpaths, water features, vendors, etc. And on a beautiful, extremely warm Saturday afternoon, it is full of Israelis - running, riding, playing, seed-spitting, dog walking Israelis, with all that this implies. I could have stayed longer, as some areas of the park were quieter than others, but as a few in our group were clearly dismayed by the mayhem, we decided to move on, heading up to Tandoori in Herzliya Pituach for lunch.

Tandoori puts out a most excellent buffet of Indian food on Saturdays, and I highly recommend it if you happen to be in the area. The food is fab, and the value for your money couldn’t be better. Oh, and they’re also really child-friendly, which was very important yesterday, given that we were four adults and four children ages seven and under. Our little one was impressively (surprisingly?) well-behaved, munching on bread and schnitzel (thank God for children’s meals!) without making a mess, and even admonishing our friends’ daughter (three months younger than he is) for getting rice on the table, telling her to sit down when she tried to stand up in her high chair, and putting his finger to his lips and shushing her when she shrieked. All in all, it was a very good meal. I love Indian food almost as much as I love sushi, so needless to say, I was one happy camper.

The ride home was uneventful, as the little one slept for most of the journey, waking up only once we’d arrived home and Husband attempted to lay him down in his own bed. Given his earlier frolicking at the park, we were quite convinced that we were in for some serious nap-time, but alas, the little one clearly had different plans. Husband attended to him while I attended to myself, and when Husband made a comment regarding the dog, it was muffled by the bathroom door, and I didn’t pay too much attention. Making my exit into the bedroom, Husband casually suggested that I go see what our dog had done on the couch.
As I wandered down the hall towards the living room, I tried to imagine what I might find. Had he had an accident? Had he been sick? He wasn’t prone to either, and will resort to such actions only out of absolute desperation, so needless to say, I was very curious as to what might cause my husband to send me to the couch for a peek.

Oh. My. God. It was GROSS. At least the fleeting look that I got when I realized what it was. Dead pigeon. On the couch. Feathers everywhere, but thankfully, hardly any blood, etc. Ran back to the bedroom in disgust. It would seem that the poor creature had managed to enter through the porch door, which we had left open so that the dog could go in and out while we were out, and had had the misfortune of encountering our aging, four-legged hunter. I delegated cleanup duties to the husband (I mean, isn’t this precisely the kind of task for which we marry them?), who reported back that our mutt hadn’t actually eaten the bird, but had apparently just removed its feathers. Man, was it disgusting! As the little one put it, “Malal (his butchering of the dog’s name) pichsa couch”, and I couldn’t come up with a more accurate assessment if I tried.

Once Husband disposed of the body, I swept up and vacuumed all the feathers (who would have guessed that a little pigeon could have so many feathers?), laundered any item that may have come into contact with our feathered friend and shampooed the spot on the couch where “the body” was found. Hopefully, the wind will get rid of any feathers remaining on our porch (did I mention the copious amounts of feathers?), and hopefully, our dog’s breath will soon return to normal from its current state of “bird breath”, as my husband coined this latest bout of “dog breath”.

If a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, what is a bird on the couch worth? Does it make a difference if the bird is dead? Sigh…