Dog days of summer
August has arrived in Obedin with a vengeance.
To be clear, August in Craiova is always hot, but the dogs of Obedin manage to take it to a whole other level of misery.
To escape the heat, they sleep, and when dogs sleep all day, they've got nothing to do at night except bark. I'm not talking about a couple of minutes of barking here and there, no, this is marathon-length barking, and Silviu's dogs are training for Olympic gold.
It goes something like this: it's 11:00 pm and the temperature has finally dropped to a merciful 85F/29C and there's a whisper of a breeze. You fall into a sweaty, sticky sleep and then, at 11:30, as if on some pre-appointed cue, a random critter or drunk neighbor passes by on the street and the barking begins.
Once the first dog starts, it sets the rest of them off until the entire village is a barking circus. Since there are four of them, Silviu's dogs operate in relay fashion—one might take a break but there's always another one to pick up the baton and keep going. Sometimes they work themselves into such a frenzy that they run around the house so we get the barking in fully immersive surround sound.
These Obedin barking episodes last for about 30-45 minutes each with a 10-to-15 minute break in between, during which I assume they pee, get water and a snack, and prep for the next round. Maybe they confer with their coach who tells them they're not giving it their all and they should try harder, I don't know. What I do know is that the pattern repeats all night long. All.Night.Long.
It's not as if closing the windows is an option, not in that heat. The best you can do is put in earplugs and blast some ambient ocean sounds on a portable speaker right next to your head.
Such is Obedin life in August.
But now that I've described their performance, it seems appropriate to introduce you to these canine Olympic hopefuls.
The most likely to win gold is Negrilă. He's unfriendly and cunning and has a penchant for peeing on the living room stairs. He's also volatile, so volatile that some of Silviu's friends refuse to come to the house now. I could overlook the aggression if Negrilă had at least one endearing quality, but Negrilă does not.
Ursilă is also strong contender for gold, but only when he's not locked in his pen. He likes to steal things and either drag them into the bushes where Silviu can't find them, or chew them to pieces, so he gets locked up a lot. When he's in his pen, he's quiet, but when he's out, he can out-bark any dog in the village. However, thievery aside, he has a very sweet nature and I really like him. The only problem in our relationship occurs at the intersection between barking, heat, and sleep.
The bronze medal for barking would probably go to Bobiță which is especially annoying since in all other respects Bobiță is more cat than dog. He neither seeks affection nor gives it, all he wants is his food and then to be left alone by everyone (including the other dogs) to do exactly as he pleases. If dogs had figs, Bobiță would have none to give to anyone. In some ways I respect this. If only Bobiță was a cat, there would be no barking, and I could tolerate him more easily.
Between the above contenders and the other front-runners in the neighborhood, Bella has no chance at a barking medal. Generally she only barks when she's excited or when Mitsy the cat comes in the house. For some reason she hates Mitsy and when Mitsy comes inside, everyone in the house knows it.
However, it's not as if she couldn't do well in other events. For example if we were talking about vomiting on Silviu's bed or pooping next to our bathroom door, she would win silver at least.
You might wonder, with all of the heat and dog driven sleep-deprivation, if we managed to accomplish anything this trip. I'm happy to say that we did, in fact we completed every item on our to do list.
This time the list included repairing Silviu's garage door and getting his propane delivered and stored. We also tackled some of the cleaning and repair work upstairs which involved replacing the broken faucets (we now have running water!), taking the rugs to be cleaned, and throwing out everything the rats had chewed in the closet.
We even took breaks (you have to in that kind of heat) and rewarded all of our hard work with a Hugo spritz
I hope that wherever you are the weather is not too hot, although with the Super El Nino, I fear it might be.
If it's too hot to tackle your to-do list (or even if it's not), I hope you take a moment to cool down with a beverage and enjoy these dog days of summer.
Thank you for reading.
Be well.
