Laszlo dreams

I’m sitting in front of my computer, doing Internet things. Behind me is Laszlo, stretched out on the cold wooden floor. He likes the coolness of an uncarpeted floor, even in winter - strange for a human, perfectly reasonable for a Malamute. Cleodhna occasionally warns me, when she comes into the room and Laszlo is positioned behind me, that I shouldn’t move my chair back without looking, because our favourite wolf is lying on the floor with his nose directly behind the wheels. She needn’t worry. I’m sufficiently used to Laszlo being there that I often check to see where he is before moving back, only to discover that the entire room is completely and utterly dogless.

A few minutes ago, I started hearing strange, arrhythmic metallic tapping noises. Thankfully, given the time of night, the source was quickly found: Laszlo was dreaming. Dreaming, I believe, of running, which is why his paws were moving, one of them tapping the metal box file every time he needed it to take off in his dreams.

I took a photo of him with my phone. (In the year 2004, what else would you use to take a photo?) One day I will find a way to send my phone photos to an Internet-connected machine, but for now I’m quietly proud that an Internet professional cannot work out how to send photos from one electronic device to another. I treasure my anti-geek points. Maybe I can redeem them for a Harrod’s Christmas hamper.

Since I started typing this, of course, Laszlo woke up, and gave me the sort of look that clearly means “What on earth are you doing now?” (Dogs care about this more than cats. Cats know they’re better than you, and anything you’re doing that isn’t obviously designed to please them is just a displacement activity, or an attempt to save face. Dogs worry more that there could be something wrong with you.) But he’s now asleep again, if not actively dreaming, his paws are once again straddling the box file, his nose pokes under the book shelf, the rest of him is still vulnerable to an unreasonably vigorous attempt on my behalf to see if my chair will bounce off the chest of drawers behind me, and all is well in the world.