A Dog´s Life in Costa Rica

Episode 2: Ashley

Ashley was a small white and black spotted part-terrier part-mutt dog who lived in Palmares, Costa Rica. Her favorite hangout was around the bus terminal, there were always a lot of new and interesting human type people coming and going in that area, and some of the nicer ones would share a part of their lunches with her.

Ashley had big brown eyes and fur that was glossy for about a week after her monthy bath, but that was dulled by soot and matted at other times. But the feature that really made Ashley stand out, ever since she had been injured at the tender age of 6 months, was her gimpy leg. When Ashley was only 6 months old, she had had an unfavorable run in with a fast moving bicycle. She had been barking happily in greeting to the medium sized human boy who had been riding it, she had been too young to realice thta he wasn’t going to stop and pet her as most smaller sized humans did.

But Ashley wasn’t bitter, the leg didn’t slow her down anymore and since it was shorter than the others, it didn’t drag on the ground as the broken limbs of other larger dogs she knew.

But her gimpy leg was not what was on Ashley’s mind on Wednesday October 8th at 1:30 pm. No what was on her mind was the horrible, all consuming itch that was at the back of her neck.

It felt like an army of fleas had taken up residence and were int he process of raking her neck so they could soften it up to plant their fall harvest.

It was a stubborn itch too, as it thwarted most of her efforst to conquer it.

She had tried to reach it with her paw but couldn’t quite make it.

She had tried appealing to passing by humans at the bus terminal, but althoghu they looked at her they wouldn’t oblige her. She figured either they didn’t understand (humans were simple that way, especially the larger sized ones) or that they were averse to touching her because she hadn’t had a chance tot ake her bath that month (humans could also be very flacky).

She tried using the wall, but any real grit the concrete wall had once posessed had been glossed over when they painted it a pale orange.

She tried jumping into the river of water at the side of the street, but since it had been sitting there for a while and was none too clean itself, it only intensified her itch.

She tried rubbing against an unknowning male type species of human, but only got shooed aside for her efforts.

Finally in desperationg, she lay on her back in a particularily rough section of concrete sidewalk and rolled form one side to the other. After a few minutes the itch started to subside and Asley let out a bark of pleasure. After a full five minutes she stopped, satisfied that for now she had conquered the demon plaguing her day.

She wagged her tail in pleasure over her victory.