Moose Nuggets
The vast majority of dogs in the U.S. are de-sexed, but this is a recent phenomenon.
This is the second installment in a series. Read Chapter One here.
At one-and-a-half feet tall, Suzie was stout, speckled, and loved nothing more than getting her butt scratched.
I met Suzie, a 2-year-old white and tan bulldog whose legs splayed out like a duck, at the sandy, fenced-in dog park that had become my primary source of human contact since the pandemic. Moose, my year-old Goldendoodle, had mixed feelings about it: Sweet but shy, he would edge up to groups of dogs chasing each in circles or wrestling like four-legged gladiators, but if anyone snapped or growled or tried to sniff his butt—which, I learned from Google, dogs do to glean vital information, like whether they’ve met before, and, I imagine, what they had for lunch—he would run back and hide behind my legs before slowly venturing out for more.