Finnegan met an older woman. A blonde with a cute wiggle and a fluffy butt. Penelope, the fairest corgi of them all. Oh dear. Young corgi love. There was a great deal of mutual waggling and sniffing and play bows and then the embarrassing moment when his human had to pull him off the little darling.
"You mustn't do that. You just met!"
"We're dogs. Courtship takes three minutes. After that we're pretty comfortable."
"Well, I'm not!"
"Aw, come on. Look at her! She's adorable!"
"Yes. Adorable. But you need to treat her like a lady."
"Dogs are different, just so you understand."
"I do understand. But is it too much to ask that you display some manners? I'd like to remain on speaking terms with her human. Being polite is important."
He cocked his head and regarded her with serious eyes. Her request wasn't outrageous. Silly, yes, but not outrageous. These human creatures had some odd rules, dancing anxiously around topics that corgis just simply met head on. Interesting.
"Ok. I shall treat the fair Penelope as my muse. Hey, do we have any volumes of Shakespeare lying around? He was a kid with a flair for pretty words. I could use some good quotes."
She blinked. And then she held her breath. How the heck did he know about Shakespeare?
"You don't want to know," he laughingly woofed over his shoulder, reading her mind again. "You don't want to know!"
Finnegan loped away from her, back to where Penelope was sniffing rabbit droppings among a patch of wild yellow daisies. Clearly, Shakespeare was another topic for another day. She went back and sat down at the picnic table. She made friendly conversation with Penelope's father while observing her boy romping about in the sun with his new girlfriend. And in that moment she had an inkling of how every mom feels the moment her son experiences that first serious crush. Oh. My. God. It was going to be a long summer.
