fact: i am not a dog person.

or even a pet person.  so i am not sure how i became the sole guardian of tola for the next 10 days.  tola is a pit bull.  despite my limited knowledge of dogs, i do know that pit bull is latin for "savage man-eating beast"  so when i met jason and he told me that tola was a pit bull, i was scared of a repeat of the day i got rabies.  "don't worry," he said.  "tola is a gentle dog, don't let his size or breed scare you.  tola's never bitten anyone"  well, it was quite the honor to be chosen as The First Person Ever Bitten By Tola.  i walked in, he ran up to me and tried to eat my knee.  i jumped away and shouted, "OH MY GOSH!! CAN I USE YOUR BATHROOM!?!"  i'm pretty sure that jason thought i wet myself, but i had just drunk a lot of root beer at dinner.  since then i've always been a little nervous around tola and i was more surprised than jason was when he asked me to dog-sit tola for the week and i said yes.  i tell you what, the things i'll do for money.  i don't even want to know what's next for me, if this joblessness continues.  (probably hooking.)

so yesterday, i went to visit tola so he could get used to me again and not go into attack mode after jason left.  we all went on a jolly walk and i saw a white dog (breed: mutt, according to jason.  according to me: gross, drooling dog) get hit by a car!  thanks to hundreds of hours of law and order, i immediately memorized the license plate so i could report the hit and run to the police.  i told jason this and he pointed out that it wasn't really a hit and run because the car had stopped and the driver was checking to see if the dog was ok, which was the right thing to do even though i was a tiny bit disappointed.

white dog was fine because the next thing we knew, he and tola were engaged in some sort of slobbery wrestling match.  white dog had a 6-inch strand of booger drool hanging from each side of his mouth.  during the match, one strand somehow made it tola's face and was stretched between his eyes.  tola didn't like that sensation, so what did he do?  he shook that slime right off his face and onto my bare leg.  i nearly cried, but tried to play it cool.  play it cool in this situation meant secretly searching for a twig or pebble to scrape the snot off, while keeping my gag reflex under control.  no suitable twig or pebble was found so i had to let it dry, at which point, it flaked right off.  easy peasy.

tola warmed up to me very quickly this time.  so much so, that when i used the bathroom, even though i asked him nicely for some privacy, tola firmly refused and accompanied me to the bathroom.  today is my first day of feeding tola all by myself.  hopefully, all will go well, once i get over the stench of his food and become accustomed to my new layer of fur.  but, if you hear of a story on the news of unidentifiable human remains being devoured by the world's gentlest pit bull, it'll be your turn to be a good citizen and let the appropriate authorities know it's me.

tola plotting his attack.
don't let his timid look fool you.
he is already mentally feasting on me.