The dog ignored me.
“Maybe he doesn’t like that name,” Eli said with a laugh.
“Brutus, come.”
The dog sat down.
“Fuck my life. Kringle, come.”
Tail wagging, the St. Bernard jumped up and lumbered over to me, jumped up, and licked my face.
“There’s another lady at the Christmas market who sells custom dog sweaters,” Olivier said. “She and her knitting group make them right there in real time. Bet they could do one for Kringle. They could even put his name on it.”
When I had broughtKringle home, I had visions of having a big dog I could exercise with. We would go hiking and swimming in the freezing river. We would take long walks in the snow. The dog would carry a heavy pack with ease.
“Kringle, we’ve only been walking for five minutes,” I complained. It was evening. The snow was falling. That bracing cold energized me. I had been planning on taking the St. Bernard on a run around town. But somewhere in his line, the link to the Swiss mountain rescue dogs had been lost, and he was a 200-pound couch potato.
“You need some exercise,” I told the dog, tugging on the leash attached to the harness I’d bought him earlier that day at the grooming shop. “Come on.”
I might as well have been trying to pull a boulder. Kringle lay down on the sidewalk. Several Christmas market-goers snapped his picture.
I shouldn’t have even come this way.
I was trying to get to the art trail so we could run in peace. I should have just taken the long way instead of cutting through town.
“He just needs a little bribing,” an older woman said with a laugh. She held upa bag shaped like a dog with a Christmas hat. “Got these at the dog treat stand. My Maltese loves them. Maybe your big boy will walk with a little motivation.” She handed me a dog biscuit that was shaped like Santa Claus.
“Merry Christmas,” she sang. Then she waited expectantly.
“Merry Christmas,” I choked out.
Kringle licked his lips with a slobbery tongue and hauled himself up.
I waved the dog biscuit at him and tugged at the leash.
“Let’s go.”
We worked up to a pretty good clip, and I jogged down the street, Kringle lumbering beside me. He was so large that he didn’t have to run all that fast to keep up with me.
I held the treat out, turning around periodically to wave it at him.
After about ten blocks, Kringle seemed to catch wise that he wouldn’t get the cookie any time soon, and he plopped down on the sidewalk, all four paws splayed out, and refused to move.
“You can do it.” I threw him a piece. He didn’t even chew it, just inhaled it.
“There’s more where that came from.” I waved the cookie in his face. He refused to get up.
“Did you two Christmas shop ‘til you dropped?” an elderly woman asked cheerfully as she walked by with packages.
“Merry Christmas!” someone else called to me.
I ignored him.
“Merry Christmas,” the man repeated pointedly.
“Merry Christmas.”Fuck this town.
“We have to keep moving,” I hissed at the dog, feeding him another piece of the biscuit. “We can’t stay still out here. We’ll be Merry Christmased to death.”
