Amphibian Read Free

another place, and I can tell you it wasn’t her mouth. I held her while the vet did that because Fiddledee likes me best, and the vet said I would help reassure her that she would be all right.
    I looked into Fiddledee’s eyes, and she looked just like the cats on those birthday cards with the bulging eyes that are supposed to show that they’re surprised by how old you are. I think I know now how the photographer gets their eyes to bulge like that.
    Finally, it was all over and I let Fiddledee go. She climbed right back into her cat carrier, which was kind of funny because it took Mom and me a long time to get her in there in the first place.
    Dr. Karnes said she doesn’t know for sure if there’s anything wrong with Fiddledee. She said we have to keep an eye on her and bring her back in another month to see if she’s lost any weight. We’re also supposed to watch her litter box for more red poopand to bring a fresh piece in for a test if it looks red. I hope there’s nothing wrong with Fiddledee.
    When we left the animal clinic, we ran into a man my mother knows. He had a dog who got bitten by another dog and had to get stitches. My mother introduced me to the man, whose name is Brent. I said hi, but I decided I’d rather talk to his dog, so I did.
    On the Green Channel, I learned that a human can check to see if he’s top dog by taking one of his dog’s toys or chewies and putting it in his own mouth and walking around with it proudly. I think it might be a better idea to only pretend it’s in your mouth. If the dog growls or chases the human, the human is not top dog. If the dog doesn’t do anything or just tries to play, the human is top dog.
    Another test is to wet your dog’s food with your own spit and offer it to your dog. If the dog eats it, he’s submissive, but if he growls or won’t eat it, he’s dominant. To wet your dog’s food, you can just spit on it and not really put it in your mouth.
    I patted Kooch on his head and his back and on the top of his muzzle and he looked happy. Submissive dogs look like they’re smiling. If you want a dominant dog to start being more submissive, you can hold his mouth into a smile once in a while, and that will start to make him feel more submissive.
    That works for humans too. If a person holds his face in a smile, he doesn’t feel angry or dominant. I saw that on Discovery Channel.
    Some biologists think a smile makes a human feel less dominant because the smile evolved thousands of years ago from the fear face. If you were afraid of your enemy, you would smile to show that you weren’t a threat. I think humans are sometimes big liars, though. Some of them smile to pretend not to be a threat and then have you for lunch. For instance, sometimes Lyle smiles at you as if he’s your friend – then next thing you know he’s got you in a headlock or he’s kicking you in the shins. The smile’s only to get you to let your guard down. My mom says that’s pretty much how it works at her office too.
    Brent had on a light green shirt with a dark green and purple tie. He looked a lot like a leprechaun, partly because of all the green, but partly because he was really short – much shorter than my mother, who is really tall for a woman. My mother is a little bit taller than my father, but she’s a lot taller than the man named Brent.
    I got the feeling Brent is one of those grown-ups who doesn’t really like kids but pretends to. I like people who don’t like kids and don’t even pretend to like them – like Mr. Byers, who owns the big apple tree that Bird and I play on. At least with Mr. Byers you know to stay away from him because he might grab you by the ear and march you over to the principal’s office like he did to Justin who fell out of the tree and into his backyard one day.
    But with people like the man named Brent, their voices say, ‘I like