Walking Bruno to Bunnings

Midmorning, Bruno and I walk to Bunnings to get something to attach the creeper to the wall. (Oh yes, cross something of the to do list)

It’s overcast, the sky is grey. It’s a bit cold.

They are doing some sort of filming cnr Smith Street and Gertrude Street, don’t know what, but they have big equipment which is all black. One of the camera guys says, “Bulldogs, my Favourite dogs.”

I hear myself say, “I have two of them.” Sam says I always manage to get in the two of them fact, if I only have one of them with me. Prior to getting Otto it was, I used to have two, after Buddy died.

We wander through the streets of Collingwood, me and my dog. It was just the morning for it. Bruno and I. Walking my dog, it is one of life’s great pleasures.

We stop off at the water bowl in Cambridge Street where the nice lady has the shop into which Bruno always wants to go. 

“There must be good smells in here,” I tell her.

She had a friend with her today. They told me how gorgeous Bruno is and I’ll admit that I am vain enough to enjoy that, yeah, sure I am. And soon I will have two beautiful bulldogs’ that people can admire. That is not the reason for buying Otto, no it is not, the unexpected joy I got from getting Bruno was watching what buddies he and Buddy became, it became one of my favourite things watching how lovely the two of them were together.

Of course, I showed them photos of Otto in a heres-one-I-am-preparing-off-camera kind of scenario.

The friend took photos of Bruno and asked permission to post a photo of him to her Instagram page, which I stupidly forgot to ask the name of which. She said she had a schnauzer.

11.11am. We’re at Bunnings. Isle 5 looking for what I rather inarticulately describing as U shaped wire things with sharp ends that you hammer in. I can’t find them initially, so I go find one of the workers to ask again.

A guy with one of those pig-eyed pitbull type dogs (this is a comment on the owner not the dog. My stepson, Fenn, had a pitbull and she was gorgeous) at the end of one of the isles had to calm his dog down and reprimand him when he got excited when he saw Bruno and all I could think was you are the type who will get dogs banned in Bunnings by bringing that thing here.

Like in Coburg Bunnings that day when ‘they’ wouldn’t let Bruno in without a muzzle, with me asking the rather officious Bunnings worker if she thought she could get a muzzle on Bruno. She counter claimed that I couldn’t guarantee that Bruno wouldn’t cause a fight in the store, with me absolutely claiming I could guarantee that Bruno wouldn’t cause a fight in the store, when that rather opinionated 3rd person halfwit chimed in saying loudly, “I’m sure that is what all dog owners claim.” And I told him to fuck of and mind his own business, at which point the you-can-drop-the-attitude-you-only-work-in-shop elderly Bunnings team member, and suspected dog hater, decided my time was over, judge’s decision was final kind of moment. “Duh!”

The guy I ask for a second time gives me more specific directions and I find them. They are called staples. Bruno lies out in the middle of the isle so nobody can walk past, of course he does, as I try to find the biggest size.

11.22am. We’ve got our galvanised staples and we’re heading home.

11.30am. Bruno takes a dump in Cromwell Street just in front of a doorway to an office, or a café, or something. Sometimes Bruno gets a bit of poo stuck in his butt hole, occasionally, which I wipe out with the poo bag before I pick up the turds, and as I do a guy comes through the doorway.

“Wiping your dog’s arse, are you mate,” he says.

“What?” I say, rather instinctively, kind of the answer you give when you don't want to give an answer. 

He is still laughing, thinks it is funny. “Wiping your dog’s arse, are you mate,” he repeats.

No, I am flying a balloon, and, well, you probably don’t need to get your eyes tested this year, simultaneously ran through my head, but I say nothing and perhaps unfairly think idiot. I don’t know, big, tall streaks of Aussie sarcasm stating the fucking obvious, what am I supposed to think?

There is a guy on a small tractor spraying weeds at the edge of the footpath in Langridge Street, which, of course, Bruno wants to sniff, so we cross to the other side of the road. I am still concerned as I’m not sure if I am seeing the residue of earlier spraying, or if it is just the leftover effects of the previous rain. My mind fluctuates from one to the other all the way up Langridge Street to Smith Street.

I would add that I bought my favourite muffin here, thick white chocolate icing, with a vanilla sponge with rhubarb filling, except simultaneously I am in denial about it, as I am not supposed to be eating such things, and rather mysteriously it was stale as though it wasn’t baked today and it was disappointing and when I was down to the last few mouthfuls and Bruno pulled on his lead unexpectedly, as bulldogs do, and it fell out of my hand plop onto the footpath, I wasn’t upset. I left it there in all its creamy glory contrasted against the charcoal grey of the bitumen footpath almost without looking back.

11.40am. Bruno lies down cnr Smith & Gertrude Streets outside Burnside. Everybody comments, people always find it charming, for some reason. Big, boof-head dogs lies down seemingly too pooped to continue, maybe it is tied in with our notions of mistreatment of dogs that are over walked. The lady across Gertrude Street with the shop and the miniature black poodle was there, she smiles, I miss catching her eye to say hello. 

I’m getting Bruno to his feet.

The really cute worker from Burnside comes out and crouches down saying, “Do you mind if I pat your dog.”

“Sure,” Handsome, you can pat anything you want. “His name is Bruno,” I say. But, of course, Bruno is not one to suck up to strangers, handsome, or not, just because they want him to and he walks away.

We head up the Gertrude Street hill to home.