Have you noticed what happens – in English anyway – when an animal name gets verbed – as in cat to catting, mouse to mousing, rat to ratting, pig to pigging, bull to bulling, chicken to chickening, bug to bugging, dog to dogging, wolf to wolfing, crow to crow? Predictably pejoratives! Whereas the same operation on their own species flatters – as in humanize, personalize, man up, etc. 

                  You mightn’t have, being human. Testy at slights, humans endorse flattery as merited. In dog we don’t judge. What is is, be it ever so vile. This contrast struck me researching the missive Carll asked me to get up on frog-hunting, a.k.a., frogging. Uncertain frog could be used verbally and averse to neologisms, I checked in Carll’s OED. Yes, since 1881, Carll’s granddad’s birth year. It amuses Carll to cite 1881, 1921, and 1951 as launch dates for Carlls the First, Second, and Third. Imagine, his birth certificate name was “Carll Tucker the Third”! Even amongst humans, who parades such pomposities? Carll used to say he dropped it because it sounded to his schoolmates too much like “Carll Tucker the Turd.” Why ask for trouble?

                  But I digress. 

                  I’m Henry, obviously. Cockapoos, if you look it up, swim. Don’t believe everything you read. Cockapoos are miscegenated from two famously natatorial breeds – spaniel and poodle. Maybe they had to, to pay the rent. This cockapoo is more circumspect. I’ll wade in a brook, with its sloping banks, even soak my undercarriage on the top pool step on a hot day. But to go swimming, like these nearly or sometimes entirely naked humans? Our drenched fur would drown us, like Ophelia in Hamlet: 

Her clothes spread wide,
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes,
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element. But long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

                  (I digress again. But given half a chance to doff my hat to the Bard – and show up Carll by comparison – who can resist?)

                  No pool for me, thanks. But there is sport there, while the humans humanize. Thus, frogging. Jane-and-Carll’s pool entices frogs understandably enough, but once in, because of the pool’s coping, they can’t get out. (No coping with the coping, you might say.) You’d think they might figure this out and warn each other off – dogs would – but genius is unequally distributed in the animal kingdom (witness, for example, dogs versus humans). 

                  Otherwise bored watching my superintendents paddle back and forth and back and forth and back and forth I’ve taken to frogging from dry land. Onlookers find my beady intensity hilarious. By smell or sight I detect the presence of frogs at or near the pool’s surface and by pawing and nipping, with any luck, snag the frantic wrigglers onto the flagstone deck. This requires skill. Over-paw and I risk a watery death. Twice now Carll’s had to haul me dripping from the drink, which I appreciate.

                  My intent is not to eat but hunt these daring darters – what fisherpersons call catch and release. I’m no fan of uncooked viands, even beef or chicken. No sushi, for darn sure. I do however enjoy playing with my captives, pawing them back when they attempt to hop to freedom. I assume they enjoy this game too, but apparently not, for some, the majority I’d say, finally slump inert, after which they’re no fun.

                  (You’ll note my verbing of frog is non-judgmental, as in fish to fishing. Just saying.)