Merck and Craige IV
Are those dogs dead?
“Those who don’t study
history are condemned. Just
condemned. They wouldn’t know if
they repeated stupidity, so they just do.”
You may not think so and you may not like it, but old dogs
do tend to show their age. Yes, they
do. If you know dogs very well; if you
have been around dogs very much, you will know when you meet and greet a dog
that’s got a long resumé. Old dogs just
look at you differently. If fact, they
look at everything differently. There is
more of a, “Yeah, I know that thing,
whatever it is. Been there, seen it,
sniffed it. Yeah, yeah, so what else is
going on?” A touch of canine wisdom sort
of glints in their eyes.
Really old dogs have a kind of resigned look. The only questions are, “Is it worth getting
up to investigate? Is it worth
sniffing. Can’t see it, but the odoure is
familiar.“
The next thought you can just see, is, “Nah … Maybe if it
doesn’t go away in a coupla minutes … ? … then I’ll …. Zzzzzz ….. “ And, being an old man, I know how they feel. And, knowing the dog world pretty good, I know the old dogs know that I’m an old
guy; no threat to them. There’s a bit of
instinctive camaraderie between us.
I can tell, if he bites me, it’s probably not going to hurt;
or hurt enough to worry about. The old
dog is thinking, “If he kicks me, it’s probably not gonna hurt, or hurt enough
to worry about.” So we’re usually
cool. Of course, old dogs prefer old
women; doesn’t matter if the dog is female or male. I’ve noticed, in general, dogs of all ages
seem to like women better than men. (Not
that I can find any fault in that.)
Merck and Craige follow my wife around like … dogs … ? Seriously, they just HAVE to be the same room
with her. When she’s at home, it’s like
no one else really matters. She says,
“It’s jut because I’m the one who feeds them.”
Our youngest daughter is the one who actually feeds them and puts out
their water. So that’s not it –
really. Walks. We all take them for walks. Although if she is on the walk, the only
person they will obey is her. And, my
wife is not at all a pushy or aggressive person. Not like she’s all alpha or anything.
She is better looking than me, but hey!
should that really make a difference?
I mean – they’re dogs! Can they
even tell?
I have talked about how Borders tend to stick the end of
their little pink tongues out. Just this
little tab hanging out between their
front teeth. Generally all the time. If it wasn’t a bit weird, we have lived with
many dogs over the years and this is not really normal, it might be kind of cute. Plus, now get this – they both sleep with
their eyes open! … !!! … at least about half the time. Now both of them have pretty noticeable
cataracts, not uncommon with old dogs (or people, for that matter). But it costs thousands to get them removed and
several vets have said that it doesn’t really help them much. So we figure, they can’t see much anyway, so
why bother to waste the energy on closing them … I guess?
These two tendencies, along with the gray around their
muzzles and general oldish
mannerisms, is very strange. A bit
tricky to get used to. We had only had
them living with us for a few days the first time I witnessed this.
I kind of panicked, saying to my wife, “Damn! Are these dogs
dead!!!” And, “Gawd, we just get them
and their both dead!!!” And, “Debbie’s gonna kill us!” Debbie is the name
of the lady who had them working for her before she retired them to our home.
Debbie la-huvS her animals.
She said, “No. That’s
just the way they sleep. Look their
breathing’s fine. Pet ‘em, they show
they’re not dead.” And, she had a nice little chuckle at
me. Which was nice for her, but it took
me like ten minutes before my heart rate returned to normal.
dalepeterson.us
Just published “Twelve
Roses for Kathy – A journey on a motorcycle out of the darkness of bipolar
disorder”
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