She ain’t no Toto
She ain’t no Lassie
She ain’t no Rin Tin Tin
But she does have a high degree of self-importance. Combine that strong personality with a great sense of humor, a little arrogance, limitless energy, and an assertive nature and you have Tessa, a pup that’s very hard to train. When she’s outdoors she generally ignores the simple commands that she aces in the kitchen, Instructions like sit, stay, come, and down–mandatory in the house–are seemingly irrelevant to her in the out-of-doors, irrelevant unless there’s a reward in it. If she’s willing to play the training game at all, she performs in a perfunctory manner. Tell her to “sit,” and her butt barely hits the ground before she’s up, waggling around, expecting a treat.
I need her to come to me when I call and stand still while I hook up a leash. Leash? Leashes are fine if she’s in the foyer waiting to go out. Then the leash presages a walk. But when outdoors on a romp she sees no need to submit and be leashed. She dances just out of reach and demands to be walked home untethered.
“You are not the boss of me,” she says and then takes off across the field, chasing a murder of crows away so she can roll in whatever it is that interests them. And I’m left there, holding the leash.
Braxton, the horse in the middle in the picture below, passed away this weekend.
It’s not mandatory to be blown about in the tempestuous seas of irony and synchronicity. We have a choice. It’s not required that we comment on every coincidental circumstance that somehow adds a deeper meaning to the tapestry of our lives. Sometimes it works just to ignore that shit until it goes away. But not always—like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expects the Norman Conquest.
Old Braxton was maybe thirty when he died. His passing is a marker on my own journey. I’d known him for twenty years, and I wonder where that time has gone. When we first met, Braxton shared his pasture with goats. There are stories to tell about that mixed herd, but over the years the goats disappeared and Braxton remained, joined by a couple more horses. So he lost that reputation of being a gelding among goats.
The old fellow anchored the south side of our extended biosphere for twenty years or so. He was kind enough not to kick the dogs or step on my feet and he had the softest nuzzly muzzle imaginable when you offered him an apple. These last few years he spent a lot of time in his stall, but you never knew when you’d see him out under the full moon, or up with the sun cropping the dewy grass, or just feeling his oats on a wild run across the pasture.
When the weather was hot or the flies were bad, Braxton enjoyed rolling in the mud. What could be better than that? Braxton, this song’s for you…
molly at five
How the time does fly. Molly at five is quite the model citizen, while Tessa plays the role of identified mental patient. Tessa (below) will be a year old next week.
Sunday, 6:30a.m., walking the dogs, I fell on the ice. I wasn’t the only one.
I walked out to check the road, and I satisfied myself that we wouldn’t be driving anywhere. We’d be playing it safe and warm, cocooning, staying off the highway because it was slipperier than goose grease. I turned back toward the [...]
Tastes vary of course…
Deelishus doggies…
these little piggies…
I’m reminded of when the boys were 10 or 11 and we went to the county fair. All the piggies were washed up and on display, resting on fresh bedding, happy as clams. Many had the names of the meat packing companies that purchased them displayed beneath [...]
Speaking of puppies…Â Tessa Blue our (now) seven month old Australian Shepherd pup has been giving us all plenty of exercise since she joined our pack on September 11. I’ve never had such a talky dog. Molly Bloom is a quiet girl four years Tessa’s senior who will come and get you if [...]
The pastor at dad’s church told this one this morning…
A devout Baptist wanted to have a dog. He went shopping from kennel to kennel, but no one could sell him a Baptist dog. He went to the rescue shelter but they couldn’t really say that any of their dogs were Baptist either. [...]
It’s that time of year again, when black traceries of geese ripple across the clear blue sky and the pounding shotguns in the marsh betray the presence of urban Nimrods, bent on the pleasure of killing something they’ll make a mess of if they actually try to cook it in their condos.
Out with the dogs [...]
With the help of former President Clinton's counselor, Doug Band, the United States will likely be the host of the World Cup soccer tournament in 2018 or 2022.
