Getting Older

Up a little late, nosed out of bed by an Australian shepherd who was extremely sure I was supposed to be ambulatory before I was quite ready for such an event. She also “helped” me all the way through yoga, hip-checking me when I almost fell asleep in Child’s Pose. Her nose was on my knee all during French and Spanish at breakfast, and she snored all through the sit-down Latin lesson. When I begin my pacing and reading Caesar, no doubt she’ll herd me around my office.

She’s very excited at the prospect of a run today, can you tell? Yesterday I took her along for 5K, very soft and easy, and she was so thrilled she dragged me half the time and tried to slow me the other half, especially when Other Dogs showed up.

She’s neutral on humans (except her own) but she cannot resist other dogs. Odd Trundles is just the opposite–he will schnorgle a new human until the cows come home, and has only met one or two he doesn’t care for, but other dogs fill him with slow, wheezing rage. Except Miss B. I’m not sure why he’s so upset by other canines, since he was socialized to a fare-thee-well, but there it is. He even likes squirrels better than other dogs.

Speaking of which, there were two juvenile Rodentia Arborea doing their level best to tear down the cedars along the back fence yesterday afternoon, which filled both dogs with excitement. I checked to make sure I was wearing shoes and watched, openmouthed, from the deck as they scurried back and forth, shaking branches and sending a cascade of detritus down upon a barking Odd and a leaping, extremely athletic Miss B, who wanted to get her ass up into the branches to herd those small, silly sheep. She landed on Odd twice before he got the bright idea to retreat to the upper garden boxes, where he began to run in circles and bark loudly. Miss B kept going, back and forth along the fence, stopping only to throw herself to whatever altitude her haunches could catapult her weight to.

Needless to say, when they both calmed down, they were filthy. Just a single day after I washed Trundles, too. *sigh* There was a quick brushing to rid them of cedar bits before I dragged them inside. Of course Miss B viewed the brushing as a reward for her doughty performance, and trotted around the rest of the day with her skirts swishing and her ears held high.

The upshot of all this is that they’re both moving relatively slowly this morning, and Odd is exceedingly cranky. He may need a muscle relaxer, the little idiot. Miss B is in a particular stage of almost-elderly-irritation that will no doubt reach epic levels once I leave the house for a run alone.

They’re both getting older, these sweet, silly dogs. Odd doesn’t mind so much, being a creature of sedentary habits, but Miss B doesn’t understand why she can’t run like she used to, or why she gets so tired after a quarter-hour of attempting to scale cedars in pursuit of a herd of juvenile tree-rats. The inevitable codicil to this is that their lives are short, but will be comfortable and full of interesting things.

And with that sobering thought, I’m out the door for a run. Caesar can wait until I come back.