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Jan. 27, 2010
By Brian Fleck
NORTH LIBERTY LEADER
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| Brian Fleck |
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Now that Buzz is declining to walk in cold weather I've noticed that Pearl, our 2-year-old Labradoodle, has stepped up on my outings to be a better companion. When Buzz is along, Pearl tends to take off and disappear for long stretches of time, only to reappear with something disgusting in her mouth like body parts or frozen secretions of unknown origin. When this happens she'll prance about with her prize and taunt with body language that says "Look what I've got," and "You can't catch me, ha, ha, ha-ha, ha"
But with Buzz snoozing on the bed at home, Pearl seems to understand that it's her job now to stick close to the human. If I drop dead she'll have first pickings.
Her motives aside, she'll never be as good of scout dog as Buzz. I joke about the 10-year-old hound being a terrible guard because he sleeps through everything. But while he'll never make a guard, he is the ultimate scout dog.
His breed, Ridgeback, was developed by British colonists to hunt lions on the South African Veld. Bred for both sight and scent, the Ridgeback's job in a hunting party was to keep ahead of the men on horseback, discover early and chase anything big and moving. A single dog would not have a chance against a lion but it could sound an alarm. A small pack of the quick and nimble canines, however, could nip at the heels of the bigger and stronger cat until it wore out or went to tree.
So it was no surprise that as a puppy and adolescent, Buzz's natural instinct was to chase and nip at the rear tire of moving cars. This can be extremely dangerous, as the heel of a Honda Civic can flip a dog up in the air faster than you can say "arf" To break him of the bad habit, we purchased a super-soaker water gun and nailed him a couple of times. This taught him not to chase our cars, but through his adulthood he had lapses and took off after strange vehicles.
One thing Pearl can't get better at is how dirty she gets sometimes on our walks. It's not her fault that she has thick, curly hair that becomes matted with mud, snow and stickers. In the summer it's easy to hose her off and let her drip dry in the back yard, but it's not so easy when the temperature hovers a little above freezing. It's still warm enough for her to get muddy, but too cold for a spray. The alternative is to towel her off, something I always seem to have trouble doing to Sabra's satisfaction.
Around our sink we have a sponge, dish rag, dishtowel, a paper towel dispenser and a large, old bath towel.
Each has its own specific use, according to my spouse.
The sponge is for food spills like from a sloppy pour of the coffee pot, sloshed cereal milk or a tipped beverage. The dishrag is for washing dishes and the dish towel for drying said dishes or one's hands after washing. The paper towels are for cleaning small things like glasses. The old bath towel is for large, dirty things like the dogs.
As a bachelor, a lifestyle that I've not practiced in soon to be a decade (our 10th anniversary is this Valentine's Day), I basically had all the same cleaning aides at hand with one small difference: their uses were all interchangeable in my mind.
If my cat Rogue regurgitated a chimney lark, for example, I might grab any of the items listed and deal with the mishap. It may sound rather unsanitary to use a dishrag on a partially digested bird and then again on dishes, but I always made sure it had a good soak in hot, soapy water in between. As proof that it works I offer up that no one ever got ptomaine poisoning from my table. If you found a bird feather dried to the bottom of your bowl it was a perfectly sterile feather.
It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks.
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