One of our dogs, if she were a human, would probably be in a nursing home by now. She’d be enjoying 4pm soft-food suppers and afternoon shuffleboard with her senior friends. She’s a 14-year-old border collie mix. That’s 98 in dog years. She can no longer hear—when we call for her to go outside, we physically have to either touch her or stomp on the floor to get her attention. Her eyes have the glossed-over appearance of cataracts, although according the vet, her vision is still decent. She literally trudges through our all-hardwood-floor house because her poor brittle bones can hardly withstand the weight of her body. We give her medication twice a day for the pain in her bones and joints.
And yet she’s still spry enough, somehow, to catch a freaking chipmunk.
I kid you not; I came home yesterday and opened the back door to let the girls in. Hadley came charging through the door as usual. She’s a 70-pound border collie / lab mix—I call her a “Labraborder.” But a slight whimper from Savannah sent a chill down my spine (because she’s so OLD). All of a sudden, I heard a scuffle and see a chipmunk come darting out of our little firepit and across the yard.
Then I realize… Savannah is INSIDE the firepit. She’d crawled her little arthritic tail in there and had the chipmunk pinned in her front paws, and when I came outside and clapped my hands, it startled her just enough to permit the chipmunk’s escape.
Out slithers Savannah with a look on her little old face that holds a mixture of guilt and sheepishness, but her attitude walking into the house is one of pure annoyance that I’d interrupted what was sure to be the best day of her life.
No mid-morning bingo for that one yet.
