Older Dog Wisdom - Grace #1 - Introduction

Grace is, as I have mentioned in previous posts, Tux’s sister - his older sister, she is quick to point out. I reminded her that she was only four minutes older. “But older, nevertheless,” she responded haughtily.

Lately, Grace’s nose has been bent out of shape starting with Tux receiving his first fan mail. He was, even I must admit, insufferable for a few minutes until he got distracted by his favorite toy. Before his distraction, however, he insisted that he get to be in the chair with me - all but knocking Grace aside to get the favored spot.

Admittedly, Grace is the smarter of the two siblings. She’s been Alpha Dog for nearly five years - since her older sister, Jessie, a chocolate Lab, died from complications of canine diabetes.

When Grace injured her paw in late February, she couldn’t be bothered with the duties of being Alpha Dog - she was in too much pain to care who got to go outside first and she had to admit that she couldn’t get into or out of the car by herself or even join the family in bed at night. As Tux said at the time, someone had to be Alpha Dog so it might as well be him.

Grace is solid black with a white blaze running down her chest from her neck to her arm pits. She also has white patches of hair on the bottoms of her back paws. She is petite, but all tomboy. This morning, Tux gave every puddle on the park’s paths a wide berth and even jumping over one. Grace, on the other hand, marched through the middle of each puddle. I swear, if she had been able to, she would have kicked up the water ala Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain.

Recently, she began demanding equal time in this blog after months of asserting that being featured in the posts was “sissy stuff.” After the fan mail incident, however, things changed. I told her I’d write this post formally introducing her. She demanded first right of refusal on the choice of the photograph I used. I had to promise her I wouldn’t put any of her baby pictures on the blog even though you’d never see a cuter puppy than Gracie at eight weeks.

Did I mention Grace is too smart for her own good?