Older Dog Wisdom: Tux 40 - Thanks Giving

There is much to be thankful for in Tux’s home this year.

We survived his sister Grace’s cancer scare. Grace and I fought minor seasonal allergies while Tux fought not only seasonal allergies, but food and environmental allergies as well. Tux had periods of time when he was allergy free, for which we are all thankful 

We survived tornadoes, wind storms, snow storms, ice, sleet, prolonged periods of high temperatures, and other weather-related issues. We managed to go through four or five tornado warnings without having to huddle in the basement waiting for the house to come down around our ears. We hate basements. 

When we weren’t huddled together against the elements, we enjoyed periods when it was a joy to get out, go to a favorite park and walk a mile or two with ease. We enjoyed nearly daily walks in parks. We survived an attack by a snarling devil dog (thanks to Grace, who nipped the much larger dog on the ear and he retreated). We met many people in the parks - with and without dogs of their own. Some stop and pet Tux and Grace every time we see them while others comment on how cute they are. Grace loves the latter people. We’ve watched the parks we walk in change with the seasons, going from admiring the newly budded trees, to the awful heat where everyone and everything tries to survive, to the beauty of fall colors to the freezing cold and snow on the ground.

Tux is especially grateful for his toys - from the oldest (11 years old) to the newest.

Yes, we have much to be thankful for - including each other. Tux and Grace have brought much laughter to their humans with their antics. Grace can do silly things and remain dignified while Tux can do dignified things and look silly. Always, always, they are at the door to greet us when we come home for which we are thankful. They are grateful because we go for walks and we feed them at regular intervals. Who can ask for anything more than that?

Older Dog Wisdom: Tux 38 - Making Lemonade

A while ago, Tux’s sister, Grace, had surgery. She had a cancerous bone in her left front paw, and the toe had to be amputated. Her surgery went well. When Grace came home, Tux commented that she “smelled funny.” Grace, though, was still woozy from the anesthesia and the pain meds. She didn’t care what he thought.

As Grace convalesced, our routine changed. Grace’s doctor said that she needed to take it easy until the stitches were removed. She wasn’t allowed to go on our morning walks. Since I was already feeling guilty about her having lost a toe and having a huge bandage on her foot, I decided that if Grace couldn’t go out for walks, then Tux and I wouldn’t either.

Tux, of course, didn’t understand the concept of solidarity. It made no sense to him that just because Grace couldn’t go for walks that neither could he. He wasn’t injured in any way so how come he wasn’t going to get to walk in the park every morning? Of course, Grace didn’t look at him with her big Cocker Spaniel eyes asking why she couldn’t go out for walks. No, she turned those eyes on me.

So I now had two Cocker Spaniels looking dolefully at me every morning. It’s almost more than I can handle. Oh, the guilt of it all! What a bad mother I am to deny my four-legged children their heart’s desire. I got over myself by blaming it all on the vet who had said Grace couldn’t go for walks with us until she got her stitches removed. 

Tux, of course, still didn’t understand his being denied the highlight of his day just because his sister had been told to stay home. But he dealt with that, too. He told himself it wouldn’t last forever, and that he would benefit from an extra hour’s nap.

Lesson Learned

Sometimes we don’t understand why things happen to us. The best we can do is think of all the cliches we’ve ever heard about bad things happening to good people. Cliches like “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” I do love fresh-squeezed lemonade, and I've been drinking a lot of it lately.

Older Wisdom: Tux 35 - Squirrelly Behavior

We were in the park the other day and saw something I’d never seen before. First, though, I heard a new sound. It wasn’t yet another bird’s song I didn’t recognize. The sound sounded familiar yet wasn’t. So what was it?

Tux spotted a movement on a tree and stopped dead in his tracks staring at a tree about 20 feet in front of us. Grace was unperturbed and continued her quest for new smells in the three-inch-high grass. 

I looked around trying to see what had caught Tux’s attention. There was nothing that I could see that was out of the ordinary. In the distance, I saw the Mallards amiably strolling toward their neck of the woods and the pond in the ravine. Across the street from the park, the Westies were sunning themselves in the early morning sun. Nope, nothing extraordinary going on in the park. But Tux was like a statue - standing rigidly still, one front paw pulled up in his classic hunter’s stance. 

As I looked up in the direction that Tux was staring in so intently, I finally saw what he had seen. It was a squirrel. Nothing unusual about seeing a squirrel in the park. This squirrel though, was quite different. He had a plastic cup in his mouth. And he wasn’t about to drop it just because some Cocker Spaniel hunter came into view. He was angry at being disturbed. He was chittering at us, but the sound came out muffled as he chittered behind his cup.

The squirrel had stopped in his tracks and was starring at Tux. Tux stared back at the squirrel. I stared at the squirrel. The squirrel ignored me. It was Tux he was interested in. Grace finally figured out that Tux and I were mesmerized by something so she looked in the direction we were looking. She saw the squirrel and then she looked at me as if to ask what was so interesting about a silly old squirrel?

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’d never seen a squirrel carrying even a branch let alone a plastic cup. I couldn’t imagine what had struck this squirrel about the cup. One thing was for sure, though, he was not going to drop his cup. Before I could dig my iPhone out of my pocket to take a photo of the squirrel, he was on the move.

The squirrel surprised me. Instead of heading up the tree and to safety, he came down the tree toward the ground. What was he thinking? Down he came. About six inches from the ground, he jumped down. Sprinting toward another tree, he jumped onto it and scurried upward.

In the meantime, we all stood stock still watching the squirrel. He never dropped his precious cup. I surmised he had headed to his home tree. I suspected, too, he had a nest in the tree he risked life, limb, and cup to reach. I looked upward, but saw no discernible nest in the boughs of the large tree. 

Tux was reluctant to leave the scene. He undoubtedly thought that either the squirrel with his cup still firmly gripped between his teeth would return or this was a trend and another squirrel with a cup would come down the tree. Neither event occurred and I dragged him back onto the path and on to our morning walk.

Lesson Learn:

Keep an eye out for the unexpected.

Keeping Appointments: Tux - Older Dog Wisdom

Tux and I have a daily appointment to go for a walk. He loves his routines. He expects to have his morning walk in by nine. He’s okay with walking earlier, but insists that the walk must start by mid-morning. If we’re not out the door on his timetable, he starts pacing. He goes from wherever I’m at to the front door and back again. When I don’t get that hint, he’ll sit where he can make eye contact with me, and stares at me. He’s willing me to get up from the computer and leave for our walk. 

Having a Cocker Spaniel stare at you is hard to resist. When Tux and his sister, Grace, were puppies, I couldn’t resist. Over the years, though, I’ve grown tougher. I can resist for a while. In any event, we get out of the door mostly on schedule. Tux’s schedule, I might add.

On a recent walk after a tremendous storm the afternoon before, we saw the paths strewn with puddles like polka dots dropped every few feet. There were hundreds of twigs and small branches strewn down the paths as well. There were even branches three inches thick obstructing our way. There were no trees torn up by the roots. Even the young saplings planted last fall weathered the storm, more or less in tact.

Tux kept thinking that the larger branches might be dangerous snakes or eels or something. He stalked a lot of them. None turned out to be either dangerous or dangers reptiles.

We were the only ones in the park. There were only a few squirrels out and about. Even the birds were quiet. The morning was cool and we enjoyed the walk although we had to cut it short when Grace started limping badly. 

Lesson Learned

Even Tux understands the importance of being on time. People who keep me waiting for an appointment drive me crazy. I’ve been known to walk out of doctors’ offices when they’ve kept me waiting way beyond my appointment time. At some level, I can understand being kept waiting by doctors, although why they haven’t figured out that if they’re consistently behind schedule, they need to space their appointments further apart. 

Tux obviously has a schedule: breakfast as soon as I get up, morning nap, walk by nine, nap until lunch, outside for a stroll around his yard, back in for his afternoon nap, dinner, nap, outside, and to bed by ten. He likes to keep his schedule. 

Older Dog Wisdom: Tux22: Cocker Spaniel Pout

This morning’s walk was one of those walks where Tux was in his element. Tux is an intrepid hunter. Nothing is safe from his keenly honed hunting skills.

This morning he stalked a very elderly and obese black dog and his equally elderly master one slow step at a time, pausing now and again to raise his front paw in the classic stalker pose. We went slowly up the sidewalk until we were nearly opposite Tux’s quarry. Then I ruined it for Tux by pulling him along behind me to get the show on the road. I’m not sure that the other dog and/or his owner even noticed our presence.

Tux also stalked a bunny, who, at first, wasn’t going to leave his place in the high grass at the side of the path. Discretion finally got the best of the bunny and he high-tailed it into the nearby underbrush, but not before Tux was able to claim he vanquished the bunny. Such are the triumphs that make Tux’s day memorable.

Tux jumped a foot off the ground when a low-hanging branch from a nearby bush brushed his back. He apparently thought he was being attacked from above. Of course, squealing like a girl didn’t help his macho image nor did the fact that I’m pretty sure Grace, his sister, was laughing herself silly. When he was being his macho best, peeing on a nearby bush, he very nearly fell over. This is nothing that we talk about in front of others lest his male ego be insulted and/or wounded.

Later, I couldn’t bring myself to point out to him that while he was smelling the honeysuckle, the park’s resident Mallard and his mate were swimming placidly in the rain-swollen pool just below the bank of honeysuckle Tux had immersed himself in. If I had told him about the duck, he would have pouted for the rest of the day. 

There is nothing worse than a Cocker Spaniel pout (CSP). A CSP can make me feel guilty even when I had nothing to do with the incident causing the pout. Those big-brown eyes can make the Pope feel guilt. Of course, for the rest of the day, I’m more likely to give tidbits of food here and there, allow him to sit in my lap when I should be working, and feed him earlier than his scheduled feeding time because he’s hungrier than usual. I can’t figure out whether he knows what he’s doing when he goes into a full-blown CSP or its happenstance that works well for him.

Lesson Learned

Don’t you agree that there are times when its best, like with Tux, that we don’t know all the facts? Like, for instance, as much as most writers rail against the agents who give zero feedback about why they don’t like a manuscript, don’t you think its better not knowing that particular truth? I mean what if the agent were to say, “This is the worse piece of writing I’ve ever read in my twenty years of being an agent.” Would you ever write another word if you had that “feedback?” I don’t think I would.