I shall now blog about my dog (again)

We love our pets, don't we?  And especially as we get older, dogs seem to take the place of children in our lives.  I bought my Miniature Schnauzer knowing the little girl we babysat for five years would soon be leaving us,, realizing there would be a terrible hole in my life without her.  So I got a dog.  In some ways he's a poor substitute for the beautiful little girl who chattered constantly, making us smile.  On the other hand, I don't worry about scarring him for life with my pathetic attempts to train him... that's always a worry with children, at least in my case; not so much, with dogs.  I constantly wondered if I was doing my best with Cora, knowing my best was never all that great.  

With a pet, it's simpler.  Just feed them, be nice to them, even spoil them rotten if you want to.  Dogs never become juvenile delinquents, as long as they are loved; they might have behavior problems, but theirs are minor compared to behaviors human children display once they reach puberty.  Dogs don't become drug addicts or alcoholics, and you can get them fixed so they won't be spreading babies with different daddies around all over the place.  With human kids, that's always a possibility.  Especially if, like me, you're a less than stellar parent.

I may have a dog so spoiled that visitors can't stand him, but that's their problem.  

Meanwhile, my dog keeps me laughing almost as much as a child would, and he stays a child all his life.

Gabe seems to have a problem with my church attendance now that Cliff doesn't attend with me.  When Cliff went, I put the dog in the kennel for the brief time we were gone.  But now Cliff drops me off and quickly returns home, so I leave Gabe free in the house.  When Cliff comes home alone, Gabe drives him crazy running to both ends of the house looking for me; if he goes outside, he looks around a bit and comes right back to the door wanting in, continuing to behave as though he thinks I've been kidnapped.  

The second time Cliff came to pick me up at church, he let Gabe ride along, and he's been doing that ever since.  So now Gabe tries to force him to go outside to the car while I'm gone; Cliff lets him out thinking he needs to pee, but he runs straight to the car.  You see, I normally don't go anywhere without Cliff, since he drives and I don't.  I'm the chief caretaker for the dog; I'm the one who feeds him.  He constantly lays on my feet in the recliner, or beside me.  He's used to Cliff being outside somewhere while he and I are in the house.  But until recently, he's never known me to be gone without my husband.  This is a big concern to him.  

I can go for slow walks in the pasture at least three days a week without my knees hurting too badly; walk one day, skip one day.  It takes me 50 minutes to walk the distance I use to traverse in 35 minutes, but it's still exercise, and I enjoy being out there in nature.  So does Gabe, and I started out letting him run around unleashed as we walked.  However, I finally got tired of the stick-tights and thistles getting embedded in the hair on his face, legs, and belly and started using the leash.  Giving him the freedom to run led to so much pain for him when I combed out the stick-tights, it wasn't worth it.  He's taken pretty kindly to the retractable leash.  He pulls hard on it when we first take off, but unless he sees something interesting he'd like to chase, he settles down and doesn't fight it much. 

Actually, on our last walk the leash probably saved us both from an uncomfortable situation.  We were walking out behind the little pond in the pasture when I caught a whiff of skunk perfume.  That isn't unusual; there are many mornings I walk out into the yard and am greeted by the odor of Pepe Le Pew.  So we kept walking, when suddenly the smell became overpowering!  Obviously we had ventured too near this skunk for his comfort, so he used his defenses.  I actually think I heard the sound of his stomping his back feet on the ground as he sprayed... he was close, off in the brush to my left!  If Gabe had been off leash, I have little doubt I'd have had a very stinky dog on my hands.  As it was, I wondered if any of the smell had settled on us; it seemed like it took forever to walk our way out of the fumes.  

Once we got back around the pond and on to the next portion of our walk, we scared up a deer in the brush, and of course Gabe tried to chase him.  Lord only knows where he'd have ended up, running after a deer.  Yep, I think the leash is a good idea.  

I'll leave you with a picture of my little buddy.  He was relaxing at my feet in such an ungainly position, I squirmed out of my spot behind him to take a picture.  Honestly, I don't even know what kept him from falling off that footrest.

Anything for a laugh, right?  That's Gabe's motto.

Yours truly,
Gabe's best friend