Thursday, June 26, 2008

Blackie's Perfect; Rufie's Trouble


Blackie is old. She cries at the bottom of the stairs, needing to come up from the basement to go outside, wishing we'd install an elevator for her. But back in her prime, she was a frisky gal. She never did like to play fetch, but she let the boys dress her a couple of times, and she always wanted to be where the action was. When she would escape, she'd go across the street to roll in horse manure. Ah, simple pleasures.

Rufus is young. He loves -- lives -- to chase tennis balls. He routinely fits two in his mouth, and can bat a third ball around with his paws. Christmas for Rufus is a brand-new bag of balls, given all at once. Ohmygoodness, such excitement! But there is one thing that can distract Rufus from a game of fetch. The neighbors have cats, you see. And cats run when you chase them. Did I mention that Rufus is quick? He caught one of the cats last month. He got hold of it, and the injury was serious enough that the neighbors had to put their cat down. This week, he chased another one. We're working on getting a fence put up, and soon.

I keep reminding Blackie how perfect and wonderful she is. She has always been kind and gentle and good, even when she could run like the wind. After all, the dead rabbit in our yard was never tested for her DNA. And who knows how far the wind carried those chicken feathers before we found them in the flowerbed.

Wow, we sound like terrible people. We are working on completing the fence. And we need to protect our pets from the coyotes who share the neighborhood wetlands.

2 comments:

Miss Kitty said...

What a sweet, loving tribute to a very good dog. Your dogs' personalities sound like a perfect yin-yang pairing.

Katharine said...

A very good dog, indeed. You don't KNOW how much of a pain it was to get her into the tub to wash that horsepoop out of all that fur!

Thanks for the validation, though. They're both wonderful companions.