Today one of my daughters and I spent a good deal of time and effort transplanting some perennials we got from a dear sweet little Christian lady who was "downsizing" her vast collection of plant materials. I envisioned beautiful purple coneflowers, hostas, and Gloriosa daisies amid drifts of forget-me-nots gracing our work-in-progress: A landscape job complete with stone walkway and rock garden leading to the entrance of our screen porch. Now, this has truly been a unified effort of blood, sweat, and tears, not only by myself, but my four strong and helpful offspring and two "hired hands" (that's another good story for later). The project has been evolving over the past several years, and now it's beginning to actually LOOK like something.
So after going out to the clothesline to take down a few loads, the cats were acting and looking a little like Ethiopian refugees in need of a good meal. "Here kitty, kitty!", and in no time, their poor famished selves are rewarded with dishes of kitty-kibbles. After I go back inside with the loads of clothes, I turn back to see the cats are walking away from the shop area where I just fed them. I think to myself, "How can they have eaten that so quickly?", so I investigate only to find the culprit: Jed! "Bad dog!!!", and Jed hunkers down to show his guilt. I have pity on him and tie him up and give him his dinner AWAY from the poor starving Ethiopian cats. I grumble to myself about all the critters around here that have no manners, and then I get an idea!
I had just minutes before walked into the shop and heard a distinct "beep, beep, beep, beep, beep!", then glanced over to what Paulie, the OTHER Macgyver, was making. He had some contraption going off that reminded me of some time-bomb or something, with it's flashing red lights, controls, and that alarm going off. While I'm pretty sure it ISN"T a time-bomb, I think to myself, "I ought to get Paulie to build me some kind of critter alarm." Soon after leaving the shop area and making my way back to the house, my thought was confirmed. "@#$%^& CHICKENS!!!!!" Blasted things scratched up my beautiful coneflowers, leaving their roots exposed to the air for who-knows-how-long! That's it, I've decided. The perfect plot for MacGyver--mastermind a scheme for all these conniving animals, and teach them a lesson once and for all! "Paulie, while you're at it, what do you think about creating a robot to police all these animals-behaving-badly???" So everyone, if there's ever a revival of the Lost Episodes of MacGyver, be on the look-out for this exciting chapter, or maybe you'll see the "Animal Police Robot" on some late-night informercial....stranger things HAVE happened!
Showing posts with label pets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pets. Show all posts
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Faithful Friend
I'm looking now at the picture of our family dog, Jed, who is a three-year-old purebred border collie and remembering his puppy days, which have so quickly evaporated like smoke on the cold March wind. This morning as I venture outside, I find what the weather forecasters had predicted. This time they were telling the truth: warm, sunny, chilly wind, but no snow or ice! Finally! Still bracing for the cold I've been dressing for all this long winter, I open the door to spring just peeking around the corner of an old, bold enemy: winter. And this brings me back to Jed, my walking-to-the-mailbox buddy and faithful furry friend.
I find it amusing as I walk out the door with letters in hand en route to the mailbox, that Jed and our three cats automatically run to their feeding spot under the lean-to of our shop. Evidently I have habituated them to think that every time I walk out the door, it's either to feed them or to get in the van to go run errands. I say evidently, because Jed and the cats first go to their food dishes, and when I don't head in that direction, the cats just saunter away, unamused, but Jed goes next to the van or whichever vehicle that he thinks I will be getting into, ready to do his "job" of chasing me down the driveway, turning two or three circles at the end of the driveway, then off to the left or right to chase along our property line faster than the my van will take me.
Of course, he has a 50/50 chance of being right or wrong as to which direction he leads, but he makes up for lost time by doubling back at breakneck speed, then finally dropping back, just for the sport of it all. This time, though, he gets to follow me, instead of one of my kids, to the mailbox, and I can almost hear his little doggy brain saying "I wonder what she's doing, not getting in the van so I can do my chase game, my one main reason to live, and even better than eating doggie kibbles?" At least, that's what I think he's thinking.
I know for a fact that dogs have very simple mind-sets. I learned this from the "Far Side" comic, which I highly admire and am easily amused by. You know, the one where the dog is listening to his master saying "Come here, Ginger. Sit down, Ginger. Roll over, Ginger", or something like that, and the bottom half of the cartoon shows the same benign dog with the same benign master, thinking the dog understands, and what the dog really hears is "Blah, blah, blah, Ginger..."--so ridiculously true! So I've learned that my actions mean more to Jed than words...hmmmm, maybe there's a good lesson in there for all of us? I'd like to think that it's simple enough for my dog to understand, but he is teaching me far more about human nature just by being himself, so maybe he's not so simple-minded after all. God uses the simple things to confound the wise, and so I am thankful for my Faithful Friend.
I find it amusing as I walk out the door with letters in hand en route to the mailbox, that Jed and our three cats automatically run to their feeding spot under the lean-to of our shop. Evidently I have habituated them to think that every time I walk out the door, it's either to feed them or to get in the van to go run errands. I say evidently, because Jed and the cats first go to their food dishes, and when I don't head in that direction, the cats just saunter away, unamused, but Jed goes next to the van or whichever vehicle that he thinks I will be getting into, ready to do his "job" of chasing me down the driveway, turning two or three circles at the end of the driveway, then off to the left or right to chase along our property line faster than the my van will take me.
Of course, he has a 50/50 chance of being right or wrong as to which direction he leads, but he makes up for lost time by doubling back at breakneck speed, then finally dropping back, just for the sport of it all. This time, though, he gets to follow me, instead of one of my kids, to the mailbox, and I can almost hear his little doggy brain saying "I wonder what she's doing, not getting in the van so I can do my chase game, my one main reason to live, and even better than eating doggie kibbles?" At least, that's what I think he's thinking.
I know for a fact that dogs have very simple mind-sets. I learned this from the "Far Side" comic, which I highly admire and am easily amused by. You know, the one where the dog is listening to his master saying "Come here, Ginger. Sit down, Ginger. Roll over, Ginger", or something like that, and the bottom half of the cartoon shows the same benign dog with the same benign master, thinking the dog understands, and what the dog really hears is "Blah, blah, blah, Ginger..."--so ridiculously true! So I've learned that my actions mean more to Jed than words...hmmmm, maybe there's a good lesson in there for all of us? I'd like to think that it's simple enough for my dog to understand, but he is teaching me far more about human nature just by being himself, so maybe he's not so simple-minded after all. God uses the simple things to confound the wise, and so I am thankful for my Faithful Friend.
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