A Girl and Her Dog
For the first time in a couple of weeks, it finally warmed up here enough that we could spend long stretches of time outside. It’s important that we play outside now because in a couple more weeks I’ll be complaining about the heat and humidity.
Our back door opens to a spacious enclosed yard of a couple hundred square feet. That’s one of the advantages of our communal living arrangement. One of the disadvantages is this is a shared yard that’s often shared with multiple dogs and everything that comes with dogs. I imagine that these dogs spend their days challenging each other to see who can leave the biggest lawn biscuit*. “That’s not a bad one Max,” Nick might say through a series of grunts and growls, “but I’ve been saving this one for a few days.” They’ll then emit doggie chuckles and spend the rest of the afternoon rolling in the yard and rubbing against as many surfaces as possible. Not that I’m complaining about dogs, mind you. We have a dog, so I’m legally forbidden from complaining about instinctual dog behavior.
As I was saying, Abbie and I spent much time today in our backyard playing one of her favorite games, “Let’s get the Dog Food.” No wait, that’s one of her favorite games that we don’t let her play. The game we played is just “Let’s Get the Dog.” This game involves me hoisting Abbie on my shoulders while I walk after the dog chanting (are you writing this down?) “let’s get the dog.” Hopefully millennia from now when future archeologists pinpoint the exact root of the downfall of our current civilization, they pinpoint something other than parents devising very uninspired names for the games they played with their children. So I chase our dog while incessantly chanting, and our dog usually cooperates well enough to run away as soon as I get close, all the while Abbie finds this infinitely amusing and squeals uproariously every time the dog scampers away. Sometimes our dog, possibly distracted by an exceptionally disgusting spot in the yard, won’t run away when we approach, in which case I borrow one of the communal dogs (the golden retrievers are always happy to fill in). I usually get too tired to continue after a few minutes, but once Abbie can chase the dog herself, the dog is in trouble.
In case you were wondering about the dog food game, that one involves her finding and trying to eat dog food. We don’t let her play that one, and have to battle pretty hard sometimes to keep her away from the dog food. I’ve made several allusions to her love of dog food on Abbie Update, and perhaps you think I’m exaggerating. Here’s photographic proof of our intense skirmishes.
That’s mommy locking horns with Abbie like a couple of mountain rams fighting over territory. The battles can get pretty intense, especially since the dog sometimes eats very slowly, possibly to give Abbie a sporting chance. So I do my best to move Abbie away from temptation and to a different location, like outside where there is no dog food, just lawn biscuits.
* “Lawn biscuit” can be rearranged to spell “I saw cub lint”
Our back door opens to a spacious enclosed yard of a couple hundred square feet. That’s one of the advantages of our communal living arrangement. One of the disadvantages is this is a shared yard that’s often shared with multiple dogs and everything that comes with dogs. I imagine that these dogs spend their days challenging each other to see who can leave the biggest lawn biscuit*. “That’s not a bad one Max,” Nick might say through a series of grunts and growls, “but I’ve been saving this one for a few days.” They’ll then emit doggie chuckles and spend the rest of the afternoon rolling in the yard and rubbing against as many surfaces as possible. Not that I’m complaining about dogs, mind you. We have a dog, so I’m legally forbidden from complaining about instinctual dog behavior.
As I was saying, Abbie and I spent much time today in our backyard playing one of her favorite games, “Let’s get the Dog Food.” No wait, that’s one of her favorite games that we don’t let her play. The game we played is just “Let’s Get the Dog.” This game involves me hoisting Abbie on my shoulders while I walk after the dog chanting (are you writing this down?) “let’s get the dog.” Hopefully millennia from now when future archeologists pinpoint the exact root of the downfall of our current civilization, they pinpoint something other than parents devising very uninspired names for the games they played with their children. So I chase our dog while incessantly chanting, and our dog usually cooperates well enough to run away as soon as I get close, all the while Abbie finds this infinitely amusing and squeals uproariously every time the dog scampers away. Sometimes our dog, possibly distracted by an exceptionally disgusting spot in the yard, won’t run away when we approach, in which case I borrow one of the communal dogs (the golden retrievers are always happy to fill in). I usually get too tired to continue after a few minutes, but once Abbie can chase the dog herself, the dog is in trouble.
In case you were wondering about the dog food game, that one involves her finding and trying to eat dog food. We don’t let her play that one, and have to battle pretty hard sometimes to keep her away from the dog food. I’ve made several allusions to her love of dog food on Abbie Update, and perhaps you think I’m exaggerating. Here’s photographic proof of our intense skirmishes.
That’s mommy locking horns with Abbie like a couple of mountain rams fighting over territory. The battles can get pretty intense, especially since the dog sometimes eats very slowly, possibly to give Abbie a sporting chance. So I do my best to move Abbie away from temptation and to a different location, like outside where there is no dog food, just lawn biscuits.
* “Lawn biscuit” can be rearranged to spell “I saw cub lint”
posted by Matt at
10:33 PM
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