Early Christmas

Poop bags come in a huge variety of  sizes, shapes, weights of plastic and colors. The bigger and heavier weight ones are less apt to be parties to unpleasant direct physical encounters with poop. Bright colors, while not appealing practically speaking, are nonetheless appealing to me aesthetically. I tend to buy packages with a variety of bright colors, and I take pains to rotate the colors as I use them Why? Well, let's just say that spending two hours following a dog around and picking up poop is largely uninteresting, and anything I can do to spice it up, I do. 

This morning, I was carrying a bright yellow bag, looking for a place to deposit it. After about ten minutes, we were finally approaching a dumpster. It was the kind with the sliding door on the side, AND the door was open. As soon as we were close enough, I flung it in. Coming closer, I could see inside. My bright yellow ball of poop was hanging in the branches of a discarded artificial Christmas tree. Now there's an idea I bet nobody has thought of yet for Christmas decor! 

An Unintended Act Of Kindness

Wow, it has been a long time since I've written anything for any of my four blogs. Possessing a mindset similar to Mister Ed's, however, I rarely write unless I have something to say.

Every now and then, my girl invents a new addition to our standard menu of walking activities. Her most recent started around two weeks ago. On our way to the railroad tracks west of home, fully anticipating crossing those tracks and touring the River Plantation condominium community, we halted abruptly in the grassy stretch between Bellevue Road and the tracks. Her nose was in the grass, her tail was wagging furiously, and she began pulling me around and around this way and that. I watched intently, and finally saw the object of her search. A small, mouse-sized grey something skittered away from her and disappeared into another clump of grass. Her face was up to her ears in grass, so she didn't see it. We kept on, around and around, this way and that. Several more tiny grey somethings appeared and disappeared. This went on for about twenty minutes before I had had enough. I dragged her away, and we went home.

The following week we were back there on several afternoons. The search expanded to other sections of grass, always along the tracks. Little grey things skittered, she still hasn't caught one. One evening this past week while we were dancing in the grass, a little grey thing broke cover and ran across a bare patch of ground. In a flash there was a red tailed hawk diving down from the nearby trees. It hit the ground for a brief moment, then flew back up to its perch with a little grey something in its beak. Before we were done, it dove down twice more, but I couldn't see anything in its grasp.

So Grace hasn't been able to catch those little devils, but she provided a nice little snack for another hunter. And she doesn't even know that she did.

Decisions Decisions

This post has been rattling around in my head for years now. It started with sticks. Years ago, Grace was way more interested in sticks than she is now. But not just any old stick, oh no! I entertained myself by attempting to predict which would be a good stick. Some she would barely glance at. Some she would sniff and even pick up. Some she would carry for a few steps, then drop. A few were good enough to trot merrily with for a while or plop down and gnaw for a spell. On a couple of occasions, she carried a spectacular stick all the way home. I still am unable to differentiate a completely uninteresting one from a spectacular one.

Then there were gloves. One morning, she happened upon an abandoned pair of leather work gloves. She sniffed them, then picked up the left one and carried it all the way home. The right one stayed where she'd found them for more than a week. She barely glanced at it.

Balls. Tennis balls are often ignored, sometimes picked up, sometimes carried ten meters or so, but always dropped and forgotten. Big bouncy balls can be ignored, picked up and shaken, or meticulously ripped to shreds. Baseballs -  ignored, carried, gnawed or buried.

So now we come to the main event. What constitutes an acceptable burial site? There are criteria that are fathomable to me. Soft ground is definitely preferred. Beside a tree, bush or building is very important. Beyond that, I'm mystified. I can pretty much always tell when she has something she aims to bury. She takes on a whole new attitude. She no longer is sniffing and scanning for the next adventure. She is purposefully seeking a burial site. She'll walk for many minutes, looking right, left and ahead. She'll  stop at a tree and paw the earth, then move on. Sometimes she sniffs and paws seven or eight perfectly good (to my obviously inferior senses) possibilities before she starts digging in earnest. Then she drops her prize in the hole, pokes it in with her nose, and very meticulously covers it with the earth she dug up and then some. After that, we're immediately back to business as usual. And out of maybe two hundred items she has buried, she has gone back to retrieve three. What was it about those three items that made them worth digging up? No idea.

I know that I'll never figure out any of these conundrums. She's keeping the mystery alive.

A Not - So - Lucrative Occupation

I just spent a half hour reading WWG  posts back to the beginning in 2013, so I could mention when last I posted about finding money during walks with Grace. It turns out that I have never written about this phenomenon, which is related to the great American pastime of flinging perfectly good stuff willy nilly onto the ground. I see pennies all the time, but only pick them up if they are pretty clean. Nickels, dimes and quarters are less frequent, and I usually pick them up. Dollar bills come along once in a while - one time I found four - fives are rare, I found a tenspot one time, and then there are twenties.

One of my favorite coincidences happened about two years ago. Grace and I were in Nashville Pet Products, with the usual fuss being made over her, and she led me over to her favorite treats. "Sorry," I said, "I don't have twenty dollars." So we left, went across the street to the field behind the Suntrust ATMs, and she led me directly to a twenty dollar bill lying in the dirt. "Okay already!" I said. We went back and bought treats.

Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place, but I always look anyway, knowing as I do that there will never be another twenty in the field behind the Suntrust ATMs. Yesterday, lo and behold, there was! And this one isn't earmarked for anything!

Carmen reminded me when I told her about this windfall. The total of money I've found in five and a half years is up around 90 or 95 bucks now. That works out to about 17 bucks a year.