A 10 year old Border Collie that shares my life. We are in her second life now, I am still enjoying her and I am enjoying it to the fullest.
She had an episode back in the Spring. I don't know what caused it, the vet didn't know. It was a month of my holding her up to take her out to do Her Business in the yard because something happened in the middle of the night that made her very unsteady and practically able to walk. I took her to the excellent Family Pet at 2750 N Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale and they managed to get her back to normal. If you aren't going to them, call 954-567-2500 for your friend's care. Speak with Dr Sharon Glass or Dr Javier Gonzales and let them know that you are ready to step up for the best care in Fort Lauderdale available for your friend. Tell them that Bill, Lettie's dad sent you.
I walked in, all 6'4" and 225 pounds, filling the doorway carrying an almost 50 pound border collie that couldn't walk, crying into her fur. After they calmed me down, they allowed me to stay with her as they stabilized her condition and got her to where she could heal herself with a couple bottles of non steroidals. I think I finally left after about 5 hours of brooding fragile silence on my part. She's on Glucosamine to this day. 50 pounds and 2000mg a day.
Now she's feeling normal. This morning the walk was the Almost One Mile that I do three times a day and despite the rain that floated through off the ocean, she came back invigorated.
She was, I still needed my second mug of coffee.
Parking myself in the bouncy chair, mug by my side, surfing to a German pop music station at www.place2be-online.de I started on my Usual Morning Job Search Routine of 1000 links, 150 pages of job fun.
Welcome isn't what I'd call this side effect of the Republican Induced Great Depression, but it is what it is.
Lettie was feeling the music. Being a German pop station, there was a piece of music on that I remember from the local dance stations in English that was particularly bouncy. After listening to this station for an hour I've yet to hear anything in German other than the news broadcast...
Seeing The Cat, she bounced over to it and pounced on the toy making it squeak.
Since I was at Border Collie Height in the brown bouncy Poang, Mrs Dog insisted that it was playtime. Never mind that yesterday between all those links and job pages, it took me 5 hours to get through the routine, She Wanted To PLAY!
I found that she wanted more than my merely grabbing the leg of the cartoonish plush creature, she was happily whipping it and my arm around like a parody of a video on the Discovery Channel where an alligator is doing the death roll on some unfortunate impala in the African Savannah. Having almost 50 pounds of insistent black fur tugging on a plush creature, and by extension my arm, we both were bouncing to the beat.
Border Collies are amazingly intelligent dogs. I have never met a dog quite as intelligent as mine, and while everyone says that who owns one, the comment is almost universally true of Border Collies and similar breeds. I don't teach her tricks, I teach behaviors. She knows "Show Me" means for her to go and take me somewhere then look at what she wants directly. She also knows a very light touch on the nose to be "Hello". So while I'm bouncing to the beat, and she's starting to tire of being the engine of the chair's rocking, I decided to reach around with my right hand and lightly touch her nose. Smiling, she then decided "Daddy Likes This" and was reenergized.
We managed to get into a feedback loop. Anyone who has a dog knows that anything they do tends to be short duration unless they're bored and in some sort of Obsessive Compulsive state. The also know that most Middle Aged dogs tend to sleep a lot. I won't call her Aged like the BBC did the other day, she simply does not act it.
Instead of her being bored with my not being up out of the chair she started over and decided to try to get that cat out of my head by whipping her head around thrashing. It was about that time when I heard a THUMP against the supporting wooden frame. Yes, my border collie, the smartest dog in all the world smacked her head against the chair. Did she care? Not at all. She decided it was part of the game. I pulled the cat free of her mouth and she looked at me with those deep brown eyes, smiled and did another grab for the tabby toy.
Finally after I got tired of the game I started to toss the toy against the door. Having to run and having to get the toy back to me slowed the feedback loop down until finally she was done.
An Hour Later.
She really must have needed that hour romp. Finally, sated, she curled up onto the mat into a Dog Ball (TM) and is resting.
It is hard to say who enjoyed that more, Lettie or Me.
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