Thoughtful Lucky, Sweet Bailee

The puppy mama gets a special bowl with nice goopy canned food in it because she hasn’t been eating and we want her to maintain her weight. She gets it in the garage so her bonehead son doesn’t muscle her over and slop it all up himself. She probably hasn’t been eating because she knows there’s something wrong with her and maybe dogs have an instinct to just let it go when they know all is not well.

She doesn’t use her right hind leg, hasn’t in months. Thought it was a strained tendon or something but it never got better so the vet took an x-ray and sent us to an oncologist and everyone agreed she has bone cancer and may not last the summer.

This is the doggy that was our brand new puppy when the old dog was getting old and who had eleven puppies a year ago and is only 2 ½. She’s a retriever and it’s really frustrating for her that I have to hold the bonehead back when I throw a ball so she can get it.

She’s a total sweetheart with soft golden fur and a sharp smart-bump on her noggin and warm loving eyes who just wants to curl up and lie around a lot when she’s not disobeying orders and running off down the creek where dogs aren’t supposed to go because that’s a lot of someone else’s yards to trespass in. She and her boy ignore our calls and disappear for fifteen minutes at a time and come back all wet and happy and we just don’t mind anymore. What are we going to do? It’s not like anyone down there has livestock and will be justified in shooting them. Least I think not.

Anyway last night I was watching over her so she’d eat and I heard the cat meowling outside. Let her in: she held a nice little mouse friend gently in her jaws. She put the mouse down and watched it twitch. Maybe she wasn’t so gentle after all. Bailee thought it was fascinating and for a long time she and Lucky sat on opposite sides of the mouse watching it twitch, Lucky with her inscrutable cat gaze and Bailee with her smart dog eyebrows doing a Woody Allen. After awhile Lucky got bored and jumped up onto something and attended to cat business and Bailee sniffed at the little twitcher and decided to try it out for herself. She picked it up and carried it around a little bit and dropped it next to the fridge and looked at it some more. It didn’t move. Bailee may have been less gentle than the cat. Or the mouse was tired now and resting.

Bailee had eaten what she was going to eat so I put her and her yummies outside and turned out the light and left mouse and cat to work things out in the dark. Next day there was a neat little pile of mouse giblets just outside the door where bare feet on their way to the garage refrigerator could easily find them without having to look. Lucky is thoughtful that way. It was nice of her to introduce Bailee to her new friend too. Good ol’ thoughtful Lucky.