Our dog, Macy, is the grandmother of the puppy, Daisy, that is with us this week. That seems to mean little to either of them, though. Evidently dogs do not recognize generational bonds.
Daisy is one big ball of energy. Her favorite pastimes are running, jumping, and knocking people over. She's about the size of a small greyhound so she is quite successful at all of those endeavors. Macy is 14 years old, a bit deaf and a bit blind. She moves slowly and her favorite pastimes are lying in the sun and sleeping.
Now Macy may be older and slower, but she is the alpha dog and she's not about to give up that spot. When Daisy first arrived, Macy lunged at her several times snapping at the air just to make her point. Now all she has to do is move a bit faster in Daisy's direction and Daisy immediately sits at attention.
This submissive stance gives Macy the opportunity to collect all the chew toys that Daisy has been enjoying and place them ever so carefully in a semicircle around her bed. She then plops herself on the bed and, from her lofty position, guards her spoils.
Daisy whimpers and barks, trying to get Macy to give in, but none of it seems to annoy Macy as much as it does us. The longer Macy ignores her, the louder Daisy gets until one of us finally takes her outside to play.
Then Macy gets really upset because we were all supposed to ignore Daisy just like she did. So she carries one of Daisy's toys outside in her mouth and parades herself back and forth in front of Daisy. Now Daisy, despite all evidence to the contrary, believes that Macy has relented and is bringing her toy to her. So, because she is easily distracted from current activities, Daisy drops whatever she is doing and runs to Macy to get the toy.
About three feet away from her target she suddenly realizes that she is approaching the mouth of doom and so she slams on the brakes. Unfortunately, her momentum propels her past her stopping point and into Macy and/or whatever human happens to be in her line of fire. No matter how it ends, Daisy thinks it was great fun and Macy makes it clear that she was not the least bit impressed.
Sometimes life is just like that. For some the glass, or the water bowl, is always half-full. For others it is on its way to empty. But clearly enthusiasm alone is not enough. Evidently, getting older means we need to get wiser as well.
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| the route of comepensation |
