This Doggo
This Doggo! This dog turns 14 human years today. In dog years she is over 70. Her age does not defies her. This doggo is a mess, has always been a mess, and will for the next foreseeable future continue to be mess. Upon deciding all those years ago before actually having a dog, if and when we got a dog, there would be one simple guideline: We go, she goes. If she can’t go, we can’t go. Therefore, this doggo has always been a go dog. From the very get go she has had the princess seat. You know, the seat directly in the middle so she can see over the dash. The seat directly in the middle so she lean on either human at her discretion. The seat directly in the middle because it has the most room.
So yes, the princess seat. Don’t get me wrong, she has spent countless hours riding in the back of the truck. Most of this time came, much to her complaints, because of the Kid. It is socially acceptable to place a dog in the back of the truck, although much preferred if there are strapped in for safety. It is not socially acceptable to place a kid in the back of the truck even if they were strapped to their car seats. As the kid grew out of his car seat and into the booster seat, this doggo reappeared more and more in the front seat. Never having fully regained the princess seat as the truck is single cab, she is still in the front and not in the back where lesser dogs ride.
The best rearrangement to the seating was when the beep-beep was purchased in 2014. This allowed everyone to have their own seat. Hot dog. What an amazing change that made. Of course, anytime the front seat was evicted, this doggo will as jump from the back to the front for her place at the throne. When made to move back to her seat, the mover is given Doggo Eyeballs. Having started out as a simple stare down, Doggo Eyeballs have been perfected over the years and are now refined to a stilted eye stare down over a lowered snout with ears tucked down.
Having to make some adjustments since the Kid, this dog pretty much goes where she wants, when she wants, and how she wants. And this is not limited to the human mode of transportation either. If is possible to squeeze her big dumb head into whatever space she desires, she goes. Over the years, sticking her head into undesirable spaces has gotten her into trouble.
Not once, but three times. In her younger days, this dog loved holes in the ground. No wait, she still loves holes in the ground. Luckily for her, now the holes have benign gophers not 5 foot (or bigger) rattlesnakes. Within a years time, this doggo lived out the Skunk Hole Song:
She stuck her head
Into a little snake hole,
and the little snake said,
“Well bless my soul!,
“Take it out, Take it out,
“Take it out, Remove it!”
Oh, She didn’t take it out
And the little snake said“If you don’t take it out,You’ll wish you had,Take it out! Take it out!”Yozers! She removed it
This dog did not remove it and got struck on the snout three times. The first go around dammed near killed her. In fact, the ER vet told me to take her home and just be with her because she wouldn’t make until the morning. That was the summer of 2009. The remaining two strikes, a year later and within a months time of each other non the less, were more just a nuisance and a mess.
All dogs are pack dogs. Her pack is the three of us, much to her dismay, as she still only just tolerates the Kid. Her pack mentality is so strong she just can’t stand to be left out. Ever. With age, this pack mentality had increased tenfold for every year she aged. If you are going, she is going.
This dog follows when you cut the grass, clean the chicken coop, walk the kid to the bus stop. She follows from one room to the other. She follows from the inside the Rainstream to the attached deck. She follows from one box to the other and back again. She’s kinda stalky about it. Seriously, look at her face.
This dog even follows from one end of the box to the other. Upon opening to the Work Box in the am, this dog follows up the stairs and immediately lies down in either door way so as the person leaving has to step over her or she lies directly under the chair in which you are sitting. As soon as she hears/feels the back doors being opened she ambles down the distance of the SAME room to greet you at the door. Upon enough head room of space, with the love of her head in holes, she sticks her head out and demands attention. It is as if she is saying to you: I walked my crunchy self down this 40′ length of box the least you could do is love me. Love me when the first door opens. Love me when the second door opens. Just love me.
This dog follows you like a monkey on a leash. Hell, like a dog on a leash. Except for the first time in her entire life she is not leashed. With her age, she has less and less go and instead has more and more sleep. She no longer wanders as wandering takes away from sleep. Sleep is her primary goal for the day. Sleep that must be done directly under your feet or at your side or as close as she physically can get. Spring may have sprung for this old lady dog but her pack mentality coils tighter everyday. This need to stay within the pack is so strong, that being more than any distance other than directly under your feet is to far away. And once she feels left out, let the Dog Eyeballs commence. As a mother, Dog Eyeballs are like water off a ducks back to me. However, when the Dog Eyeballs fail her, she slips into her Austrian roots mode. Yodeling. With her yodeling, there are just no words…
Just. No. Words.
I guess this doggo will spend her remaining years (one, two, twenty) perplexing me and leaving me standing there with just no words. Her latest: bone burying. In the last few weeks she has decided to bury bones, something she has never done before. And with everything else she does that makes little sense, she buries the bone in the one and only rock pile. We live in a sand pit and she buries her bone in the rock pile left over from the last footing work. Why?
Because This Doggo.