Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
“I’ll just lay over here quietly until you finish. Take your time. I’m not bored at all. No please, don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Play with Scout, she deserves your time too.”
(LOUD SIGH)
“It’s a good thing baby hedgehog loves me …”
You might have noticed that this pose is an Ellie specialty. She carries the little hedgehogs all over the house to make sure she doesn’t miss a moment’s opportunity for hedgehoggery.
Along with the glory of being a world-class receiver comes the responsibility to give back to your community, especially your young fans. Over the past nine months Ellie has picked up two young admirers. One morning when I woke up with Sam and Ellie beside me, Sam got up and started rubbing his head all over Ellie’s. Ellie looked at me with an expression that seemed to say “See how good I’m being? See how I’m not eating him?” and then proceeded to lick him about the face, which Sam tolerated in good humor.
But it is Emma who is most fascinated with the dog, whenever Ellie and I play hedgehog Emma comes tearing down from wherever she is in the house and tucks in close beside me. As I pet Emma and toss the hedgehog to Ellie, when Ellie takes a break and sits down Emma will saunter up to her and sniff her face, especially her ears. She also gets licked in the face for her troubles and tolerates it as graciously as Sam.
Ellie can’t be long distracted from hedgehog; a couple of times she even dropped the hedgehog in front of Emma and bent down as if she expected Emma to toss it across the room. But Ellie soon learned that, no matter how strong her affections, there are certain things Emma just can’t do.
Oh how I love this dog!
On fall weekends throughout the years, we’ve heard the names of many great passer and receiver combinations. Bradshaw to Swann. Montana to Rice. Aikman to Irvin. Manning to Harrison (and now Manning to Wayne). But this fall, a new pair arrived on the scene that some think could be the greatest to ever play the game.
Cameron drops back … rolls to his right … finds Ellie all alone downfield! No one will touch her! No one will catch her! Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdooooooooown!
The greatest pair of all time? I’ll let the pundits decide. My detractors will point out — fairly I think — that unlike Peyton Manning, I haven’t had to face the complex blitzing schemes of the modern NFL. I can’t argue the point. On the other hand, Peyton has never had to deal with Reggie Wayne drooling all over the ball.
We all have obstacles to overcome.
After a week of house rest Ellie was feeling better and definitely ready for the cone to come off. While Ellie wanted to jump right back to her normal routine, we followed the vet’s advice and slowly ramped her up to her normal activity levels. This meant her toy hedgehogs had to be hidden for a few days after the cone came off to reduce the temptation for too much running and jumping, two staples of hedgehog play.
Soon enough she was fully recovered and the house was once more filled with the joyful squeaking of hedgehogs at play. Squeaking, and squeaking, and squeaking …
After a week of house rest Ellie is doing much better. She’s finished her meds, the plastic cone has come off, and she resumed her walks a couple of days ago. The vet wants us to hold off a bit on allowing her to run or play rough, which means hedgehog time has been curtailed except for times like these when she lays on her back and waits for me to wrestle it from her mouth (these pictures are from before she hurt her leg).
Ellie is very anxious to be active again. While I was watching football the other day and working on my laptop, somehow baby hedgehog kept landing on my keyboard. I’d look over at Ellie and she had a look that said “I don’t know how that got that there, but since it is, let’s play!”. I’d get her to lay down with it, but a short while later hedgehog was back on my keyboard. The battle went on and on until I eventually put hedgehog in the closet.
Soon, Ellie, soon.
The riverdog came tumbling down,
Now a cone adorns her crown.
Ellie’s training has advanced far enough that this summer I’ve been letting her off-leash in appropriate areas. One of our favorite things to do is to head to nearby Kelley Point Park, where the Willamette River gently flows into the Columbia. There are a number of places along the trail with beach access, so Ellie can (dog) paddle the rivers that Lewis & Clark once paddled.
The last few visits I’ve brought a tennis ball and our riverdog just loves to chase it, either in the shallow water next to the beach or out into the deeper water where she can swim. We weren’t able to go a week ago because of a Hempfest (she’s already got a permanent case of the munchies), but this past Sunday we took advantage of the lovely afternoon for another visit. After about an hour of play, she came up limp so I decided it was a good time to head home. She does this whenever her foot lands on something unexpected so I wasn’t concerned, she was soon walking normally on the path back to the car and played vigorously in the evening.
By morning however she was limping noticeably and constantly licking her paw. My wife took her to the vet and it looks like she may have rather painfully sprained her ankle, she’s on painkillers and has to wear this cone to keep her from licking the troublesome paw.
Ellie joins some fine company of pets in cones, Templeton wore a similar hard plastic one while Emma’s was flexible cloth. This picture exaggerates the size of the cone, it doesn’t stick out much farther than her nose, but it reminded me of a radio transmitter, sending out Radio Free Ellie on all channels.
We bought first one hedgehog, then another, but never bothered to check if they were male or female. And so it came to pass that we now have four hedgehogs, the two adults plus two new babies.
One of the babies is stretched out like a dachshund, which is not so much a natural condition in hedgehogs as much as a result of what happens when a 70 lb. dog is constantly chomping down on you. The other hedgehog is normally shaped, just smaller than the adults, and is Ellie’s new favorite to the point that she won’t play with the others. The baby hedgehog fits more easily in her mouth, allowing her to squeak it mercilessly without interrupting her play.
Ellie you say that hedgehog loves you as evidenced by how often it stays with you, but would it stay if you weren’t chomping on its head?
I’m sorry Ellie, I’m sorry! Of course hedgehog loves you, it does it does. Please don’t look at me with those sad puppy-dog eyes!
There’s my happy girl! That’s better … wait, Ellie, why is hedgehog running away?
I’ve been trying to write a description of Ellie to go along with this picture but it keeps coming out wrong. She’s obviously a black lab, but whenever I type it out she comes across as huge and gray with big floppy ears and large white tusks. I couldn’t figure out why, then it dawned on me: I was writing with an Ellie font!
Boolie 