Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
Literally minutes after taking one of my favorite pictures of Ellie, I snapped one of my favorite pictures of Sam. Of course I have many favorites of our photogenic feline, there’s silent Sam, snowy Sam, snuggly Sam, scary Sam, sleepy Sam, shadowy Sam, scrunchy Sam, and so many others.
Oh Ellie!
I don’t know much about hedgehogs but they must not be too bright. Ellie loves to lie on her back like a fallen log and sneak up on them and they fall for it every single time. Ellie has a strict catch-and-release policy so you’d think by now they’d have figured out her strategy.
One nice thing about how well Ellie is healing is that she can now join me in the backyard like before, minus the running and jumping. That even means the return of baby hedgehog to outside time as long as she doesn’t get too rambunctious. She had tossed it to me here, wanting to play like in days of old, but we’re not ready for that yet. I’ve adapted baby hedgehog play since she first got her surgery, matching it to her allowed activity level. We started off with a game where she didn’t need to move anything but her head, to now where she can be more mobile but doesn’t need to run and jump.
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.
Ellie continues to confound with her dietary adventures, somehow opening a tupperware tub of freshly baked chocolate raisin cookies and devouring every last crumb, maintaining her perfect attendance in the clean plate club. But dear Ellie, not freshly baked cookies! Not freshly baked! If you must eat cookies, stick to the store-bought kind!
A day or two later she broke open a bag of cat treats and finished those off, followed later by the supplements she takes for joint health. If only the cats were so eager to take their medicine!
While walking her at night earlier in the week, she had so much energy I ran with her a bit. We ran past the houses in one section of the neighborhood where the tall trees block the streetlights, where the roots of the tall trees broke up the sidewalk, where I tripped on the broken sidewalk and faceplanted into the concrete.
I landed hard but was able to get my hands out in front of me, the ground knocking out the doggie treat I was holding. I wasn’t surprised that Ellie sniffed out the treat in the darkness and gobbled it down before checking to see if I was OK. My palms took the brunt of the damage and got skinned up pretty badly, as well as the top of my right hand. My left knee and right elbow were badly bruised but not bleeding.
After the first night the swelling went down and it was clear there was no permanent damage. The wounds are healing rapidly and the pain subdued with ibuprofen. It was a lovely weekend but I didn’t do any yardwork apart from mowing as I can’t put any hard pressure on my palms yet, but that left extra time to play catch with the tennis ball in the backyard with Ellie, a fair trade.
This picture of Ellie is from earlier in the year, you can see a bit of white paint on her neck. All of the paint spots are gone now, apart from a bit on her tail, the fur there must shed more slowly.
You don’t need to travel to the Galapagos to see evolution in action. Consider that when Lewis & Clark first crossed the Rockies into the West, they looked across verdant fields and saw dogs chasing tennis balls, with some highly evolved breeds specializing in catching the hapless balls on the bounce.
While at the time dogs seemed to have the upper hand, in the intervening years evolution seems to have lobbed the advantage back into the ball’s court. The balls have increasingly learned to anticipate being caught from above and have developed ever more complex bounces to evade their slobbering foes.
But recently, dogs seem to be regaining mastery over their prey of old. While the ball nervously scans the skies, the dog flattens itself against the ground and sneaks up from the side, catching the ball unawares.
Usually catching the ball unawares. Sometimes the ball still manages to escape. That’s nature for you.
Ellie had a vet appointment this morning to get a booster shot. She got a good health report all around (apart from needing to lose a little weight, which we are working on). But late this afternoon I got a call from my wife saying she was heading back to the vet.
During the day, Ellie had somehow gotten a hold of some of my wife’s chocolate calcium chews. This is not the way to weight loss Ellie! Although at least we won’t have to worry about her suffering from osteoporosis. The vet didn’t think any harm was done but had us watch for vomiting and unusual stools just to be safe — any blood and it was off to the emergency vet. Thankfully she’s been fine, a little hyper but she got a lot of exercise this weekend and calmed down nicely by nightfall.
Ellie’s a black lab, at least we thought she was, but I’m thinking now she may be a chocolate lab. Dark chocolate.
The title for today’s post comes from little Sam, who is skating on thin ice I assure you.
He asked me today if I knew which part of Ellie I most smelled like. I said no but to consider his answer carefully and reminded him who plays countless hours of String with him. He deliberated far longer than I thought necessary, eyes darting between me and Ellie, before finally answering “Why the sweetest part of course!”
Boolie 