Turkey Tracks: November 4, 2016
Walking the Dogs
When sister Susan came in mid October, we walked every day.
And I have been walking pretty much every day since as the weather has allowed the walking.
Walking is another of those activities that I’ve suddenly had energy for again.
I used to walk a lot, but when John was sick and after he died, I had no energy to walk.
Needless to say, the girlie rat dogs are in heaven.
Miss Reynolds Georgia, aka as The Beauty Queen, aka Rey Rey, is 13 years old now. And, she’s pretty much deaf. But she’s a game little dog and loves the daily walking. She starts following me around shortly after her breakfast, wondering if its time to go out yet. It’s like living with a child who is on a long car trip with you and who is asking “are we there yet” every few minutes.
Here she is–neither of my ratties will look at me if there is a camera in my hand.
I observed something really funny on our walk yesterday.
When we start out, especially if we walk Union Street in Camden which is a long straight road with a few hills/grades along the way, Penny is out front just moving along at a good clip, while Rey is behind us the full length of the retractable dog leash. I thought Rey was just slower than Penny in catching all the delicious doggy smells along the way or peeing just where Penny already peed.
But, yesterday, when we turned around, Rey dashed to the front and started back the way we came at a no-nonsense good clip.
Hmmmm….
What’s going on with that?
Rey has always, always been timid about getting away from home grounds. Even as a tiny puppy, she’d go about 50 feet from our yard and start worrying: “Do you know where we are? I think we’re lost. I’m sure we’re lost. Let’s go home now. I don’t think you know what you’re doing.”
I thought that I’d just let her lead us and see what happened. A mile later, we drew near the car, which was parked in a line of cars. I thought for a minute that Rey would just walk past it, but halfway alongside the car, she stopped and sat down, just as good as a dog pointing a bird.
Hmmmmm.
She’s like a horse heading back to the barn.
Next I took her on a circular two-mile walk where we would approach the car, which was off the road and in a parking lot, from an entirely different direction.
Again when we rounded the final turn and headed for the car, which was a good half-mile away, I watched to see if she would walk past the entrance to the off-road parking place.
Nope. She turned into the lot and took me right to the car and sat down.
Rat terriers are so, so, so smart.
Rey also takes care of No No Penny. She comes and gets me if Penny wants to go in or out. She comes to get me when it’s time for her dinner.
I hate it that dogs have such a short life in comparison to our own time span.
Here’s No No Penny, who is a real rat dog–not a highly bred one that has been bred back to Chihuahuas to make them smaller. She’s hunting for the chipmunks that live under the porch and fuss at her when she tries to huff and puff down the back seam of the porch floor where it meets the house wall.
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