Inexplicably at Christmas dinner, my sister Beatrice turns to me and remarks, "Jules! He is the PERFECT dog!" I agree wholeheartedly as he is my dog and I am seriously biased but coming from Beatrice? Before I could remind her of Jules delightful penchant for jumping up enthusiastically on visitors to our house or his charming urge to occasionally shove his nose deep into people's crotches, Beatrice and her partner John wax eloquent about how cute he is and how smart and how he loves to chase balls in the backyard... and did they neglect to say he's perfect? Well, there's the little dickens above. I was attempting to procure a "handsome" photo to illustrate canine perfection, but instead I got the crazy, snarling "let's chew on the photographers leg" doggie that I know so well. (But he is perfect.)
And Maggie? I haven't posted about our Dog and Pony Show for quite a while as I've been preoccupied with the lord's work (that would be self promotion in regards to show in NYC and other seasonal sundries...) But Maggie, far from being perfect is temporarily in prison.
Looks guilty, doesn't she? Last Friday, the very day after Christmas when I was trying to finish baking yet another batch of cookies to take to a good friend's annual Boxing Day celebration, I spied a large dark shape over by our neighbor's driveway. As I didn't have my contact lens in, I could detect that it was moving and while the shape was somehow familiar, it was in an unfamiliar location so it took several seconds for me to process, "Hello! It's the horse!" I sprinted outside, despite having cookies abake in the oven, calculating that a burned batch of cookies was less dangerous than a large hoofed mammal on the loose. Maggie seemed pleased to see me and followed without any ado back to her confines, me all the while thinking how we'd probably have to repair some major break in the fence. But what I see is that Maggie has simply pushed her way through the small gate (as I neglected to pull the extra latch down), made a stop at the hay barn to break open a fresh bale of hay and then proceeded onto the neighbor's yard. I guess she was sampling the new batch of bales we had picked up early that morning and then decided to take a stroll. Funny how they figure things out!
