Dancing Miss Daisy

This is such a harsh time of year. The short days, the cold nights, caring for the animals indoors rather than out with all the problems that brings along. The sky is just grey, day and night.....My favorite heifer was injured by a big cow and may not make it. So much going on behind the scenes.

It makes for a pervading, deep sadness, that common sense and 'this too shall pass' make no inroads upon. 

However, through all this gloom dances a little ray of sunshine. Happy dog! Happy dog! The delightful Miss Daisy holds the stage.

Russet red with lots of chrome, she radiates delight through all our days. Lap warmer, class clown, dashing through the house with gay abandon, heat-seeking tennis ball missile. 

Greeting me at the kitchen gate each morning, tail sweeping behind like a little feather broom. Prancing to the refrigerator as dinner time approaches...'you will get my food out, yes, please, now please?' 

She is perhaps the happiest dog I have ever enjoyed. 

We nearly lost her a few weeks ago. From one hour to the next she became horribly ill, dehydrated, and so, so sick. We figured some kind of internal blockage, and started her on Gatorade while Alan picked up some Pedialyte, kitty hairball medicine, and mineral oil. We dosed her every five minutes with a syringe full of first the Gatorade and then the Pedialyte. We gave her the kitty stuff and a little mineral oil.

She responded almost miraculously, and was her bouncing happy self in a few hours and rid of the problem by the next morning.

I think she had the  issue from before we got her though. Maybe from eating whole turkey poults, which is why we got her. If I give her more than a few bits of dry kibble, or biscuits, she gets "off" really fast. 

She is a different dog since her illness too, younger, happier, livelier. So full of joy in her people. When Liz comes home in the morning she is beside herself with delight. When her boy comes home after a week in the city, she can barely contain herself. Can't decide whether to run in circles, jump all over him, look everybody right in the eye to bark her announcement that he is home, or vault into his bed and bounce around  like a furry dervish. Where her hunting hound ancestors tunneled under the ground in search of badgers, she tunnels under the blankets in search of naps.

She has also tunneled into every heart in the house.

So, she gets canned dog food with squash or applesauce, plus a little rice, and kitty hairball medicine once a week. I never imagined fussily making dinner for an itty bitty dog, but she lights up the world, one prance at a time, and so.....she gets pretty much whatever she needs and a good bit of whatever she likes as well.