Relative Something

For a reason that is beyond me, there are times when our dog, Delilah, will circle an unusually large number of times before finally choosing to lie down in some random spot. Last night, it was a towel spread on the floor for her. I’d love to know what that thought process is all about.

In case I have neglected to mention it, Delilah has made great strides toward mastering the art of behaving well unsupervised, off-leash, and roaming free on our property. She performs charmingly well as my cohort in a variety of chores and exploits around our land. When I am raking or digging, she is all in, usually un-doing progress I have accomplished, but very obviously well-intentioned toward assisting with my tasks.

In a simple trek down the driveway to pick up the mail, she is a cheery companion, trotting ahead a short distance, turning to check my progress, then romping off to the side to explore the enticing smells left by critters large and small.

From the mindset of not knowing what you’ve got until it’s gone, I want to be aware of how much she adds to our experience here. Caring for her can be a lot of work, demanding our attention at times when it seems we can least afford it, but having her in our lives makes it well worth the effort.

Now if she can just learn to avoid baring her teeth and barking at the horses when it is time to be calm. We put the horses in the barn last night because of the cold rain, and at the critical moment when Cyndie was vulnerable between two horses who were anxious to get in, Delilah starts into a snarling, growling-bark to antagonize them. Another case of her “helping” in a way that absolutely does not help.

We think she and Pequenita are making great strides toward becoming friendly, respectful house-mates, but there are still too many times when Delilah will be amped up beyond reason and pursue the cat with too much exuberance.

Between moments of seeming to nap last night, she jumped up at the presence of Pequenita and upon my hearing what sounded like uncharacteristic amounts of hissing and meowing in protest, I was disturbed to discover a bit of fur on Delilah’s chin.

“Did you bite her!?” I exclaimed with startled upset.

I suppose it could just as easily have been a piece of Delilah’s own fur that Pequenita had dislodged with a swipe of her claws. I checked ‘Nita, who had parked in front of her food and looked no worse for the wear. In fact, in a page from the horse’s mode of behavior, both dog and cat were back together in minutes and appeared to have disregarded the previous interaction, appearing as if they were “going back to grazing” with no apparent angst carried over.

How could we love darling Delilah any more than we do? We lucked out in a big way when Cyndie uncovered the surprise availability of a 9-month-old Belgian Shepard Tervuren at a breeder not too far from us. Since then, she has grown into a beautiful, perfect dog for us.

In this case, we do know what we’ve got, before it is gone.

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