I have two frequent muses for my silly, little blog. One is Señora. Most of the time she is okay with being my muse, sometimes she is tickled, and on occasion, she will arch one eyebrow and give me that look. After two bouts of the the brain fever known as matrimonitis I have gained enough “wisdom” to seek Señora‘s approval before releasing stories involving her into the wilds of cyberspace.
My other muse is The Wee Dog, aka Princess Lily, our 7 kilogram rescue dog. A year or so after we adopted her, on a whim – and on sale – we had her DNA tested. She is 3/8 Bichon Frisé, 1/4 Dachshund, 1/8 Pomeranian, 1/8 Pekingese, 1/8 Shih Tzu and 100% adorable except to squirrels, rabbits, moles and especially chipmunks.
Señora and Princess Lily are essentially surgically/psychically/telepathically connected. Neither one of them can stand not knowing where the other is, generally they are in the same room together. As revealed in True Confessions, I, by spells, have my roles to play in this ménage à chienne. For reasons known only to The Wee Dog, years ago she decided I was her nightly snuggle buddy. Also I am the one that generally takes her for a walk.
Dogs are creatures of habit, but so are humans. When we first started walking together I had two routes that I always took. One I would sometimes do in reverse. Both took us out of the complex of cul-de-sacs that is our little neighborhood with only one entry/exit. My comment at the time was that I set the direction and Lily set the pace. She was generally good with this. Once in a while before we had completed the walk she would decide she wanted to go home. If we were close to the half way point I would ignore her, otherwise back we would go. Sometimes she would do this by simply turning around and heading back. Other times she would crawl up my leg, make sure she had eye contact with me, and then she would slam it into reverse. When Señora was recuperating from her back surgeries these walks were very short. Lily could not stand being away from Señora for more than a few minutes.
A while back Lily started trying to turn left when I wanted to go right to get out to the main street that runs through the larger development. For a while I just ignored this, but then one day I decided why not just let her have her head and see where she goes. So that is what we have been doing ever since. What really is very interesting to me is that Lily almost never repeats the same route two nights in a row. She has her favorites too, but she likes to mix things up. So now Princess Lily picks the route and she sets the pace. It took her a while – what is that saying about teaching old dogs new tricks – but she finally got me trained. She was happy walking with me before, but now she just prances with contentment. File this under Choice is Good.
And so it goes.
Scribble does the same thing David!!!!! Every day she switches off right in Ladue or left in Ladue!!!!!! Your writing is wonderful!!!!! Starts my day with smiles if the heart!!!!! Thank you!!!!!