It’s more than a hobby, Jack has a magnificent obsession. He wants people to throw things so that he can retrieve them. Here he’s asking me to throw this stick that he’s laid at my feet, but it could be a ball or a stone, he doesn’t care. He does this all day long, indoors and out. It’s his only interest apart from going for walks – oh, and he enjoys confronting the goats from the safety of the other side of the fence.
And here he is retrieving it. He’s not very good at it. He dashes off without looking where the projectile is headed and so if anything unexpected happens, he’s screwed. Then he seems to blame me, but I’m damned if I’ll run after a small stick myself. So after a couple of minutes he’ll find something else to lay at my feet. Sometimes it’s tiny: a twig the size of a wishbone will do.
In between throws, he’ll torture it.
Often he’ll shake it to death
and sometimes he’ll gnaw it to death, but it’s a token gesture. All he cares about is the chase.
A Bad Guide 
Ohhh, he’s so cute!
Obsessive or just sportive, Jack is very lovable!
That’s spookily reminiscent of an equally lovable blog commenter I know. Waits for people to bring up a topic, dashes after it without looking where it’s headed, tortures it to death etc. I think you should buy Jack a notebook and fix him up a link to Doggie Blog. He might then settle down a bit, he’s getting too old to be chasing wishbones.
Jack? Too old? I was just thinking how nice it must be to have a puppy…
Ruskin and Sandy love to chase balls (don’t know about sticks). But they’ll only retrieve them to about 12 metres away from the person who has kindly thrown whatever-it-is. Then Person has to wade into muck, waist-high, tick-ridden grain fields, virgin scrub or whatever, and do the last bit itself.
Unless the fields are recently mown with firm, dry stubble, I don’t go for this. So they pine.
You are very lucky.
I remember a YouTube film of a dachshund (I think it was) who’s person had installed a tennis-ball serving machine, and got the dog some soft balls. The dog would fetch the ball and Put It Back Into the Machine.
Christmas present for Jack?
Found it: I see: this chap built it himself. But there are commercially available things…
He’s only about nine months old. I think you’re on to something, Stu: analysing people in relation to their own dogs’ behaviour makes some sense. It shows that dreams are just one metaphor of many that are available. Jack can’t write, as far as I know.
Julia, you’re right. Jack’s very enthusiastic about doing anything. It’s a great quality.
Will he retrieve a stick from your lake?
I don’t own a dog, Jeremy. That’s no reason not to analyse my own behavior.
Jeremy and Catanea bring up things that they won’t do for their dogs. Back when dogs were not treated as humans, or creatures with “equal rights”, there was no reason for a dog owner (dare I use that word ?) to specify and defend his rights towards the dog, such as not running after the stick when the dog won’t. All the hullabaloo about the rights of animals tends to put even people on the defensive who have otherwise been blameless. “Rights talk” (see the book by Mary Ann Glendon) tends to do that.
Stu, I suspected that you were referring to yourself, largely because of the word “lovable”.
Let’s write a song called “Too old for chasing wishbones”.
It was “loveable” that made me think he meant someone else. Don’t forget he likes to pretend he’s grumbly.
Stu, I don’t think you should feel intimidated by animal rights people. They’re not, in general, self-righteous busybodies like the anti-smoking lobby. They’re much crosser with foreigners, big businesses, medical bureaucracies and legislators than they are with you – or that’s my understanding, anyway, but I haven’t read your book.
…And likewise, I don’t remember my dreams but that’s no reason not to analyse my own behaviour, especially if I’ve got a dog to act as a metaphor or feature in an allegory or otherwise be a figurative equivalent for something else*.
*(Trope may be the word I’m looking for here.)
Dearie, I’m not sure terriers are ideal water dogs. They seem to be afraid of swimming out of their depth. – So the answer is ‘No’.
Trope may be the word I’m looking for here.
Or it may not. I’m very nouveau ‘trope’.
Note that I did not specify whether Stu is lovable, or whether I think that he thinks of himself as lovable, or whether he meant it ironically. I think I meant all three.
“Trope” is so often de trop.
Anyhoo:
I got those “Too old for chasing wishbones” ’cause ma joints is aching blues
Got those “Too old for chasing wishbones” ’cause ma joints is aching blues
Goin’ go play wit ma hamster ’cause then I got little to lose.
Gonna meet the three thirteen ’cause it’s sure gotta cargo o’ booze
Gonna meet the three thirteen ’cause the whiskey’ll set me to snooze
Gotta get me there b’fore th’others hear that whiskey news.
Repeat ad nauseam with minor changes to the lyrics to incorporate blues cliches, the whole to be accompanied by the notorious three chords. Don’t forget to grunt. Oh yeah.
Yes and of course he’s both loveable and loved.
Oh god here come the other loveable-but-grumpy one, Blues cliches is a new way of looking at it. I’d been thinking of them as conventions, sort of like iambic pentameter. But I take your point about ‘trope’ and I’l stop using it.
You are meant to admire the inclusion of “play wit ma hamster” as providing what adolescents will persuade themselves is a sexual allusion too subtle for their parents to catch, while the young sophisticates know better, yeah.
Actually I meant that the dog owners (sorry, life companions) seem to feel put on the defensive. It occurs to me that the Buddha anticipated this animal rights business, and tried to cash in by issuing ant-friendly proclamations. Too bad he died before the bank opened..
It never occurred to me that ‘play wit my hamster’ was a sexual allusion, but I’m allergic to hamsters and I’m not that good at poetry.
Why is he ‘the’ Buddha and not just ‘Buddha’ or a buddha? Is it like Den norske Bank, with its fancy upper & lower case, which I maintain ought to be called Norske Banken, final ‘en’ meaning m. ‘the’ in Norwegian?
I thought it demonstrated with-it-ness to say “the” Buddha. There are lots of Buddhas, I think, but only one “the” Buddha. But you’re right, maybe it’s just as vulgar to add “the” as to omit it, as in Dan Brown’s “renowned author Dan Brown”.
I was thinking of something more in the nature of a wistful early show tune, from the dream/scheme era:
In youth I pulled the wishbone more times than I can tell,
And sometimes it broke badly, but sometimes it broke well.
And now it’s me that’s breaking, my life is all to hell,
I’m getting old for chasing wishbones now.
A puppy runs for every stick, it is his simple creed.
He’ll jump for it, he’ll swim for it, it’s all he ever needs.
My dreams are dead, my schemes are bust, the garden’s gone to weeds,
I’m getting old for chasing wishbones now.
Ø, with a little rewrite you could use Mr Waller’s lovely tune “Keepin’ out of mischief now”.
A definite cutie
Well, ya got me. I never caught the hamster entendre either, despite living in a household fascinated by the sexual implications of depictions of small furry animals in medieval marginalia – ya gotcha squirrels, bunnies, the odd weasel or ferret; but I guess hamsters just didn’t catch the medieval imagination. So neither did the allusion catch mine. I thought it might be just a poor, homeless bluesman’s substitute for a too-lively and expensive former dog.
God I’m literal minded. It’s how my husband remembers I’m American.
The Sexual Implications of Depictions of Small Furry Animals in Medieval Marginalia – ya gotcha squirrels, bunnies, the odd weasel or ferret.
This could be a best-seller. I think you guys are on to something.
I like that song, dearie.