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| Christmas lasts until the Day of Epiphany, Sassy reminds you. |
Sassy is getting older, but that only makes her more skilled in managing her household. Yesterday she began wagging her tail...more like thumping her tail against the bed. She looked at me, "You know what I want."
It was time for her walk, so I suited up and grabbed her leash. Our current deal is she goes without her leash on our block only. When we get back to Letha, she stops moving until I take the leash off.
She rewards my correct responses with smiles.
I did some grilling and we were going to save bones for later, since Sassy gets scraps from us and meat juice from the tray. I was cleaning up when I heard "crunch, crunch" in the living room. Sassy is not one to steal food, but this time she quietly took a bone from my plate when my back was turned. I invited her outdoors to hide the evidence of her crime and not implicate my lax supervision.
She knows how to work the whole crowd when Team Jackson is over for a cookout. Afterwards she sleeps all day.
Sassy loves car trips and knows our stops quite well. She saves her happy bark for the turn into our neighborhood.
When I buy something at the meat market, she inspects the bag with her nose. She holds it over the bag and takes an olfactory inventory of everything inside. She knows all our familiar routes, so she gets yowly when we head into the industrial part of Springdale for the meat market.
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| The sad look is good for starting guessing games. The correct answer is - "Let's go for a walk." |
Sassy assumes her job is to watch over us. When our helper came to the door at the end of his work, Sassy headed outside and set up a watch of our cul-de-sac. She carefully scanned everything going on, something she does if I sit and visit with neighbors on our walks. However, if I stand and talk to someone, she soon begins barking at me to get going. "Do you have an appointment somewhere, Sassy?"
"Bark, bark."
"Are you in a hurry today?"
"Bark!"
Sassy knows every sign of a potential walk, and she observes carefully. She hears me quietly sticking my feet into loafers. A walk! So I was brushing my teeth and she appeared in the bathroom doorway, laughing. I said, "You guessed it." She disappeared for a few minutes and came back, laughing again. "OK, Sassy, let's go."
Then the barking began and did not stop until we were outside the door.
Sassy has the intelligence and independence of her parents - a Cattle Dog and a German Shepherd. She is remarkably intuitive, a mind-reader and emotion-reader.
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| Our grandaughter tilted the easy-chair backwards and laughed. I asked Danielle to hold the post for a photo. Sassy walked into the frame to photobomb Dani. |